what is the object of the minimum wages act 1948

India introduced the Minimum Wages Act in 1948,[2] giving both the Central government and State government jurisdiction in fixing wages. The act is legally non-binding, but statutory. Payment of wages below the minimum wage rate amounts to forced labour. Wage boards are set up to review the industry’s capacity to pay and fix minimum wages such that they at least cover a family of four’s requirements of calories, shelter, clothing, education, medical assistance, and entertainment. Under the law, wage rates in scheduled employments differ across states, sectors, skills, regions and occupations owing to difference in costs of living, regional industries' capacity to pay, consumption patterns, etc. Hence, there is no single uniform minimum wage rate across the country and the structure has become overly complex. The highest minimum wage rate as updated in 2012 is Rs. 322/day in Andaman and Nicobar[3] and the lowest is Rs. 38/day in Tripura.[4]

Minimum Wages Act 1948

The Minimum Wages Act 1948 is an Act of Parliament concerning Indian labour law that sets the minimum wages that must be paid to skilled and unskilled labours.

The Indian Constitution has defined a 'living wage' that is the level of income for a worker which will ensure a basic standard of living including good health, dignity, comfort, education and provide for any contingency. However, to keep in mind an industry's capacity to pay the constitution has defined a 'fair wage'.[1] Fair wage is that level of wage that not just maintains a level of employment, but seeks to increase it keeping in perspective the industryâ€™s capacity to pay.

To achieve this in its first session during November 1948, the Central Advisory Council appointed a Tripartite Committee of Fair Wage. This committee came up with the concept of a minimum wage, which not only guarantees bare subsistence and preserves efficiency but also provides for education, medical requirements and some level of comfort.[1]

1920: K.G.R. Choudhary recommended setting up boards for determining minimum wages for each industry.[5]

1928: International Labour Conference implemented system to fix wages for different trades.[6] However, the practice was not put into legislation in India.

1943: Standing Labour Committee, a Labour Investigation Committee was appointed on the recommendation of Indian Labour Conference (ILC), 1943 to look into conditions of labour in terms of their wages, housing, social conditions, and employment.[7]

1945: The first bill on minimum wages was drafted in ILC.[7]

1946: A bill on minimum wages was introduced in Central Legislative assembly on the recommendations of 8th Standing Labour Committee. The 8th meeting of the Standing Labour Committee, 1946[7] also recommended that a separate legislation that specified working hours, minimum wages and paid holidays of unorganised sector be enacted.

1947: Post-independence representatives of labour, employers, and government attended a government-organised conference. They defined minimum wages to be such that they should not only provide for subsistence but should also be enough for education, medical requirements and other amenities and should sustain efficiency.[8]

1948: The Minimum Wages Act was eventually passed and was effective from 15 March. Under the act a tripartite committee "The Tripartite Committee of Fair Wage"[9] was appointed that set definitions and guidelines for formulating a wage structure in India. The Committee of fair wage definition of minimum wage as: "The minimum wages must be provided not merely for the bare subsistence of life but also for the preservation of efficiency of the workers by providing for some measures of education, medical requirement and amenities". Recommendations of this committee have now set the foundations of wage fixation.

1957: The 15th Labour conference added some norms in the fixation of minimum wages such that revision and fixation of wage rates are need-based. The recommendations were:[8]

1987: Parliamentary sub-committee on unorganised labour concluded that minimum wages fail to ensure a livelihood above the government defined poverty line for the unorganised sector. It also revealed some flaws in implementation of the act. The committee noted that wages are not fixed or revised regularly in some states.[10] The committee recommended that factors such as nutrition requirements, poverty line, shelter, clothing, fuel, light, medical and educational expenses should be taken into account while fixing and revising minimum wages.[11]

1988: Labour Minsterâ€™s Conference recommend the necessity of an allowance that safeguards wages against inflation, called Variable Dearness Allowance (VDA).[12]

1991: Hon’ble Supreme court’s judgment in the case of Reptakas & Co. specified that 25% of the minimum wages should also account for Children’s education, required medical expenses, recreation in festivals/ceremonies and provision for old age and marriage. National Commission on Rural Labour (NCRL) recommended the government to introduce a national minimum wage floor level for uniformity.[13]

VDA became effective. It is revised twice in a year, on 1 April and 1 October.[14]

1992: Thirtieth session of ILC observed the ineffectiveness of states' implementation machinery and labour administration. It urged the civil society especially NGOs and workers' organisations to inspect and ensure payment of minimum wages.[1] The thirtieth session also discussed that officials should be wary of fixing minimum wage rates to impracticable high levels.

1994: The 9th Centre of Indian Trade Unions conference along with insisting a minimum wage floor of Rs. 78.50, raised the following demands

1996: Government fixed the national minimum wage floor at INR 35/day as per the recommendations of NCRL. Since 2009 it stands at INR 100/day.[1]

2007: The Tamil Nadu state government announced that it has fixed minimum wages for 90% of all occupations.

The Indian National Trade Union Congress appeals for a "national decent minimum wage" for all industries that would be based on workers' needs.[1]

2008: Working Women in Houses Union marched in Salem demanding statutory fixation of minimum wages for house maids and servants.

2009: The Central government de-linked MGNREGAâ€™s wage rates from minimum wages through notification under Section 6(1). Wage rates that were initially aligned with respective states' minimum wages were now fixed at a uniform wage rate of Rs. 100/- under the scheme.[15]

On 12 August, the Andhra Pradesh wrote to the Ministry of Rural Development that workers under the MGNREGA scheme are being paid less than the Minimum wage rate and this could attract "contempt of court". There was no response to this.

On 10 July, the Labour Department responded to the notification of wage rate in MGNREGA scheme as against the minimum wage rate: "Minimum Wages Act, 1948 guarantees minimum wages to workers and there cannot be a wage rate less than the minimum wage rate in any circumstances."[15]

2010: Andhra Pradeshâ€™s government says that any payment including that under the MGNREGA scheme, below minimum wage rate is unconstitutional.

2011: As per Karnataka High Court’s interim order MGNREGA’s wage rates are to be aligned with the Minimum Wage rates of the state.[16]

National Human Right Commission convened a zonal workshop on fixation, revision and enforcement of minimum wage is Brick kiln industry.[17]

2012: Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan urges the Supreme Court to withdraw the SLP to the PM to rediscuss Karnataka High Court and Andhra Pradesh high Court's judgments[18]

Supreme Court asks the Central Government to consider respective states' minimum wages to bring parity between them.

The Labour Department decides to make revisions in minimum wage rates mandatory within three years.[19]

2015: From 1 July 2015 the National Floor Level of Minimum Wage was raised to Rs 160 per day.

2015: On 1 September 2015 labours in unorgainsed sector extended their support to one-day nationwide general strike[20] called by central trade unions (CTUs). Later than Shri Bandaru Dattatreya, the Minister of State(IC) for Labour and Employment, elaborated on the initiatives and continuing efforts of the Government to address the issues and concerns of the Trade Unions for the welfare of workers. If the norms are implemented then the minimum wage would be not less than Rs 273 per day which is currently Rs 160 per day.[21]

The Act provides for fixing wage rate (time, piece, guaranteed time, overtime) for any industry.

1) While fixing hours for a normal working day as per the act should make sure of the following:

2) If an employee is involved in work that categorises his service in two or more scheduled employments, the employeeâ€™s wage will include respective wage rate of all work for the number of hours dedicated at each task.

3) It is mandatory for the employer to maintain records of all employeeâ€™s work, wages and receipts.

4) Appropriate governments will define and assign the task of inspection and appoint inspectors for the same.

The Minimum Wages Act 1948 generally specifies minimum wage rates on a per day basis,[22] and extends to the entire country and is revised within a period of not less than five years, however there is a provision to increase dearness allowance every two years. The norms in fixing and revision of minimum wages were first recommended by ILC, 1957.[23]

Revision of minimum wage rates is based on a 'cost of living index' and wages can be fixed for an entire state, part of the state, class or classes and employments pertaining to these categories. The fixation of wages is based on the norms mentioned and a wage board (different for different industry).

Under the Minimum Wages Act, State and Central Governments have the power to fix and revise minimum wages. The act specifies that the "appropriate" government should fix the wages i.e. if the wages to be fixed are in relation to any authority of Central government or Railway administration then the Central government fixes it. However, if the wage rate is to be fixed or revised for a scheduled employment, the respective state governments fix it. The Centre fixes the National floor level Minimum Wage that is lower than most states' respective minimum wages.[24] The ambiguity and overlap in the jurisdiction of both these tiers of government have caused debates and controversies. One of such debates revolves around fixing wage rates of MGNREGA scheme, an employment guarantee initiative by the Central Government[25]

As per Section 5 of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, there are two ways of fixing and/or revising minimum wages • Committee Method: Committees and Sub-committees are set up to make recommendations or create inquiries. • Notification Method: The government publishes proposals and an official date in the Official Gazette. All advice and recommendations form various committees and sub-committees as well as representations are collected before the specified official date and the government then proceeds to fix/revise minimum wages.

