#Accounting Experts in India

[vncglobal]

The Best Accounting Software for Small Businesses in 2023:

Introduction: 

There are several accounting software options available for small businesses, including QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and Wave. These software programs can help small business owners manage their financial transactions, create invoices and track expenses, and generate financial reports. Some key factors to consider when choosing accounting software for a small business include the cost, ease of use, and the specific features and integrations that are important for the business's needs.

VNC is another term for perfection we are India's leading financial accounting and bookkeeping outsourcing Accounting Experts in India.

Accounting Expert in India:

An accounting expert is a professional with extensive knowledge and experience in the field of accounting. They may hold certifications such as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) or Chartered Accountant (CA) and have a deep understanding of accounting principles, regulations, and financial reporting. They can assist with financial statement preparation, tax compliance, financial forecasting, budgeting, and other financial matters. It's important to note that accounting experts can specialize in different areas such as audit, tax, and management accounting.

What does an accountant do?

An accountant is a professional who performs financial tasks such as recording, classifying, and summarizing financial transactions to provide information that is useful in making business and economic decisions. Some of the specific responsibilities of an accountant include:

Recording and maintaining financial records, including those related to income, expenses, and assets.

Preparing financial statements such as balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements.

Analyzing financial information to identify and recommend ways to reduce costs and increase revenues.

Assisting with budgeting and forecasting.

Ensuring compliance with tax laws and regulations.

Providing advice on financial matters, such as raising capital or investing funds.

Auditing financial records to ensure accuracy and compliance with laws and regulations.

There are different types of accountants, such as public accountants, management accountants, and government accountants, each with its own specific responsibilities and focus areas.

Chartered Accountants in India:

Chartered Accountants (CA) in India are professionals who have completed a rigorous education and training process and have passed a series of exams in order to be recognized as a CA by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). They are considered experts in the field of accounting, auditing, and tax.

VNC is another term for perfection we are India's leading financial accounting and bookkeeping outsourcing Accounting Experts in India.

The process to become a Chartered Accountant in India includes:

Completing an undergraduate program in commerce or a related field.

Registering as a student member of the ICAI.

Completing three levels of theoretical and practical education, including the Common Proficiency Test (CPT), the Integrated Professional Competence Course (IPCC), and the final exam.

Completing a certain period of practical training under a practicing CA.

Clearing an Ethics and Professionalism assessment.

Chartered Accountants in India are authorized to perform various roles such as auditing financial statements, filing tax returns, advising clients on tax planning and compliance, providing business and financial consulting services, and conducting internal audits for companies.

In addition, CAs are also authorized to provide services to the public, including certification of financial statements, providing opinions on financial matters, and carrying out due diligence exercises.

VNC is another term for perfection we are India's leading financial accounting and bookkeeping outsourcing Accounting Automation experts in Australia.

[unisonglobususa]

Discover the key differences between accounting and bookkeeping tasks with our insightful infographic. By separating these roles, you can significantly enhance your business’s financial management. Partner with expert accountants and bookkeepers from Unison Globus to ensure accuracy, efficiency, and strategic growth. Ready to optimize your financial management? Partner with Unison Globus for expert bookkeeping and accounting services. Hire bookkeepers from India for high-quality services at competitive rates. 

[ileadtaxllc123]

The Role of Accounting and Bookkeeping in Tax Industry

Accounting and bookkeeping are tedious and arduous but are necessary for the company to gain an advantage over competitors and to make decisions. Bookkeeping is the recording of financial details of the company in an orderly manner over some time. Bookkeepers are people who maintain the accounts. Ileadtax LLC is one of the best tax preparation and planning companies based in New York, India, and California. It offers accounting and bookkeeping services and are adviser for many companies. This article discloses the importance of accounting and bookkeeping in the tax industry and how it is useful to a company.

Accounting and bookkeeping are dependent on each other. Bookkeeping is a sub-branch of accounting that organizes and summarizes financial data and it has accurate financial data. Bookkeepers have access to all financial data of the company and can track their transactions. They ensure the data is up to date and is complete. Bookkeeping helps the company with decisions related to investing and operations. IleadTax LLC is a global company that consists of tax accounting experts in India, New York, and California. They provide their tax experts for all companies which are in need. The accounting and bookkeeping services provided contain detailed records of past transactions.