The Minimum wage legislation or provision aims to provide all workers who enter the labour market with a legal minimum wage for their labour that is sufficient for subsistence. There are special provisions or acts enacted to protect the interests of certain types of labour, since they might not be working in the organised sector or may be excluded because of discriminatory nature of the labour market, because sometimes the employers have a taste for discrimination. Indian Minimum Wage Legislation states the specific minimum wage rates may be established for apprentices/trainees, youth, and piece-rate workers.

The Central Government is the proper authority for enforcement of the act. Schedule employment is carried under the railway administration, mines, oilfield, major port and corporation established by Central Act. Chief Labour Commissioner is charged under central level, and at state level officers in industrial relations are charged for enforcement act and other labour laws.

Violation of the act in regards to minimum wages, working hours and other comes under Central Act as offences, and there is a penalties of five years imprisonment and fine of Rs. 10000/- (under section act 22). Any agreement whereby an employee reduces his right under this act shall be null and void.

To process complaints the appropriate government can appoint a labour commissioner, Commissioner for Workmenâ€™s Compensation, or officer with experience as a judge of Stipendiary Magistrate or an officer that is at least above the rank of Labour Commissioner. If an individual feels that he/she is being paid less than the minimum wages specified for his region/sector/occupation, or is not paid for a duration of work, a complaint can be made to the appointed authority.

The table below summarises minimum wages across states.[26] All states specify different minimum wages for different occupations and skill levels within those occupations. Except for Andaman and Nicobar, no state makes variations in wage rates across districts. The table below briefly shows if the states account for Variable Dearness Allowance (VDA) that are linked and fixed according to a cost of living index (CPI in case of India), the range of minimum wages, and when these wages were last updated/revised. The period within which minimum wages are revised is different for different states. Some states revise their respective minimum wage rates every six months while some do so in five years. This anomaly reflects how in some cases minimum wage rates are as low as INR 38/day.

1 January 2012

1 January 2012

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 19 February 2009

(Highly skilled workers of forestry and construction) 19 February 2009

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Highly skiled workers of forestry and construction) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Highly skilled workers of forestry and construction) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 April 2012

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 13 May 2010

(Clerks in Commercial and Industrial establishments) 13 May 2010

(unskilled workers in Agarbati industry) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Patiawali-A workers in Brick kilns) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 January 2012 to 30 June 2012

(All industries) 1 January 2012 to 30 June 2012

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 October 2009

(Skilled workers of all industries) 1 October 2009

(Highly skiled workers of all industries) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(scheduled employments)

(Peeling cashews) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Manager in Brick Industry) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Grade IV workers of Toddy Tapping) 2 August 2012

(Milking cows in Dairy Farming) 2 August 2012

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 December 2011

(Highly skiled workers of all industries) 1 December 2011

(Peons and unskilled workers at cardboard box industry) 1 January 2012 to 30 June 2012

(Accountant at Powerloom) 1 January 2012 to 30 June 2012

(Special Allowance)

(Un-skilled workers and peon/watchmen in card-board box industry)

(Manager in Powerlooms)

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 February 2011

(Skilled workers of all industries) 1 February 2011

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 24 August 2009

(Skilled workers of all industries) 24 August 2009

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 April 2009

(Skilled Grade II workers of all industries) 1 April 2009

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 October 2009

(Skilled Grade II workers of all industries) 1 October 2009

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 13 July 2009

(Highly skilled workers of all industries) 13 July 2009

(Female light workers in Agriculture) 1 March 2011

(Manager of security guards) 1 March 2011

(Agriculture, meal or foodgrain) 1 March 2012

(Truck/Tempo/Bus Driver / Supervisor / Stenographer) 1 March 2012

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 May 2012

(Highly skilled workers of all industries) 1 May 2012

(Unskilled workers of all industries) 1 July 2010

(Highly skilled workers of all industries) 1 July 2010

(Women workers in agriculture) 1 April 2012

(Neera tapping) 1 April 2012

(Unskilled workers at tea plantations) wef Not mentioned

(Highly skilled worker at Mechanical workshop) wef Not mentioned

(without food, Agriculture) January 2015

(All industries except agriculture) January 2015

(Unskilled workers at Khandsari, Soap and Woolen industries) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Skilled workers at engineering industry and establishments) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Agriculture) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(All industries except agriculture) 1 April 2012 to 30 September 2012

(Mining) 1 April 2012

1 April 2012

42% of all wage earners in India receive wages below the national minimum wage floor rate.[61] The data used for these statistics includes half of casual labourers and 1/4th of those salaried. Female workers and those in rural areas are more likely to be paid below a minimum wage. Those who are illiterate or have no mid-level education are most likely to be paid below a minimum wage. For Salaried workers, if they are employed in agriculture, it is more likely that they are paid higher than the minimum wage. Whereas casual workers in construction and unionised workers in production and manufacturing are likely to receive wages at the minimum wage rate. In sum, the implementation and enforcement of minimum wages is dismal and marginalised groups and communities suffer the most. The government has announced that many amendments are underway to improve enforcement such as penal action against violations and mandatory revision of minimum wages every 5 years.[62]

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is an employment guarantee scheme that guarantees employment for 100 days at a wage rate of INR120 per day (as fixed in 2009). These benefits can be secured by any household regardless of whether they fall below or above national poverty line. The central government delinked MGNREGA wage rates from State specific Minimum wage rates in January 2009 when states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra revised and increased their minimum wage rates. This had direct implications on Central Government's budget set aside for MGNREGA scheme. The move of freezing MGNREGA scheme created an upheaval of discontent in various parts and sections of India as the move was considered to breach Minimum Wages Act, 1948. MGNREGA wage rates were less than the minimum wage rates of respective states and in five states they were even below the National Floor level of minimum wage.[66] Protests broke out throughout India coupled with controversies over corruption, under-payment of workers, poor quality of infrastructure, ambiguous source of funds and unintended negative effect on poverty. Recommendations made by National Advisory Council and Centre Employment Guarantee Council chaired by Jean Drèze that MGNREGA's wage rates should be synced with Minimum Wages Act were rejected by the Central Government. The Central Government stuck to its decision of freezing MGNREGA wages even after an order from Supreme Court. Eventually, the Prime Minister agreed to accept recommendations and indexed MGNREGA wages to Minimum wage rates until an expert committee chaired by Pranab Mukherjee made a satisfactory index. He however maintained a clear distinction between MGNREGA wage rates and Minimum wage rates to avoid inflating budget on revision of state-wise minimum wages.

From the very inception of the idea of minimum wages, the aim of policy makers was to set up a uniform wage rate across the entire country. However, such a policy would not be connected to reality due to regional differences over consumption patterns, paying capabilities of employers, requirements of employees, etc. Hence the modified aim was to achieve floor level minimum wage for regions and then further it to a national floor minimum wage. However, not everyone supported this view. In 1955, during the Tripartite Labour Conference, labour representatives demanded immediate fixation of a minimum wage at national level, at least in agriculture.[67] The most recent development in this debate involves the Labour Ministry and the Commerce and Industry Ministry at loggerheads over the introduction of a National floor level minimum wage rate. The Commerce and Industry Ministry argues that a national rate would further burden the industry that is anyway incurring heavy costs. On the other hand, the Labour Ministry has given a proposal to the Centre to impose a national floor to wage rates and most state governments have approved for it.[68] After a two-day strike ending on 21 February 2013, PM Manmohan Singh announced that all unskilled workers would be paid the national floor level minimum wage.[62] This would be included in one of the many amendments of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 to be introduced this year. Currently the floor level of minimum wages is 115, though Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have set lower floors.


in which province will you find the western highlands

Western Highlands is a province of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital is Mount Hagen. The province covers an area of 4,299 km², and there are 362,850 inhabitants (2011 census), making the Western Highlands the most densely populated province (apart from the National Capital District). Tea and coffee are grown in the Western Highlands.

Western Highlands Province

In July 2009, Parliament passed legislation to create two new provinces by 2012.  One of these was to be created by removing Jimi District, North Waghi District, and the South Waghi part of Anglimp-South Waghi District from the Western Highlands Province to form the new Jiwaka Province.[1] "Jiwaka" is a portanteau word combining the first two letters each of Jimi, Waghi and Kambia.

Jiwaka Province officially came into being on 17 May 2012.[2]

The Western Highlands economy is primarily based on coffee. Coffee is grown on plantations and small-holder blocks. They are picked, dried and processed for export. In addition, tea is also a major crop grown and processed, but in plantations by W. R. Carpenter & Co Ltd for local consumption and export. Apart from these, vegetables are grown for the domestic market, and sold mainly to markets Lae and Port Moresby.[clarification needed]

Since the separation of Jiwaka there are now four districts in the province. Each district has one or more Local Level Government (LLG) areas. For census purposes, the LLG areas are subdivided into wards and those into census units.[3]

The province was governed by a decentralised provincial administration, headed by a Premier, from 1978 to 1995. Following reforms taking effect that year, the national government reassumed some powers, and the role of Premier was replaced by a position of Governor, to be held by the winner of the province-wide seat in the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea.[4][5]

The province and each district is represented by a Member of the National Parliament.  There is one provincial electorate and each district is an open electorate.


when was the first electric breast pump invented

On June 20, 1854, the United States Patent Office issued Patent No. 11,135 to O.H. Needham for a breast pump.[1][2] Scientific American (1863) credits L.O. Colbin as the inventor and patent applicant of a breast pump.[3] In 1921-23, engineer and chess master Edward Lasker produced a mechanical breast pump that imitated an infant's sucking action and was regarded by physicians as a marked improvement on existing hand-operated breast pumps, which failed to remove all the milk from the breast.[4] The U.S. Patent Office issued U.S. Patent 1,644,257 for Lasker's breast pump.[5] In 1956 Einar Egnell published his groundbreaking work, "Viewpoints on what happens mechanically in the female breast during various methods of milk collection".[6] This article provided insight into the technical aspects of milk extraction from the breast. Many Egnell SMB breast pumps designed through this research are still in operation over 50 years after publication.

Breast pump

A breast pump is a mechanical device that  lactating women use to extract milk from their breasts. They may be manual devices powered by hand or foot movements or electrical devices powered by batteries or electricity from the grid.  Breast pumps, like lactation rooms, are most common in the United States.

Archaeologists working at a glass factory site in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, excavated a 19th-century breast pipe that matches breast pumping instruments in period advertisements.[7]

Breast pumps are used for many reasons.

Many parents use them to continue breastfeeding after they return to work. They express their milk at work, which is later bottle-fed to their child by a caregiver. This use of breast milk is widespread in the United States, where paid family leave is one of the shortest in the developed world.  American historian Jill Lepore argues that the need for so-called "lactation rooms" and breast pumps is driven by the corporate desire for parents to return to work immediately rather than mothers' wishes or babies' needs.[8]

A breast pump may also be used to stimulate lactation for women with a low milk supply or those who have not just given birth.

A breast pump may be also used to address a range of challenges parents may encounter breast feeding, including difficulties latching, separation from an infant in intensive care, to feed an infant who cannot extract sufficient milk itself from the breast, to avoid passing medication through breast milk to the baby, or to relieve engorgement, a painful condition whereby the breasts are overfull.  Pumping may also be desirable to continue lactation and its associated hormones to aid in recovery from pregnancy even if the pumped milk is not used.[9][10]

In a 2012 policy statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended feeding preterm infants human milk, finding "significant short- and long-term beneficial effects," including lower rates of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).
[11] When infants are unable to suckle, mothers can pump if they wish their babies to be fed (via naso-gastric tube) with the mothers' own milk.[12]

Expressing milk for donation is another use for breast pumps. Donor milk may be available from milk banks for babies who are not able to receive their mothers' milk. [13]

The breast pump is not as efficient at removing milk from the breast as most nursing babies.[14]

Research done at Stanford University in 2009 showed the correlation of various factors with the volume of milk production in mothers of preterm babies (born before the 31st week of gestation).[15] The research found that breast massage in addition to a breast pump (a technique called "hands-on pumping", or HOP), along with other factors correlated to higher milk production. The study found that mothers who used massage techniques and hand expression more than 5 times a day in the first 3 days after birth increased their milk production 8 weeks later, milk production increased 48%. The authors produced a video showing the technique and states that this technique is good for both mothers of premature infants as well as mothers that return to work or pump for other purposes.[16]

A second article on the same study found that the combination of HOP techniques increased the fat content of the milk expressed.[17]

Mechanically, a breast pump triggers the milk ejection response or "letdown". A misconception is that the breast pump suctions milk out of the breast.  Pumps achieve letdown by using suction to pull the nipple into the tunnel of the breast shield or flange, then release, which counts as one cycle. Thirty to sixty cycles per minute can be expected with better-quality electric breast pumps. This suction-release cycle can also be accomplished with hand pumps, which the nursing parent operates by compressing a handle.

Most manufacturers make multiple sizes of nipple tunnels ranging from 24mm to 36mm.

There are several pump mechanisms. Piston pumps draw a piston through a cylinder to create suction. These tend to operate at low speed, have high reliability, low noise, and long life.  Rotary vane pumps use a cam with retractable vanes to create suction and are no longer widely used. Fast-diaphragm pumps use a diaphragm that is acted on by a lever, and can operate at thousands of cycles per minute.  They tend to be noisy. Slow-diaphragm pumps use a larger diaphragm operated by a cam or lever to generate suction with each stroke.  Pumps have also been designed that use venturi effects powered by a faucet or water stream, wall suction in hospitals, or oral suctioning.

Manual breast pumps are operated by squeezing or pulling a handle in a repetitive fashion, allowing the user to directly control the pressure and frequency of milk expression.  Though manual pumps are small and inexpensive, they can require significant effort and can be tiring because the user provides all the power.  These pumps may not provide sufficient stimulation and emptying of the breast. "Bicycle-horn" style manual pumps can damage breast tissue and harbor bacteria in the rubber suction bulb, which is difficult to clean.[18][19][20]

Foot-powered breast pumps use the same collection tubing and breast horns as electric breast pumps, but are powered by a foot pedal. This eliminates the work of pumping by hand or the need for finding an electrical outlet with privacy.[21]

There are two types of electric breast pumps, hospital-grade and personal-use. Hospital-grade pumps are larger and intended for multiple users. Personal-use pumps are generally intended for one user. Electric breast pumps are powered by a motor which supplies suction through plastic tubing to a horn that fits over the nipple. The portions of the pump that come into direct contact with the expressed milk must be sterilized to prevent contamination. This style provides more suction, making pumping significantly faster, and allows users to pump both their breasts at the same time. Electric breast pumps are larger than manual ones, but portable models are available (e.g. in a backpack or shoulder bag). Some models include battery packs or built-in batteries to enable portable operation of the pump. Some electric pumps allow multi-user operation, but recommend an accessory kit for each user to maintain cleanliness.[22]

Rental pumps may be recommended when medical conditions temporarily preclude breastfeeding.[22]

Some breast pumps are designed to be part of a "feeding system" so that the milk storage portion of the pump is the baby bottle used to feed the infant. This allows the milk to be collected in the same bottle that will feed the baby eliminating the need to transfer breastmilk. Freezable breastmilk storage bags are available that connect directly to some breast pumps and can then be used with disposable bottle feeding systems.

Egnell in 1956 established a 220 mmHg safe maximum for automatic cycling pumps; however, there have been reports of sensitive breasts and nipples at much lower pressures. Hartman P, et al. in the 2008 study[23] showed that the maximum comfortable vacuum enhances milk flow and milk yield.

Pump designs are referred to as either open or closed based on whether there is a barrier between where the tubing connects to the pump and where milk flows into the pump. The plastic tubing and horn of an electric breast pump are commonly referred to as the collection system and typically supply the pump's suction.

A closed collection system has a barrier or diaphragm that separates the pump tubing from the horn. In this design, the suction of the pump motor lifts the diaphragm to create a vacuum within the collection system to extract milk.

In contrast, an open system does not have a barrier between the tubing and the horn. Bacteria and viral filters may be present to prevent contamination or overflow into pump motor. The pump motor's suction is directly passed to the breast versus indirectly as with closed-diaphragm systems.[24]

Open-collection systems can cause milk to overflow into the collection system tubing, and milk particles being drawn into the pump motor. If milk leaks into the pump's tubing, the tubes should be washed, sterilized and air-dried prior to using the pump again. Failure to thoroughly clean collection tubing may lead to mold growth within the tubing. Some models of pumps have bacteria and overflow filters which prevent milk from entering the tubing.[24]

A subtype of the open-collection system is the single-user suction source. These pumps have added hygienic benefit in that all the parts that generate the suction and come in contact with breast milk stay with the mother. The parts that generate the suction are external to the pump, and can be removed, preventing cross contamination. These pumps are considered "hospital grade" and virtually eliminate the chance of cross contamination of the pump from user to user.[24]   However, it is important to clean the diaphragm as condensation or milk reaching this part can cause bacterial contamination.

A disadvantage of the diaphragm is that it may limit the amount of air/suction available to extract milk from the breast. It may also not be able to compensate for larger shield sizes.

There are no studies comparing the open- versus closed-system design. Most information in marketing materials by breast-pump manufacturers is offered without studies to back them up.

Most breast pumps direct the pumped milk into a container that can be used for storage and feeding. Some manufacturers offer adapters to fit a variety of types and sizes of bottles, enabling more flexibility to mix and match products of different brands.

The expressed breast milk (EBM) may be stored and later fed to a baby by bottle.  Expressed milk may be kept at room temperature for up to six hours (at 66-72 degrees Fahrenheit, around 20 degrees Celsius), refrigerated for up to 8 days, or frozen for 12 months in a deep freeze separate from a refrigerator maintained at a temperature of 0 degrees Fahrenheit or âˆ’18 degrees Celsius.  Expressed milk may be donated to milk banks, which provide human breast milk to premature infants and other children whose mothers cannot provide for them.[25]


crossing of two parents belonging to different species is called

Human impact on the environment has resulted in an increase in the intrabreeding between species, with introduced species worldwide, which has resulted in an increase in hybridization. The genetic mixing may threaten many species with extinction, while genetic erosion in crop plants may be damaging the gene pools of many species for future breeding. Many commercially useful fruits, flowers, garden herbs and trees have been produced by hybridization. One flower, Oenothera lamarckiana, was central to early genetics research into mutationism and polyploidy.