The first step in achieving flawless tax preparation is keeping accurate financial records. The foundation of this process is accounting and bookkeeping. These tasks entail the meticulous documentation of financial transactions, which results in an accurate depiction of earnings, outlays, assets, and liabilities. Having structured financial records is essential for tax season. Identification of deductible expenses is made possible for people and organizations through accounting and bookkeeping. Taxpayers can properly minimize their taxable income by accurately categorizing their costs and keeping track of the necessary supporting records. This may lead to significant cost savings and a better tax situation.

Beyond tax time, accounting and bookkeeping are important. They serve as the cornerstone for budgeting, investments, and future tax planning, enabling both individuals and corporations to make well-informed choices. It's advantageous to obtain professional advice when dealing with the complicated realm of tax preparation. CPAs (Certified Public Accountants) and seasoned bookkeepers may provide priceless insights, ensuring that you successfully navigate tax season.

A thorough and accurate bookkeeping procedure gives businesses a reliable way to assess their success. It also serves as a benchmark for its income and revenue targets and information for general strategic decision-making. A trustworthy source for businesses to gauge their financial performance is bookkeeping.  Accounting and bookkeeping are more than simply administrative duties; they are also effective instruments that can lessen the strain of tax season and enhance your financial security. A sound accounting and bookkeeping system can result in significant savings, compliance, and financial peace of mind whether you're a business owner or an individual taxpayer. So, as tax season draws near, keep in mind that having a solid financial foundation is the key to success. ILeadTax LLC attempts to deliver results that meet the expectations of the client.

[jaipurglobalservices]

Tips for making your Shopify store a success

Tips for making your Shopify store a success

A mobile-friendly Shopify store also helps all around with things like content marketing and SEO, so it should be one of your first priorities before the launch.

Compress Your Images to Reduce Loading Times

Run Each New Page through Google's Mobile-Friendly Test

Minimize Unnecessary Plugins on Your Site

Use an Upsell App to Increase Your Shopify Success Rate

Upsell apps like reconvert can help to increase average order value with a minimal upfront investment, ultimately leading to even higher ROI.

Using suggestive selling tactics in your own store is one of the best ways to increase your average order value from every transaction.

Invest Resources in Marketing Channels with High ROI

Online advertising is great, but sometimes brands find the most success with less competitive channels. Consider diverting a portion of your marketing resources towards less competitive channels:

SEO and Content Marketing

Affiliate & Referral Marketing

Form Strategic Brand Partnerships

Create and Utilize Your Email List to Its Full Extent

Email marketing forms the backbone of many huge brands' marketing operations, and for good reason.

It's one of the best ways you can recapture abandoned carts, stay at the top of consumer minds, and provide valuable content that converts casual customers into loyal followers.

Ensure Your Shipping is Fast & Reliable

In the age of Amazon shopping, ecommerce customers expect lightning-fast shipping.

If your store doesn't provide fast shipping, or even worse, products arrive damaged. You'll likely see a flood of bad reviews, returned products, and lost customers.

To avoid that, make sure that your products are shipped and delivered promptly.

 

Prioritize Stellar Customer Service for a Higher Shopify Success Rate

Bad customer service can mean a lost customer and a negative review for your business. On the other hand, great customer service can be the start of a customer's journey towards being a loyal brand follower.

Here are a few tips you can use to improve your store's customer service:

Reduce Waiting Times

Use a Live Chat App

Take Customer Feedback Seriously

   Focus on High-Ticket Products with High Markups

A low product markup means you'll have to use the minimum amount of resources possible to earn each purchase and stay profitable. This can be especially tricky in the beginning when you're trying to build awareness of your brand and get customers to purchase.

A markup of at least 200% means that you won't be cutting it too close for most products, and you'll have ample resources to make a significant profit on every purchase.

For More information visit our website :- https://jgservices.in/

[reasonsforhope]

Masterpost: Reasons I firmly believe we will beat climate change

Posts are in reverse chronological order (by post date, not article date), mostly taken from my "climate change tag," which I went through all the way back to the literal beginning of my blog. Will update periodically.

Especially big deal articles/posts are in bold.

Big picture:

Mature trees offer hope in world of rising emissions (x)

Spying from space: How satellites can help identify and rein in a potent climate pollutant (x)

Good news: Tiny urban green spaces can cool cities and save lives (x)

Conservation and economic development go hand in hand, more often than expected (x)

The exponential growth of solar power will change the world (x)

Sun Machines: Solar, an energy that gets cheaper and cheaper, is going to be huge (x)

Wealthy nations finally deliver promised climate aid, as calls for more equitable funding for poor countries grow (x)

For Earth Day 2024, experts are spreading optimism – not doom. Here's why. (x)

Opinion: I’m a Climate Scientist. I’m Not Screaming Into the Void Anymore. (x)

The World’s Forests Are Doing Much Better Than We Think (x)

‘Staggering’ green growth gives hope for 1.5C, says global energy chief (x)

Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming Into View (x)

Young Forests Capture Carbon Quicker than Previously Thought (x)

Yes, climate change can be beaten by 2050. Here's how. (x)

Soil improvements could keep planet within 1.5C heating target, research shows (x)

The global treaty to save the ozone layer has also slowed Arctic ice melt (x)

The doomers are wrong about humanity’s future — and its past (x)

Scientists Find Methane is Actually Offsetting 30% of its Own Heating Effect on Planet (x)

Are debt-for-climate swaps finally taking off? (x)

High seas treaty: historic deal to protect international waters finally reached at UN (x)

How Could Positive ‘Tipping Points’ Accelerate Climate Action? (x)

Specific examples:

Environmental Campaigners Celebrate As Labour Ends Tory Ban On New Onshore Wind Projects (x)

Private firms are driving a revolution in solar power in Africa (x)

How the small Pacific island nation of Vanuatu drastically cut plastic pollution (x)

Rewilding sites have seen 400% increase in jobs since 2008, research finds [Scotland] (x)

The American Climate Corps take flight, with most jobs based in the West (x)

Waste Heat Generated from Electronics to Warm Finnish City in Winter Thanks to Groundbreaking Thermal Energy Project (x)

Climate protection is now a human right — and lawsuits will follow [European Union] (x)

A new EU ecocide law ‘marks the end of impunity for environmental criminals’ (x)

Solar hits a renewable energy milestone not seen since WWII [United States] (x)

These are the climate grannies. They’ll do whatever it takes to protect their grandchildren. [United States and Native American Nations] (x)

Century of Tree Planting Stalls the Warming Effects in the Eastern United States, Says Study (x)

Chart: Wind and solar are closing in on fossil fuels in the EU (x)

UK use of gas and coal for electricity at lowest since 1957, figures show (x)

Countries That Generate 100% Renewable Energy Electricity (x)

Indigenous advocacy leads to largest dam removal project in US history [United States and Native American Nations] (x)

India’s clean energy transition is rapidly underway, benefiting the entire world (x)

China is set to shatter its wind and solar target five years early, new report finds (x)

‘Game changing’: spate of US lawsuits calls big oil to account for climate crisis (x)

Largest-ever data set collection shows how coral reefs can survive climate change (x)

The Biggest Climate Bill of Your Life - But What Does It DO? [United States] (x)

Good Climate News: Headline Roundup April 1st through April 15th, 2023 (x)

How agroforestry can restore degraded lands and provide income in the Amazon (x) [Brazil]

Loss of Climate-Crucial Mangrove Forests Has Slowed to Near-Negligable Amount Worldwide, Report Hails (x)

Agroecology schools help communities restore degraded land in Guatemala (x)

Climate adaptation:

Solar-powered generators pull clean drinking water 'from thin air,' aiding communities in need: 'It transforms lives' (x)

‘Sponge’ Cities Combat Urban Flooding by Letting Nature Do the Work [China] (x)

Indian Engineers Tackle Water Shortages with Star Wars Tech in Kerala (x)

A green roof or rooftop solar? You can combine them in a biosolar roof — boosting both biodiversity and power output (x)

Global death tolls from natural disasters have actually plummeted over the last century (x)

Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be (x)

This city turns sewage into drinking water in 24 hours. The concept is catching on [Namibia] (x)

Plants teach their offspring how to adapt to climate change, scientists find (x)

Resurrecting Climate-Resilient Rice in India (x)

[jgservice]

Amazon Account Management

Nowadays the shopping habits of consumers are changing rapidly from physical retail shopping to digital online shopping. Buyers are searching for new shopping approaches. Amazon has one of the biggest dynamic buyers in the world nearly 200 million consumers visit Amazon every month. Amazon provides an enormous pool of consumers across the world that increases sales of profit. Amazon FBA has turned out as an extremely well-known method for selling items and earning come. Amazon Account Management services will point you toward clear objectives, possible activities, and predictable achievements.