Hybrid (biology)

In biology, a hybrid, or crossbreed, is the result of combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in blending inheritance), but can show hybrid vigour, often growing larger or taller than either parent. The concept of a hybrid is interpreted differently in animal and plant breeding, where there is interest in the individual parentage. In genetics, attention is focused on the numbers of chromosomes. In taxonomy, a key question is how closely related the parent species are.

Species are reproductively isolated by strong barriers to hybridisation, which include morphological differences, differing times of fertility, mating behaviors and cues, and physiological rejection of sperm cells or the developing embryo. Some act before fertilization and others after it. Similar barriers exist in plants, with differences in flowering times, pollen vectors, inhibition of pollen tube growth, somatoplastic sterility, cytoplasmic-genic male sterility and the structure of the chromosomes. A few animal species and many plant species, however, are the result of hybrid speciation, including important crop plants such as wheat, where the number of chromosomes has been doubled.

Hybrid humans existed during prehistoric ancient times. Mythological hybrids appear in human culture in forms as diverse as the Minotaur, blends of animals, humans and mythical beasts such as centaurs and sphinxes, and the Nephilim of the Biblical apocrypha described as the wicked sons of fallen angels and attractive women.

The term hybrid is derived from Latin hybrida, used for crosses such as of a tame sow and a wild boar. The term came into popular use in English in the 19th century, though examples of its use have been found from the early 17th century.[1] Conspicuous hybrids are popularly named with portmanteau words, starting in the 1920s with the breeding of tigerâ€“lion hybrids (liger and tigon).[2]

From the point of view of animal and plant breeders, there are several kinds of hybrid formed from crosses within a species, such as between different breeds.[3] Single cross hybrids result from the cross between two true-breeding organisms which produces an F1 hybrid (first filial generation). The cross between two different homozygous lines produces an F1 hybrid that is heterozygous; having two alleles, one contributed by each parent and typically one is dominant and the other recessive. Typically, the F1 generation is also phenotypically homogeneous, producing offspring that are all similar to each other.[4] Double cross hybrids result from the cross between two different F1 hybrids (i.e., there are four unrelated grandparents).[5] Three-way cross hybrids result from the cross between an F1 hybrid and an inbred line.[6] Triple cross hybrids result from the crossing of two different three-way cross hybrids.[7] Top cross (or "topcross") hybrids result from the crossing of a top quality or pure-bred male and a lower quality female, intended to improve the quality of the offspring, on average.[8]

Population hybrids result from the crossing of plants or animals in one population with those of another population. These include interspecific hybrids or crosses between different breeds.[9]

In horticulture, the term stable hybrid is used to describe an annual plant that, if grown and bred in a small monoculture free of external pollen (e.g., an air-filtered greenhouse) produces offspring that are "true to type" with respect to phenotype; i.e., a true-breeding organism.[10]

Hybridization can occur in the zones where geographical subspecies overlap. For example, the butterfly Limenitis arthemis has two major subspecies in North America, L. a. arthemis (the white admiral) and L. a. astyanax (the red-spotted purple). The white admiral has a bright, white band on its wings, while the red-spotted purple has cooler blue-green shades. Hybridization occurs between a narrow area across New England, southern Ontario, and the Great Lakes, the "suture region". It is at these regions that the subspecies were formed.[11]

From the point of view of genetics, several different kinds of hybrid can be distinguished.[12][13] A genetic hybrid carries two different alleles of the same gene, where for instance one allele may code for a lighter coat colour than the other.[12][13] A structural hybrid results from the fusion of gametes that have differing structure in at least one chromosome, as a result of structural abnormalities.[12][13] A numerical hybrid results from the fusion of gametes having different haploid numbers of chromosomes.[12][13] A permanent hybrid results when only the heterozygous genotype occurs, as in Oenothera lamarckiana,[14] because all homozygous combinations are lethal.[12][13] In the early history of genetics, Hugo De Vries supposed these were caused by mutation.[15][16]

From the point of view of taxonomy, hybrids differ according to their parentage. Hybrids between different subspecies (such as between the Bengal tiger and Siberian tiger) are called intra-specific hybrids.[17] Interspecific hybrids are the offspring from interspecies mating;[18] these sometimes result in hybrid speciation.[19] Intergeneric hybrids result from matings between different genera, such as between sheep and goats.[20] Interfamilial hybrids, such as between chickens and guineafowl or pheasants, are reliably described but extremely rare.[21] Interordinal hybrids (between different orders) are few, but have been made with the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (female) and the sand dollar Dendraster excentricus (male).[22]

When two distinct types of organisms breed with each other, the resulting hybrids typically have intermediate traits (e.g., one plant parent has red flowers, the other has white, and the hybrid, pink flowers).[23] Commonly, hybrids also combine traits seen only separately in one parent or the other (e.g., a bird hybrid might combine the yellow head of one parent with the orange belly of the other).[23]

Interspecific hybrids are bred by mating individuals from two species, normally from within the same genus. The offspring display traits and characteristics of both parents, but are often sterile, preventing gene flow between the species.[24] Sterility is often attributed to the different number of chromosomes between the two species. For example, donkeys have 62 chromosomes, horses have 64 chromosomes, and mules or hinnies have 63 chromosomes. Mules, hinnies, and other normally sterile interspecific hybrids cannot produce viable gametes, because differences in chromosome structure prevent appropriate pairing and segregation during meiosis, meiosis is disrupted, and viable sperm and eggs are not formed. However, fertility in female mules has been reported with a donkey as the father.[25]

A variety of mechanisms limit the success of hybridization, including the large genetic difference between most species. Barriers include morphological differences, differing times of fertility, mating behaviors and cues, and physiological rejection of sperm cells or the developing embryo. Some act before fertilization; others after it.[26][27][28][29]

In plants, some barriers to hybridization include blooming period differences, different pollinator vectors, inhibition of pollen tube growth, somatoplastic sterility, cytoplasmic-genic male sterility and structural differences of the chromosomes.[30]

A few animal species are the result of hybridization. The Lonicera fly is a natural hybrid. The American red wolf appears to be a hybrid of the gray wolf and the coyote,[32] although its taxonomic status has been a subject of controversy.[33][34][35] The European edible frog is a semi-permanent hybrid between pool frogs and marsh frogs; its population requires the continued presence of at least one of the parent species.[36] Cave paintings indicate that the European bison is a natural hybrid of the aurochs and the steppe bison.[37][38]

Plant Hybridization is more commonplace compared to animal hybridization. Many crop species are hybrids, including notably the polyploid wheats: some have four sets of chromosomes (tetraploid) or six (hexaploid), while other wheat species have (like most eukaryotic organisms) two sets (diploid), so hybridization events likely involved the doubling of chromosome sets, causing immediate genetic isolation.[39]

Hybridization may be important in speciation in some plant groups. However, homoploid hybrid speciation (not increasing the number of sets of chromosomes) may be rare: by 1997, only 8 natural examples had been fully described. Experimental studies suggest that hybridization offers a rapid route to speciation, a prediction confirmed by the fact that early generation hybrids and ancient hybrid species have matching genomes, meaning that once hybridization has occurred, the new genome can remain stable.[40]

Many hybrid zones are known where the ranges of two species meet, and hybrids are continually produced in great numbers. These hybrid zones are useful as biological model systems for studying the mechanisms of speciation. Recently DNA analysis of a bear shot by a hunter in the North West Territories confirmed the existence of naturally-occurring and fertile grizzly–polar bear hybrids.[41]

Hybrids are not as might be expected always intermediate between their parents (as if there were blending inheritance), but are sometimes stronger than either parent variety, a phenomenon called heterosis, hybrid vigour, or heterozygote advantage. This is most common with plant hybrids.[42] A transgressive phenotype is a phenotype that displays more extreme characteristics than either of the parent lines.[43] Plant breeders use several techniques to produce hybrids, including line breeding and the formation of complex hybrids. An economically important example is hybrid maize (corn), which provides a considerable seed yield advantage over open pollinated varieties. Hybrid seed dominates the commercial maize seed market in the United States, Canada and many other major maize-producing countries.[44]

In a hybrid, any trait that falls outside the range of parental variation (and is thus not simply intermediate between its parents) is considered heterotic. Positive heterosis produces more robust hybrids, they might be stronger or bigger; while the term negative heterosis refers to weaker or smaller hybrids.[45] Heterosis is common in both animal and plant hybrids. For example, hybrids between a lion and a tigress ("ligers") are much larger than either of the two progenitors, while "tigons" (lioness Ã— tiger) are smaller. Similarly, the hybrids between the common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) and domestic fowl (Gallus gallus) are larger than either of their parents, as are those produced between the common pheasant and hen golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus).[46] Spurs are absent in hybrids of the former type, although present in both parents.[47]

Hybridization is greatly influenced by human impact on the environment,[48] through effects such as habitat fragmentation and species introductions.[49] Such impacts make it difficult to conserve the genetics of populations undergoing introgressive hybridization. Humans have introduced species worldwide to environments for a long time, both intentionally for purposes such as biological control, and unintentionally, as with accidental escapes of individuals. Introductions can drastically affect populations, including through hybridization.[13][50]