Jaipur Global Services is one of the eminent Amazon and Flipkart account management services providers in India. We are an ISO-certified company working for the last 9 years to provide the finest ROI to our clients. We have More than 3000 + vendors across the world who are benefiting from accounting and taxation services for Amazon and Flipkart. Our team handle all the financial situation and make your amazon accounting simple and painless.

Accounting and Taxation services for Amazon and Flipkart is an essential key to a successful business. Poor accounting will create poor financial data and wrong decision-making. To avoid this consumers need to select the best accounting software for Accounting and Taxation services. Accountants monitor the everyday financial transactions that help you know whether you are earning profit or just making sales. There is a need for amazon accounting services as many obstacles come on the way while running an online business and an accountant will understand the in and out of amazon's business.

Services include in Amazon account management :

1. Creating an Amazon Seller Account

2. Amazon Listing Optimization

3. Search Engine Optimization

4. A+ Content

5. Project Listing Management

6. Brand Registry

7. Product Launch

8. Preparation & Logistics

[aurigaaccountingpvtltd]

[whencyclopedia]

Manticore

The Manticore, derived from the Early Middle Persian merthykhuwar or martiora, meaning "man-eater" (also known as a mantichora or a martichore), is a fearsome hybrid creature found in classical and medieval literature. It has the body of a lion, the head of a man and a scorpion tail that can shoot poisonous darts.

The manticore is one of the most bizarre and ferocious creatures depicted throughout classical and medieval bestiaries. Its roots can be traced back to India and Persia (modern-day Iran). The myth of the manticore spreads over several centuries and is mentioned most famously by Ctesias (5th century BCE), Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) and Pausanias (c. 115 to c. 180 CE).

Appearance & Characteristics

The earliest known mention of the manticore comes from the Greek historian and physician Ctesias in his Indica (written in the 5th century BCE). Although the Indica is now lost to time, fragments of Ctesias' work exist in other authors' writings, and we have a clear description of the manticore. According to Pliny the Elder in his Natural History:

Ctesias writes that amongst these same men there is found an animal called the Mantichora which has three rows of teeth like a comb, the face and ears of a human, and bluish eyes. It is red in colour with the body of a lion and a tail with stingers like a scorpion. Its voice is as if the sounds of the pipe were mixed with a trumpet and it is a creature of great speed which avidly goes after human flesh. (8.75)

Pliny's account of the manticore influenced later writers. He seemed to give the monster a basis in reality as he was considered the expert on strange and marvellous creatures for hundreds of years.

The morphology of the manticore was believed to have developed from its environment – the rugged and barren landscape of the Indian and Middle Eastern deserts. It needed to be fierce and to have weapons at its disposal to be able to catch its prey and prevent being caught by predators. Initially preying on animals like pigs and mountain goats, the manticore began to be lured to villages by the livestock it was hunting and inevitably began to attack and feed on humans, establishing the lore of the man-eating manticore.

The manticore would famously leave no trace of its prey behind. It could attack a human up close with its sharp claws or shoot poisonous darts from its scorpion tail from a safe distance. When it unleashes the poisonous darts from its tail, the tail either bends back or stretches out. Roman writer Aelian (175-235 CE) states that "whatever it hits, it kills, with the exception of elephants" (Characteristics of Animals, 4.21). The poisonous stingers are described as being thick as a rope and one foot (30 cm) in length. Once a stinger has been discharged, another one grows in its place.

Manticores did not just satisfy their appetites by killing one human but would chase after multiple people at a time, taking great pleasure in the hunt. Its favourite way to lure and hunt prey was to hide its body in the long grass, so from a distance, all humans would be able to see would be a human head. Deceived by this, humans would get close to the manticore, and before they knew what was happening, they would be attacked and killed. This showed how cunning and clever the manticore was. Although humans were undoubtedly a manticore's preferred prey, they would also regularly hunt the animal kingdom, except for lions which they could never overpower.

In order to stop the manticores' aggressive nature, the Indians would hunt baby manticores and smash their tails with rocks to prevent them from growing and shooting their poisonous darts and thus taking away their ability to harm humans from a great distance. Manticores lived in burrows deep under the ground where they could hide from their prey and avoid being seen by humans.

Continue reading...

[odinsblog]

Musk reactivated the accounts of Brazilian far-right politicians Carla Zambelli, Gustavo Gayer, and Nikolas Ferreira. Ferreira, a Bolsonaro supporter, openly questioned the security of Brazil’s electronic voting machines, even though he won his local legislative race.

“All of these names have been problematic for years on social media,” says Flora Rebello Arduini, campaign director at the nonprofit advocacy organization Ekō. “They've been pushing for the far-right and election misinformation for ages.”

When Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, later renaming it X, many activists in Brazil worried that he would abuse the platform to push his own agenda, Arduini says. “He has unprecedented broadcasting abilities. He is bullying a supreme court justice of a democratic country, and he is showing he will use all the resources he has available to push for whatever favors his personal opinions or his professional ambitions.”

Under Musk, X has become a haven for the far right and disinformation. After taking over, Musk offered amnesty to users who had been banned from the platform, including right-wing influencer Andrew Tate, who, along with his brother, was indicted in Romania on several charges including with rape and human trafficking in June 2023 (he has denied the allegations). Last month, one of Tate's representatives told the BBC that "they categorically reject all charges."

A 2023 study found that hate speech has increased on the platform under Musk’s leadership. The situation in Brazil is just the latest instance of Musk aligning himself with and platforming dangerous, far-right movements around the world, experts tell WIRED. "It's not about Twitter or Brazil. It's about a strategy from the global far right to overcome democracies and democratic institutions around the world," says Nina Santos, a digital democracy researcher at the Brazilian National Institute of Science & Technology who researches the Brazilian far right. “An opinion from an American billionaire should not count more than a democratic institution.”

This also comes as Brazil has continued working to understand and investigate the lead-up to January 8, 2023, when election-denying insurrectionists who refused to accept right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat stormed Brazil’s legislature. The TSE, the country’s election court, is a special judicial body that investigates electoral crimes and is part of the mechanism for overseeing the country’s electoral processes overall. The court has been investigating the dissemination of fake news and disinformation that cast doubt on the country’s elections in the months and years leading up to the storming of the legislature on January 8, 2023. Both Arduini and Santos believe that the accounts Musk is refusing to remove are likely connected to the court’s inquiry.

“A life-and-death struggle recently took place in Brazil for the democratic rule of law and against a coup d'état, which is under investigation by this court in compliance with due legal process,” Luís Roberto Barroso, the president of the federal supreme court, said in a statement about Musk’s comments. “Nonconformity against the prevalence of democracy continues to manifest itself in the criminal exploitation of social networks.”

Santos also worries that Musk is setting a precedent that the far right will be protected and promoted on his platform, regardless of local laws or public opinion. “They are trying to use Brazil as a laboratory on how to interfere in local politics and local businesses,” she says. “They are making the case that their decision is more important than the national decision from a state democratic institution.”

Though Musk has claimed to be a free-speech advocate, and X’s public statement on the takedowns asserts that Brazilians are entitled to free speech, the platform’s application of these principles has been uneven at best. In February, on order of the Indian government, X blocked the accounts Hindutva Watch and the India Hate Lab in India, two US-based nonprofits that track incidents of religiously motivated violence perpetrated by supporters of the country’s right-wing government. A 2023 study from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard found that X complied with more government takedown requests under Musk’s leadership than it had previously.

In March, X blocked the accounts of several prominent researchers and journalists after they identified a well-known neo-Nazi cartoonist, later changing its own terms of service to justify the decision.

—Elon Musk Is Platforming Far-Right Activists in Brazil

[survivingcapitalism]

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a major influencer and funder of agricultural development in Africa, with little accountability or transparency. Leading experts in food security and many groups in Africa and around the world have critiqued the foundation’s push to expand high-cost, high-input, chemical-dependent agriculture in Africa. Critics say this approach is exacerbating hunger, worsening inequality and entrenching corporate power in the world’s hungriest region.

This fact sheet links to reports and news articles documenting these concerns.

[...]

What are the main critiques of Gates Foundation’s agricultural program?