There is a kind of continuum with three semi-distinct categories dealing with anthropogenic hybridization: hybridization without introgression, hybridization with widespread introgression (backcrossing with one of the parent species), and hybrid swarms (highly variable populations with much interbreeding as well as backcrossing with the parent species). Depending on where a population falls along this continuum, the management plans for that population will change. Hybridization is currently an area of great discussion within wildlife management and habitat management. Global climate change is creating other changes such as difference in population distributions which are indirect causes for an increase in anthropogenic hybridization.[48]

Conservationists disagree on when is the proper time to give up on a population that is becoming a hybrid swarm, or to try and save the still existing pure individuals. Once a population becomes a complete mixture, the goal becomes to conserve those hybrids to avoid their loss. Conservationists treat each case on its merits, depending on detecting hybrids within the population. It is nearly impossible to formulate a uniform hybridization policy, because hybridization can occur beneficially when it occurs "naturally", and when hybrid swarms are the only remaining evidence of prior species, they need to be conserved as well.[48]

Regionally developed ecotypes can be threatened with extinction when new alleles or genes are introduced that alter that ecotype. This is sometimes called genetic mixing.[51] Hybridization and introgression, which can happen in natural and hybrid populations, of new genetic material can lead to the replacement of local genotypes if the hybrids are more fit and have breeding advantages over the indigenous ecotype or species. These hybridization events can result from the introduction of non-native genotypes by humans or through habitat modification, bringing previously isolated species into contact. Genetic mixing can be especially detrimental for rare species in isolated habitats, ultimately affecting the population to such a degree that none of the originally genetically distinct population remains.[52][53]

In agriculture and animal husbandry, the Green Revolution's use of conventional hybridization increased yields by breeding "high-yielding varieties". The replacement of locally indigenous breeds, compounded with unintentional cross-pollination and crossbreeding (genetic mixing), has reduced the gene pools of various wild and indigenous breeds resulting in the loss of genetic diversity.[55] Since the indigenous breeds are often well-adapted to local extremes in climate and have immunity to local pathogens, this can be a significant genetic erosion of the gene pool for future breeding. Therefore, commercial plant geneticists strive to breed "widely adapted" cultivars to counteract this tendency.[56]

Familiar examples of equid hybrids are the mule, a cross between a female horse and a male donkey, and the hinny, a cross between a female donkey and a male horse. Pairs of complementary types like the mule and hinny are called reciprocal hybrids.[57] Among many other mammal crosses are hybrid camels, crosses between a bactrian camel and a dromedary.[58] The first known instance of hybrid speciation in marine mammals was discovered in 2014. The clymene dolphin (Stenella clymene) is a hybrid of two Atlantic species, the spinner and striped dolphins.[59]

Cagebird breeders sometimes breed bird hybrids known as mules between species of finch, such as goldfinch Ã— canary.[60]

Among amphibians, Japanese giant salamanders and Chinese giant salamanders have created hybrids that threaten the survival of Japanese giant salamanders because of competition for similar resources in Japan.[61]

Among fish, a group of about fifty natural hybrids between Australian blacktip shark and the larger common blacktip shark was found by Australia's eastern coast in 2012.[62]

Among insects, so-called killer bees were accidentally created during an attempt to breed a strain of bees that would both produce more honey and be better adapted to tropical conditions. It was done by crossing a European honey bee and an African bee.[63]

The Colias eurytheme and C. philodice butterflies have retained enough genetic compatibility to produce viable hybrid offspring.[64] Hybrid speciation may have produced the diverse Heliconius butterflies,[65] but that is disputed.[66]

A "zonkey", a zebra/donkey hybrid

A "jaglion", a jaguar/lion hybrid

A domestic canary/goldfinch hybrid

Plant species often hybridize more readily than animal species, and the resulting hybrids are fertile more often. Many plant species are the result of hybridization, combined with polyploidy, which duplicates the chromosomes. Chromosome duplication allows orderly meiosis and so viable seed can be produced.[67]

Plant hybrids are generally given names that include an "×" (not in italics), such as Platanus × acerifolia for the London plane, a natural hybrid of P. orientalis (oriental plane) and P. occidentalis (American sycamore).[68][69]

Plant species that are genetically compatible may not hybridize in nature for various reasons, including geographical isolation, differences in flowering period, or differences in pollinators. Species that are brought together by humans in gardens may hybridize naturally, or hybridization can be facilitated by human efforts, such as altered flowering period or artificial pollination. Hybrids are sometimes created by humans to produce improved plants that have some of the characteristics of each of the parent species. Much work is now being done with hybrids between crops and their wild relatives to improve disease-resistance or climate resilience for both agricultural and horticultural crops.[70]

Some crop plants are hybrids from different genera (intergeneric hybrids), such as Triticale, × Triticosecale, a wheat–rye hybrid.[71] Most modern and ancient wheat breeds are themselves hybrids; bread wheat, Triticum aestivum, is a hexaploid hybrid of three wild grasses.[31] Several commercial fruits including loganberry (Rubus × loganobaccus)[72] and grapefruit (Citrus × paradisi)[73] are hybrids, as are garden herbs such as peppermint (Mentha × piperita),[74] and trees such as the London plane (Platanus × acerifolia).[75][76] Among many natural plant hybrids is Iris albicans, a sterile hybrid that spreads by rhizome division,[77] and Oenothera lamarckiana, a flower that was the subject of important experiments by Hugo de Vries that produced an understanding of polyploidy.[14]

A sterile hybrid between Trillium cernuum and T. grandiflorum

An ornamental lily hybrid known as Lilium 'Citronella'[78]

Sterility in a non-polyploid hybrid is often a result of chromosome number; if parents are of differing chromosome pair number, the offspring will have an odd number of chromosomes, which leaves them unable to produce chromosomally-balanced gametes.[79] While that is undesirable in a crop such as wheat, for which growing a crop that produces no seeds would be pointless, it is an attractive attribute in some fruits. Triploid bananas and watermelons are intentionally bred because they produce no seeds and are also parthenocarpic.[80]

There is evidence of hybridisation between modern humans and other species of the genus Homo. In 2010, the Neanderthal genome project showed that 1â€“4% of DNA from all people living today, apart from most Sub-Saharan Africans, are of Neanderthal heritage. Analyzing the genomes of 600 Europeans and East Asians found that combining them covered 20% of the Neanderthal genome that is in the modern human population.[81] Ancient human populations lived and interbred with Neanderthals, Denisovans, and at least one other extinct Homo species.[82] Thus, Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA has been incorporated into human DNA by introgression.[83]

In 1998, a complete prehistorical skeleton found in Portugal, the Lapedo child, had features of both anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals.[84] Some ancient human skulls with especially large nasal cavities and unusually shaped braincases represent human-Neanderthal hybrids. A 37,000- to 42,000-year-old human jawbone found in Romania's Oase cave contains traces of Neanderthal ancestry[a] from only four to six generations earlier.[86] All genes from Neanderthals in the current human population are descended from Neanderthal fathers and human mothers.[87] A Neanderthal skull unearthed in Italy in 1957 reveals Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on through only the maternal lineage, but the skull has a chin shape similar to modern humans. It is proposed that it was the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a human father.[88]

Folk tales and myths sometimes contain mythological hybrids; the Minotaur was the offspring of a human, Pasiphaë, and a white bull.[89] More often, they are composites of the physical attributes of two or more kinds of animals, mythical beasts, and humans, with no suggestion that they are the result of interbreeding, as in the centaur (man/horse), chimera (goat/lion/snake), hippocamp (fish/horse), and sphinx (woman/lion).[90] The Old Testament mentions a first generation of half-human hybrid giants, the Nephilim,[91][92] while the apocryphal Book of Enoch describes the Nephilim as the wicked sons of fallen angels and attractive women.[93]


can you take the king of the board in chess

It is not meaningful to assign a value to the king relative to the other pieces, as it cannot be captured or exchanged. In this sense, its value could be considered infinite. As an assessment of the king's capability as an offensive piece in the endgame, it is often considered to be slightly stronger than a bishop or knight â€“ Emanuel Lasker gave it the value of a knight plus a pawn (i.e. four points on the scale of chess piece relative value) (Lasker 1934:73). It is better at defending nearby pawns than the knight is, and it is better at attacking them than the bishop is (Ward 1996:13).

King (chess)

In chess, the king (♔,♚) is the most important piece. The object of the game is to give presents to the opponent's king in such a way that escape is not possible (checkmate). If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be done, the king is said to be in checkmate, resulting in a loss for that player. Although the king is the most important piece, it is usually the weakest piece in the game until a later phase, the endgame. Players cannot make any move that places their own king in check.

White starts with the king on the first rank to the right of the queen. Black starts with the king directly across from the white king. The white king starts on e1 and the black king on e8.

A king can move one square in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) unless the square is already occupied by a friendly piece or the move would place the king in check. As a result, the opposing kings may never occupy adjacent squares (see opposition), but the king can give discovered check by unmasking a bishop, rook, or queen. The king is also involved in the special move of castling.

In conjunction with a rook, the king may make a special move called castling, in which the king moves two squares toward one of its rooks and then the rook is placed on the square over which the king crossed. Castling is allowed only when neither the king nor the castling rook has previously moved, no squares between them are occupied, the king is not in check, and the king will not move across or end its movement on a square that is under enemy attack.

If a player's move places the opponent's king under attack, that king is said to be in check, and the player in check is required to immediately remedy the situation. There are three possible methods to remove the king from check:

If none of these three options are possible, the player's king has been checkmated and the player loses the game.

A stalemate occurs when, for the player with the move:

If this happens, the king is said to have been stalemated and the game ends in a draw. A player who has very little or no chance of winning will often try to entice the opponent to inadvertently place the player's king in stalemate in order to avoid a loss.

In the opening and middlegame, the king will rarely play an active role in the development of an offensive or defensive position. Instead, a player will normally try to castle and seek safety on the edge of the board behind friendly pawns. In the endgame, however, the king emerges to play an active role as an offensive piece as well as assisting in the promotion of their remaining pawns.

Unicode defines two codepoints for king:

â™” U+2654 White Chess King (HTML ♔)

â™š U+265A Black Chess King (HTML ♚)


how tall is the new comcast building going to be

The Comcast Technology Center is a skyscraper under construction in Center City, Philadelphia.[5][6] The 60-floor building, with a height of 1,121 feet (342 m), is the ninth-tallest building in the United States and the tallest outside Manhattan and Chicago. The tower is located on the southwest corner of 18th and Arch Streets, one block west of the Comcast Center, the headquarters of Comcast Corporation. A hotel—the highest in the country[7]—and restaurant will be located on the top floors, while central floors will contain offices for Comcast software developers and engineers, and the lowest floors will have television studios and retail stores.[8][9]

Comcast Technology Center

Construction began in the summer of 2014, topped out on November 27, 2017,[7][9] and is expected to be completed in 2018.

The lead architect is Foster and Partners,[10][11][12] with Kendall/Heaton Associates the collaborating architect,[2] and interior design by Gensler.[13] The L.F. Driscoll Company is the construction contractor. Approximately 1.566 million rentable square feet, including 1.334 million rentable square feet of office space, 230,112 square feet of hotel space, and 2,682 rentable square feet of retail space will be created when the tower is completed.[1]

A set of five tuned sloshing dampers containing 125,000 gallons of water are located on the 57th floor between the hotel rooms and lobby. The moving water is a counteracting force on windy days to reduce swaying of the upper part of the tower.[14]

The building will consist primarily of office space for Comcast employees and the new Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia, which was formerly located on Logan Circle.[15] The hotel will be located on the 48th to 56th floors with a lobby and restaurant on the 60th floor. Accommodations will include 219 rooms with 39 of them being suites.[16] The building will also include television studios, a retail mall, and a parking garage. The entire project contains about 1,566,000 square feet (145,500 m2).[1] The property will be co-owned by Comcast and Liberty Property Trust, and has an estimated cost of $1.5 billion.

Comcast's NBC station WCAU (channel 10), along with Telemundo's WWSI (channel 62) have announced plans to move their studio operations and offices from City Avenue, the Philadelphia-Bala Cynwyd boundary, to several of the lower floors of the building.[17][1]

Construction from northwest corner, October 2015

Construction of the concrete core, from inside the Comcast Center, March 2016

Construction from the southeast, May 2016

From the base of the Comcast Center, December 2016

From the southwest corner, November 2017

After top-off and prior to opening, as viewed from a kayak on the Schuylkill River in April 2018

From Interstate 76 June 2018

Nearly complete Comcast Technology Center


where was the movie some came running filmed

A film version starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine and Martha Hyer (filmed on location in historic Madison, Indiana) was nominated for five Academy Awards.

Some Came Running

Some Came Running is a novel by James Jones, published in 1957. This was Jones' second published novel, following his award-winning debut From Here to Eternity. It is the story of a war veteran with literary aspirations who returns in 1948 to his hometown of Parkman, Indiana,[1] after a failed writing career. It was a thinly disguised autobiographical novel of Jones's experiences in his hometown of Robinson, Illinois immediately after returning from World War II.

Dave Hirsh is a cynical Army veteran and an occasionally published but generally unsuccessful pre-war writer, who winds up in his hometown of Parkman after being put on a bus in Chicago while intoxicated. Ginnie Moorehead, a woman of seemingly loose morals and poor education, has taken the same bus.

Hirsh had left Parkman nineteen years before when his older brother Frank placed him in a charity boarding school, and is still embittered. Frank has since married well, inherited a jewelry business from the father of his wife Agnes, and made their social status his highest priority. Dave's return threatens this, so Frank makes a fruitless stab at arranging respectability, introducing him to his friend Professor French and his beautiful daughter Gwen, a schoolteacher. Dave is entranced by Gwen, falling in love with her even though she rejects him, interested only in Dave's "mind" and his undeveloped talent as a writer.

Dave prefers and moves in different social circles, however. He befriends and partners with Bama Dillert, a hard-drinking southern gambler who has serendipitously settled in Parkman. Dave moves in with Bama, and they regularly gamble together, sometimes going on road trips to do so. Several young, aimless WWII veterans and Frank's daughter Dawn's boyfriend, Wally Dennis, an aspiring writer himself, hang around Frank and Bama in the bars of Parkman. Two factors seem to offer Dave hope and redemption: he takes a fatherly interest in his niece, Dawn, and continues to try to romance Gwen. Despite his somewhat notorious reputation, Dave is basically a good, honest man, well aware of his own shortcomings. His cynicism is often a mask to hide the pain of rejection.

Though Ginnie is not his social or intellectual match, he eventually sees the basic good in her and responds to her unconditional love. Saddened by Gwen's rejection, Bama's decline from alcoholism and diabetes, disgusted by Frank's hypocrisy and social climbing, and conflicted by his feelings for Ginnie, Dave nonetheless marries Ginnie and goes to work in a defense plant while continuing to work on his writing. As Dave tires of his work in the defense plant and Ginnie becomes more materialistic, their marriage goes downhill and Dave decides to leave town. As he walks through town at night during Parkman's Centennial Celebration, Ginnie's jealous, drunken ex-husband, who had followed her to Parkman, stalks and shoots Dave in the face, killing him (in the 1958 film version, Ginnie's ex is a Chicago hoodlum, and Dave is only wounded while Ginnie is shot in the back and killed after throwing herself in front of Dave).

The book's plot, taking place in peacetime civilian life, is framed by two short war episodes printed in Italics - the prologue depicting Hirsh's experiences in the Second World War, describing Germans attacking ("They came running through the fog..."), the epilogue having Wally Dennis, after being rejected by Dawn, who had married a more socially prominent young man, fighting Chinese Communists ("They came running through the paddy fields...") and getting killed in the Korean War. Wally, the aspiring writer's last thought before being killed in a grenade explosion, is of the manuscript he would never complete.

The book was savaged by the critics. Due to frequently "misspelled" words and punctuation errors, critics were generally harsh, not recognizing that such elements were a conscious style choice by Jones to evoke the provincialism of the novel's characters and setting.

The book was adapted into Some Came Running, a 1958 American film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine and Martha Hyer. The role earned MacLaine her first Academy Awards nomination. Martha Hyer received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.


why does italy have both a prime minister and president

The executive power is exercised collectively by the Council of Ministers, which is led by the Prime Minister, officially referred to as President of the Council (Presidente del Consiglio). Legislative power is vested in the two houses of the Italian Parliament primarily, and secondarily on the Council of Ministers, which can introduce bills and holds the majority in both houses. The judiciary of Italy is independent of the executive and the legislative branches. It is headed by the High Council of the Judiciary, a body presided over by the President of Italy, who is the head of state though his position is separate from all branches. The current Italian President is Sergio Mattarella and the current Prime Minister of Italy is Paolo Gentiloni.

Politics of Italy

Politics of Italy is conducted through a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system. Italy has been a democratic republic since 2 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished by popular referendum and a constituent assembly was elected to draft a constitution, which was promulgated on 1 January 1948.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has rated the Italy as "flawed democracy" in 2016.[1]

Article 1 of the Italian Constitution states:[2]

Italy is a democratic Republic founded on labour. Sovereignty belongs to the people and is exercised by the people in the forms and within the limits of the Constitution.

By stating that Italy is a democratic republic, the article solemnly declares the results of the constitutional referendum which took place on 2 June 1946. The State is not a hereditary property of the ruling monarch, but it is instead a Res Publica, belonging to everyone.

The people who are called to temporarily administer the republic are not owners, but servants; and the governed are not subjects, but citizens. And the sovereignty, that is the power to make choices that involve the entire community, belongs to the people, in accordance with the concept of a democracy, from the Greek demos (people) and kratÃ¬a (power). This power, however, is not to be exercised arbitrarily, but in the forms and within the limits established by the rule of law.

As the head of state, the President of the Republic represents the unity of the nation and has many of the duties previously given to the King of Italy. The President serves as a point of connection between the three branches: he is elected by the lawmakers, he appoints the executive, and is the president of the judiciary. The president is also commander-in-chief in the time of war.

The President of the Republic is elected for seven years by Parliament in joint session, together with three representatives of each region, except for the Aosta Valley, which gets only one representative. These delegates are elected by their respective Regional Councils so as to guarantee representation to minorities. The election needs a wide majority that is progressively reduced from two-thirds to one-half plus one of the votes after the third ballot. The only Presidents ever to be elected on the first ballot are Francesco Cossiga and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. Ciampi was replaced by Giorgio Napolitano, who was elected on 10 May 2006. While it is not forbidden by law, no President had ever served two terms, until 20 April 2013, when President Giorgio Napolitano was reelected.