The Gates Foundation’s flagship agricultural program, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA, which recently rebranded to remove the term “green revolution” from its name), works to transition farmers away from traditional seeds and crops to patented seeds, fossil-fuel based fertilizers and other inputs to grow commodity crops for the global market. The foundation says its goal is to “boost the yields and incomes of millions of small farmers in Africa… so they can lift themselves and their families out of hunger and poverty.” The strategy is modeled on the Indian “green revolution” that boosted production of staple crops but also left a legacy of structural inequity and escalating debt for farmers that contributed to massive mobilizations of peasant farmers in India.

Critics have said the green revolution is a failed approach for poverty reduction that has created more problems than it has solved; these include environmental degradation, growing pesticide use, reduced diversity of food crops, and increased corporate control over food systems. Several recent research reports provide evidence that Gates-led agricultural interventions in Africa have failed to help small farmers. Critics say the programs may even be worsening hunger and malnutrition in Southern Africa.

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

If say 90% of my world has been cremating the dead for 100,000+ years, how does that affect the world physically on the large scale? I'm talking land use, soil composition, crop growth if it's common to use cremains as fertiliser, its effect on climate etc…

Tex: I’m making the tentative assumption that at some point in those hundred thousand-plus years, a more efficient means of cremation has been invented that is resource-efficient compared to the traditional method of burning upon a pyre. If this is the case, then the footprint would be rather low, and likely also ecologically efficient. I can’t say for sure whether it’s a good idea to use cremation remains as fertilizer, but a lot of land would be freed up for other uses that would otherwise have been designated for graveyards.

Licorice: Cremated human remains do not make good fertiliser. I know this from personal experience with a loved one’s memorial tree that we killed by ‘fertilising’ it with her ashes. It was only after we’d done this that we found out from experts that human ashes are harmful to most plant life.

I should think that after 100,000 years your society would have figured out that using cremains as fertiliser is not helping their crops to grow. 

In India they have been cremating their dead for many thousands of years and I don’t think it has an adverse effect on the land, but it won’t be a positive one either. I believe it’s just neutral, as long as you’re not spreading those ashes on your fields. 

If it’s important to your worldbuilding to use human remains as fertiliser (which honestly, I think would be a very respectful way of using the bodies we leave behind) perhaps they could have developed some form of human composting: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/turning-our-dead-into-fertilizer/

Utuabzu: Historically, many cultures have cremated their dead, ranging from Japan to Ancient Greece to the Aztecs to India, and a whole lot of others. It’s probably the second most common means of dealing with the dead, after burial. However, cremation requires a very high temperature, around 900°C, which even with a modern closed furnace does require a fair amount of fuel. An open pyre would need even more. Any society that cremates their dead is going to have to account for that fuel, likely with managed forestry.

After that, there’s still going to be large bone fragments. Modern western crematoria usually grind these down into a fine powder, but in eastern Asia the bone fragments are usually collected and stored. You’ll need to consider what this world’s cultures do with the bone and ash, and also any other remains, like metals from medical implants and tooth fillings (we usually recycle them).

If you’re going for low environmental impact, the method of disposition with the lowest environmental cost is probably exposure. It’s rare, most prominently practiced by Tibetans and Zoroastrians, but it doesn’t really require any fuel and does return most of the body to the ecosystem rapidly. But unless you’ve got a good cultural/environmental/theological reason most people find it kind of upsetting.

[vncglobal]

Accounting Automation experts in Australia | VNC Global

VNC is one of the most trustworthy as well as distinct Accounting Experts in India. VNC is an accounting firm dedicated to providing individuals, small businesses, and corporations with dependable, professional, and reasonable services. We are passionate about unlocking the power of your accounts and helping you run your business more flexibly with an ever-increasing dedication to quality and openness, so you can focus on what you do best while we handle the statistics and analysis for us.

If you are looking to avail of the services from renowned Accounting Automation experts in Australia, VNC is the best pick for you.

[mariacallous]

Ten years ago, Eliot Higgins could eat room service meals at a hotel without fear of being poisoned. He hadn’t yet been declared a foreign agent by Russia; in fact, he wasn’t even a blip on the radar of security agencies in that country or anywhere else. He was just a British guy with an unfulfilling admin job who’d been blogging under the pen name Brown Moses—after a Frank Zappa song—and was in the process of turning his blog into a full-fledged website. He was an open source intelligence analyst avant la lettre, poring over social media photos and videos and other online jetsam to investigate wartime atrocities in Libya and Syria.

In its disorganized way, the internet supplied him with so much evidence that he was beating UN investigators to their conclusions. So he figured he’d go pro. He called his website Bellingcat, after the fable of the mice that hit on a way to tell when their predator was approaching. He would be the mouse that belled the cat.

Today, Bellingcat is the world’s foremost open source intelligence agency. From his home in the UK, Higgins oversees a staff of nearly 40 employees who have used an evolving set of online forensic techniques to investigate everything from the 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine to a 2020 dognapping to the various plots to kill Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.

Bellingcat operates as an NGO headquartered in the Netherlands but is in demand everywhere: Its staffers train newsrooms and conduct workshops; they unearth war crimes; their forensic evidence is increasingly part of court trials. When I met Higgins one Saturday in April, in a pub near his house, he’d just been to the Netherlands to collect an award honoring Bellingcat’s contributions to free speech—and was soon headed back to collect another, for peace and human rights.

Bellingcat’s trajectory tells a scathing story about the nature of truth in the 21st century. When Higgins began blogging as Brown Moses, he had no illusions about the malignancies of the internet. But along with journalists all over the world, he has discovered that the court of public opinion is broken. Hard facts have been devalued; online, everyone can present, and believe in, their own narratives, even if they’re mere tissues of lies. Along with trying to find the truth, Higgins has also been searching for places where the truth has any kind of currency and respect—where it can work as it should, empowering the weak and holding the guilty accountable.

The year ahead may be the biggest of Bellingcat’s life. In addition to tracking conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, its analysts are being flooded with falsified artifacts from elections in the US, the UK, India, and dozens of other countries. As if that weren’t enough, there’s also the specter of artificial intelligence: still too primitive to fool Bellingcat’s experts but increasingly good enough to fool everyone else. Higgins worries that governments, social media platforms, and tech companies aren’t worrying enough and that they’ll take the danger seriously only when “there’s been a big incident where AI-generated imagery causes real harm”—in other words, when it’s too late.

[ileadtaxllc123]

Top 10 risks of not filing taxes

Tax filing services are necessary for both individuals and businesses alike. Why are they necessary? If you do not file your taxes you cannot carry your losses and they help reduce tax income. In this article, we will disclose the top 10 risks of not filing your taxes. 

There are several dangers and repercussions associated with not opting for tax filing services. Although the precise repercussions may differ based on unique situations and national tax regulations, the following 10 typical hazards are linked to failing to file taxes:

Legal Repercussions:

Tax returns are normally required to be filed by businesses and individuals with the government. If this isn't done, there may be fines, penalties, or even criminal charges brought against you. Get your taxes done with tax experts.

Penalties and Interest Added Up:

Accumulation of Penalties and interest on overdue taxes are frequently imposed for late filing. You can end yourself owing more money as a result of these extra fees the longer you wait. Tax deduction services help with decreasing penalties and help to increase tax returns.

Decrease in Refunds:

If you are eligible for a tax refund, not filing will prevent you from getting the money that is due to you. Refunds are frequently time-limited, so if you don't submit them within the allotted time, you can forfeit your chance to get them. To understand the complexities of tax regulations and compliance one must seek advice from tax accounting experts in India

Harm to one's credit score

Your credit score may suffer if unpaid taxes and related penalties are reported to credit agencies. It may be more difficult for you to obtain loans, mortgages, or credit lines if your credit score is lower.

Asset Seizure:

In severe circumstances, the government may seize assets including bank accounts, real estate, or personal belongings in order to collect delinquent taxes. To avoid these severe circumstances it is best to consult tax accounting experts for tax preparation & planning services in India, and the US.

Reduction in Social Security Income:

In many nations, not filing taxes might affect your eligibility for retirement payments and other social security benefits.

Having Trouble Getting Credit or Loans:

Tax returns are frequently examined by creditors and lenders throughout the loan application process. Obtaining credit or loans could be difficult if your taxes haven't been filed.