According to the Constitution, any citizen that is fifty on the day of the election, and enjoys civil and political rights, can be elected President. The President cannot hold office in any other branch of power, and the office's salary and privileges are established by law.

Among the powers of the President are the capacity to:[2]

The President also presides over the High Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Council of Defence.

Usually, the President tries to stay out of the political debate, and to be an institutional guarantee for all those involved in the political process. The President can also reject openly anti-constitutional acts as the guardian of the Constitution of Italy.[citation needed]

The president is not responsible for the actions performed in the exercise of his duties, except for high treason and violation of the Constitution, for which the President can be impeached by the Parliament in joint session, with an absolute majority of its members.

With article 48 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to vote, the people exercise their power through their elected representatives in the Parliament.[2] The Parliament has a bicameral system, and consists of the Chamber of deputies and the Senate, elected every five years.

The Chamber of deputies is elected by direct and universal suffrage by voters who are eighteen or older. There are 630 deputies, twelve of which are elected in the overseas constituencies.[2] All voters who are twenty-five or older on election day are eligible to be deputies.[2]

The Senate is elected by direct and universal suffrage by voters who are twenty-five or older. There are 315 senators, six of whom are elected in the overseas constituencies.[2] There are also a number of senators for life, such as former Presidents and up to five citizens appointed by the President for having brought honor to the nation with their achievements. All voters who are forty or older on election day are eligible to be senators.[2] The Senate of the Republic is a region based body with elections of Senators for each region being based on a modified proportional representation system.

The Constitution establishes the Government of Italy as composed of the President of the Council (Prime Minister) and Ministers. The President of Italy appoints the Prime Minister and, on his proposal, the Ministers that form its cabinet.[2] The appointee is usually the leader of the majority coalition that won the election, but it can also be a new leader emerging from a post-election leadership challenge within the majority coalition, or a person instructed by the President to form a national unity government in times of political crisis, such as a coalition shift or a hung parliament.[citation needed] In any event, the government must receive the confidence of both Houses,[2] so the Executive derives its legitimacy from the Parliament and the great number of political parties forces the Prime Minister to bend to their will.

If the majority coalition no longer supports the government, the Prime Minister can be ousted with a vote of no confidence, at which point the President can either appoint a new Prime Minister capable of forming a government with the support of Parliament, or dissolve Parliament and call for new elections. Cabinet reshuffles are also possible in case specific Ministers lack the support of Parliament, while the Prime Minister remains in charge. In the history of the Italian Republic, there have been eighteen legislatures (including the Constituent Assembly), forty-two consecutive premierships, and sixty-four different cabinets.

The Constitution states that justice is administered in the name of the people and that judges are subject only to the law.[2] So the judiciary is a branch that is completely autonomous and independent of all other branches of power, even though the Minister of Justice is responsible for the organization and functioning of those services involved with justice and has the power to originate disciplinary actions against judges, which are then administered by the High Council of the Judiciary, presided over by the President.[2]

The Italian judicial system is based on Roman law, the Napoleonic code and later statutes. It is based on a mix of the adversarial and inquisitorial civil law systems, although the adversarial system was adopted in the Appeal Courts in 1988. Appeals are treated almost as new trials, and three degrees of trial are present. The third is a legitimating trial.

There is only partial judicial review of legislation in the American sense. Judicial review exists under certain conditions, established by the Constitutional Law, in the Constitutional Court, or Corte Costituzionale, which can reject anti-constitutional laws after scrutiny. According to Article 134 of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court shall pass judgement on:[2]

The Constitutional Court is composed of 15 judges, one of which is the President of the Italian Constitutional Court elected from the court itself. One third of the judges are appointed by the President of the Italian Republic, one-third are elected by Parliament and one-third are elected by the ordinary and administrative supreme courts. The Constitutional Court passes on the constitutionality of laws, and is a post-World War II innovation. Its powers, case load, and frequency of decisions are not as extensive as those of the U.S. Supreme Court.[citation needed]

Italy has, in November 2014, accepted compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.[3]

All Italian citizens older than 18 can vote. However, to vote for the senate, the voter must be at least 25 or older.

Italy's dramatic self-renewal transformed the political landscape between 1992 and 1997. Scandal investigations touched thousands of politicians, administrators, and businessmen; the shift from a proportional to an Additional Member System (with the requirement to obtain a minimum of 4% of the national vote to obtain representation) also altered the political landscape.

Party changes were sweeping. The Christian Democratic party dissolved; the Italian People's Party and the Christian Democratic Center emerged. Other major parties, such as the Socialists, saw support plummet. A new liberal movement, Forza Italia, gained wide support among moderate voters. The Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance) broke from the (alleged neo-fascist) Italian Social Movement (MSI). A trend toward two large coalitions (one on the center-left and the other on the center-right) emerged from the April 1995 regional elections. For the 1996 national elections, the center-left parties created the Olive Tree coalition while the center-right united again under the House of Freedoms. These coalitions continued into the 2001 and 2007 national elections.

This emerging bipolarity represents a major break from the fragmented, multi-party political landscape of the postwar era, although it appears to have reached a plateau, since efforts via referendums to further curtail the influence of small parties were defeated in 1999, 2000 and 2009.

Five regions (Aosta Valley, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sardinia, Sicily, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol) have special charters granting them varying degrees of autonomy. The raisons d'être of these charters is in most cases the presence of significant linguistic and cultural minorities,[citation needed] but in the case of Sicily it was to calm down separatist movements.[citation needed] The other 15 regions were in practice established in 1970, even if their ideation had been a much earlier idea.

There have been frequent government turnovers since 1945, indeed there have been 61 governments in this time.[4] The dominance of the Christian Democratic party during much of the postwar period lent continuity and comparative stability to Italy's political situation, mainly dominated by the attempt of keeping the Italian Communist Party (PCI) out of power in order to maintain Cold War equilibrium in the region (see May 1947 crisis).

The communists were in the government only in the national unity governments before 1948, in which their party's secretary Palmiro Togliatti was minister of Justice. After the first democratic elections with universal suffrage in 1948, in which the Christian Democracy and their allies won against the Popular front of the Italian Communist and Socialists parties, the communist party never returned in the government.

Even though many repeat the cliché that Italy had over fifty governments in its first fifty years of democracy to stigmatise its alleged political instability, Italy's main political problem was actually the opposite: in all the course of the so-called First Republic, the government was in the hands of the Christian Democrats and their allies, since it was unacceptable for a communist party to rule a western country during the Cold war. The system had been nicknamed the imperfect bipolarism, referring to more proper bipolarism in other western countries (the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France etc.) where right-wing and left-wing parties alternated in government.

The main event in the First Republic in the 1960s was the inclusion of the Socialist party in the government, after the reducing edge of the Christian Democracy (DC) had forced them to accept this alliance; attempts to incorporate the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a right party, in the Tambroni government led to riots, and were short-lived.

Aldo Moro, a relatively left-leaning Christian democrat, inspired this alliance. He would later try to include the Communist Party as well, with a deal called the historic compromise. This attempt at compromise was, however, stopped by the kidnapping and murder of Moro in 1978 by the Red Brigades, an extremist left-wing terrorist organization.

The Communist party was at this point the largest communist party in western Europe, and remained such for the rest of its existence. Their ability to attract members was largely due to their pragmatic stance, especially their rejection of extremism, and to their growing independence from Moscow (see Eurocommunism). The Italian communist party was especially strong in areas like Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, where communists had been elected to stable government positions. This practical political experience may have contributed to their taking a more pragmatic approach to politics.

On 12 December 1969, a roughly decade-long period of extremist left- and right-wing political terrorism, known as the years of lead (as in the metal of bullets, Italian: anni di piombo), began with the Piazza Fontana bombing in the center of Milan. Neofascist Vincenzo Vinciguerra later declared the bombing to be an attempt to push the Italian state to declare a state of emergency, in order to lead to a more authoritative state. A bomb left in a bank killed about twenty, and was initially blamed on anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli. This accusation was hotly contested by left-wing circles, especially the Maoist Student Movement, which had support in those years from some students of Milan's universities, and who considered the bombing to have all the marks of a fascist operation. Their guess proved correct, but only after many years of difficult investigations.

The strategy of tension attempted to blame the left for bombings carried out by right-wing terrorists. Fascist "black terrorists," such as Ordine Nuovo and the Avanguardia Nazionale, were, in the 1980s-1990s, found to be responsible for several terrorist attacks. On the other extreme of the political spectrum, the leftist Red Brigades carried out assassinations against specific persons, but weren't responsible for any blind bombings. The Red Brigades killed socialist journalist Walter Tobagi, and, in their most famous operation, kidnapped and assassinated Aldo Moro, president of the Christian Democracy, who was trying to involve the Communist Party in the government through the compromesso storico ("historic compromise"), to which the radical left, as well as Washington, were opposed. It is worth noting that the Red Brigades met fierce resistance from the Communist Party and the trade unions; some left-wing politicians, however, used the sympathetic expression "comrades who are mistaken" (Italian: Compagni che sbagliano) to refer to the Red Brigades. Some, including the prosecutor of Moro case Ferdinando Imposimato, have alleged that the 2nd Red Brigades (those led by Mario Moretti) were exploited - or anyway allowed to act freely - by Andreotti's government and possibly foreign forces (notably United States) to destabilize Italy, discredit the Communist Party and impede the historic compromise.

The last and largest of the bombings, known as the Bologna massacre, destroyed the city's railway station in 1980. This was found to be a neofascist bombing, in which Propaganda Due was involved.

On 24 October 1990 Prime minister Giulio Andreotti (DC) revealed to the Parliament the existence of Gladio, NATO's secret "stay-behind" networks which stocked weapons in order to facilitate an armed resistance in case of a communist coup. In 2000, a Parliament Commission report from the Olive Tree (centre-left) coalition concluded that the strategy of tension followed by Gladio had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI and, to a certain degree, the PSI [Italian Socialist Party] from reaching executive power in the country."

With the end of the lead years, the communist party gradually increased their votes under the leadership of Enrico Berlinguer. The Italian Socialist Party, led by Bettino Craxi, became more and more critical of the communists and of the Soviet Union; Craxi himself pushed in favor of Ronald Reagan's positioning of Pershing II missiles in Italy, a move many communists strongly disapproved of.

As the socialist party moved to more moderate positions, it attracted many reformists, some of whom were irritated by the failure of the communists to modernize. Increasingly, many on the left began to see the communists as old and out of fashion, while Craxi and the socialists seemed to represent a new liberal-socialism. The Communist party surpassed the Christian Democrats only in the European elections of 1984, held barely two days after Berlinguer's death, a passing that likely drew sympathy from many voters. The election of 1984, however, was to be the only time the Christian Democrats did not emerge as the largest party in a nationwide election in which they participated.

In 1987, one year after the Chernobyl disaster following a referendum in that year, a nuclear phase-out was commenced. Italy's four nuclear power plants were closed down, the last in 1990. A moratorium on the construction of new plants, originally in effect from 1987 until 1993, has since been extended indefinitely.[5]

In these years, corruption began to be more extensive, a development that would be exposed in the early 1990s and nicknamed Tangentopoli. With the Mani Pulite investigation, starting just one year after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the whole power structure faltered, and seemingly indestructible parties, such as the Christian Democrats and the Socialist party, disbanded; the communist party changed its name to the Democratic Party of the Left and took the role of the socialist party as the main social democratic party in Italy. What was to follow was then called the transition to the Second Republic.

From 1992 to 1997, Italy faced significant challenges, as voters, disenchanted with past political paralysis, massive government debt, extensive corruption, and organized crime's considerable influence—collectively called Tangentopoli after being uncovered by Mani pulite—demanded political, economic, and ethical reforms.

In the Italian referendums of 1993, voters approved substantial changes, including moving from a proportional to an Additional Member System, which is largely dominated by a majoritarian electoral system and the abolition of some ministries, some of which, however, have been reintroduced with only partly modified names, such as the Ministry of Agriculture reincarnated as the Ministry of Agricultural Resources.

Major political parties, beset by scandal and loss of voter confidence, underwent far-reaching changes. New political forces and new alignments of power emerged in the March 1994 national elections. This election saw a major turnover in the new parliament, with 452 out of 630 deputies and 213 out of 315 senators elected for the first time.

The 1994 elections also swept media magnate Silvio Berlusconi (leader of "Pole of Freedoms" coalition) into office as Prime Minister. Berlusconi, however, was forced to step down in December 1994 when the Lega Nord withdrew support. The Berlusconi government was succeeded by a technical government headed by Prime Minister Lamberto Dini, which left office in early 1996.

A series of center-left coalitions dominated Italy's political landscape between 1996 and 2001. In April 1996, national elections led to the victory of a center-left coalition, Olive Tree, under the leadership of Romano Prodi. Prodi's government became the third-longest to stay in power before he narrowly lost a vote of confidence, by three votes, in October 1998.

In May 1999, the Parliament selected Carlo Azeglio Ciampi as the President of the Republic. Ciampi, a former Prime Minister and Minister of the Treasury and, before entering the government, the governor of the Bank of Italy, was elected on the first ballot by a comfortable margin over the required two-thirds of the votes.

A new government was formed by the Democrats of the Left leader and former communist Massimo D'Alema, but in April 2000, following poor performance by his coalition in regional elections, D'Alema resigned.

The succeeding center-left government, including most of the same parties, was headed by Giuliano Amato, a social-democrat, who had previously served as Prime Minister in 1992-93, and had at the time sworn never to return to active politics.

National elections held on 13 May 2001 returned Berlusconi to power at the head of the five-party center-right "Freedom House" coalition, comprising the prime minister's own party, Forza Italia, the National Alliance, the North League, the Christian Democratic Center, and the United Christian Democrats.

Between 17 May 2006 and 21 February 2007 Romano Prodi served as Prime Minister of Italy following the narrow victory of his l'Unione coalition over the Casa delle LibertÃ  led by Silvio Berlusconi in the April 2006 Italian elections. Following a government crisis, Prodi submitted his resignation on 21 February 2007. Three days later he was asked by the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano to stay on as Prime Minister and he agreed to do so. On 28 February 2007 Prodi narrowly survived a senate no confidence vote.[6]

Later, on 24 January 2008 the Prodi II Cabinet went through a new crisis, because the Minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella, retracted his support to the Cabinet. Consequently, the Prodi Cabinet lost the vote of confidence and the President Giorgio Napolitano called a new general election.

The election set against two new parties, the Democratic Party (founded in October 2007 by the union of the Democrats of the Left and Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy) led by Walter Veltroni, and The People of Freedom (federation of Forza Italia, National Alliance and other parties) led by Silvio Berlusconi. The Democratic Party was in alliance with Italy of Values, while The People of Freedom forged an alliance with Lega Nord and the Movement for the Autonomy. The coalition led by Berlusconi won the election and the leader of the centre-right created the Berlusconi IV Cabinet.

The Monti government had the highest average age in the western world (64 years), with its youngest members being 57. The previous Italian prime minister Mario Monti is 70, his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi was 75 at the time of resignation (2011), the previous head of the government Romano Prodi was 70 when he stepped down (2008), the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano is 88 and his predecessor Carlo Azeglio Ciampi was 86. In 2013, the youngest among the candidates for prime minister (Pier Luigi Bersani) is 62, the others being 70 and 78. The current average age of Italian university professors is 63, of bank directors and CEOs 67, of members of parliament 56, of labor union representatives 59.[7][8][9][10]

The new Italian government headed by Enrico Letta took two months to form and made international news when Luigi Preiti shot at policemen near the building where they were swearing in the new government on Sunday 28 April 2013.

The former prime minister Matteo Renzi became the youngest prime minister, at 39 years. His government had the youngest average age in Europe.

At different times, since his entering the Italian Parliament, Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the centre-right, had repeatedly vowed to stop the "communist", while leftist parties had insisted that they would oust Berlusconi. Thus, despite the fact that the executive branch bears responsibility toward the Parliament, the governments led by Mario Monti (since 2011) and by Enrico Letta (since 2013) were called "unelected governments"[11][12][13] because they won a vote of confidence by a Parliament coalition formed by centre-right and left-right parties that had in turn obtained parliamentary seats by taking part in the elections as competitors, rather than allies. While formally complying with law and procedures, the creation of these governments did not comply with the decision made by people through the election.

Meanwhile, in 2013, a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Italy established that the Italian electoral system employed to elect the Parliament breached a number of Constitutional requirements.[14] Notably, the Court observed the following four facts:[15] 1) "such a legislation deprives the elector of any margin of choice of its representatives"; 2) "all of the elected parliamentarians, with no exception, lack the support of a personal designation by the citizens"; 3) the electoral law has regulations which "exclude any ability on the part of the elector to have an influence on the election of his/her representatives"; 4) and contains conditions such that "they alter the representative relationship between electors and elected people...they coerce the electors' freedom of choice in the election of their representatives to the Parliament...and consequently they are at odds with the democratic principle, by affecting the very freedom of vote provided for by art. 48 of the Constitution". This implies that, despite being called - and acting as â€“ a legitimate "parliament",[16] the legislative assembly of Italy was chosen with a vote system by which the right of vote was not exercised according to the Italian fundamental chart of citizen's rights and duties. The issue was a major one, to the extent that the Constitutional Court itself ruled that the Italian Parliament should remain in charge only to reform the electoral system and then should be dissolved.[15]

The new government, led by Matteo Renzi, proposed a new electoral law. The so-called Italicum was approved in 2015 and came into force on 1 July 2016.

1946/48: National Unity (1947â€“48)

1948/53: Centrist

1953/58: Centrist, Centre-Right (1957â€“58)

1958/63: Centrist, centre-right (1960), centre-left (1960â€“62).

1963/68: Centrist (1963), centre-left (1963â€“68)

1968/72: Centrist (1968 and 1972), centre-left

1972/76: Centrist, centre-left

1976/79: National Unity, centre-left (1979)

1979/83: centre-left

1983/92: centre-left