Risk of Audit:

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[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Jo Bartosch

Published: Apr 21, 2024

How did people emerge from the hysteria of the witch trials? What must it have felt like to live through the period when supposed witches were suddenly revealed to be ordinary women? What did the accusers say when it became clear that these supposed agents of Satan were simply adult human females? Did they feel guilt and try to make amends? Did they shirk their responsibility? Or did they double down?

The reactions to the publication of the Cass Review last week might give us some idea. The activists, medical professionals and celebrities who championed the trans cause have been confronted with the horror they helped create. Dr Hilary Cass’s report into the NHS’s treatment of gender-confused kids has radically transformed the trans debate, exposing ‘gender-affirming care’ as a dangerous experiment. Now, the disciples of trans ideology are scrambling to save face.

The most common reaction from cheerleaders of trans ideology has been to meekly plead ignorance. One such case is that of Dr Adam Rutherford, geneticist, science communicator and president of Humanists UK – an organisation that in recent years has made a hard turn away from science and rationality in favour of worshipping the cult of gender identity. Yet when he was invited to comment on the Cass Review by Sex Matters director Maya Forstater on X, Rutherford said: ‘It’s not something I know much about.’ Really? It’s somewhat difficult to believe that Rutherford has somehow missed seeing this bit of hugely significant medical news.

This is mirrored by the bleating entreaties for ‘nuance’ from television presenter Kirstie Allsopp. For the past few years, Allsopp has smeared gender-critical views as transphobic. Now she is attempting to rewrite history by claiming that it has always ‘been possible to debate these things and those saying there was no debate are wrong’. We all know this isn’t true. As JK Rowling correctly points out, ‘one of the gender ideologues’ favourite slogans is “no debate”’.

Perhaps the most egregious response of all has come from former Stonewall CEO Baroness Ruth Hunt. It was Hunt who oversaw the charity’s transformation from a gay-rights charity to an LGBT lobby group, with the emphasis firmly on the T. It was under her watch that Stonewall tried to silence warnings about the dangers of experimental puberty blockers. Yet last week, Hunt told The Times that she had simply ‘trusted the experts’ on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, so she couldn’t possibly be held accountable. Given that Stonewall itself was deferred to as an ‘expert’ organisation on the issue of gender-affirming care, it is hard to accept Hunt’s projection of innocence. She was hardly some misled ingénue.

Even more deranged and delusional are those who have dismissed the Cass Review as ‘unscientific’. Apparently, Cass’s four years of research and the reams of data she gathered are simply a pretext for promoting a ‘transphobic’ narrative. This rejection of reason is perhaps most eloquently demonstrated by the hyperbolic hashtag, #CassKillsKids, which has been tweeted out by the likes of broadcaster and trans activist India Willoughby. But this position is so patently untrue that only a small minority of the most committed zealots seem to be defending it.

The fact is, it is incredibly difficult for trans activists to obscure their roles in this scandal. Many of them must now be aware that they cheered on a gruesome, ideologically motivated experiment on children. After all, the facts are now indisputable.

In measured tones and meticulous detail, Cass’s report reveals what was really going on inside the NHS’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). She concludes that the ‘gender affirming’ medical treatments it provided, like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, are based on ‘wholly inadequate’ evidence. Doctors are usually cautious when adopting new treatments, but Cass says ‘quite the reverse happened in the field of gender care for children’. Instead, thousands of children were put on an unproven medical pathway. Worse still, medical professionals seemed largely uninterested in uncovering the side effects and long-term risks of these drugs. Cass says that all but one adult gender clinic refused to share patient data that would allow her team to study how childhood transitioners fared as adults. This made it virtually impossible to research the potential longer-term consequences of transitioning.

The implications of the review are so grave that politicians have had no choice but to act. On Monday, health secretary Victoria Atkins gave an excoriating speech to parliament, laying out the changes in policy that have already been made and those still to come. She reiterated that NHS England would no longer be able to prescribe puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria outside of clinical trials. She also promised a crackdown on private prescriptions, as well as an urgent review on clinical policy for prescribing cross-sex hormones. Vitally, she also announced that NHS trusts that initially refused to cooperate with the review will now share their data, hopefully opening the door for further research. These developments were all sorely needed.

Atkins also made a point of thanking the clinicians, academics, activists and journalists who raised the alarm. She acknowledged that they had ‘risked their careers’ to do so. She told her fellow politicians that it should trouble each of them that the NHS ‘was overtaken by a culture of secrecy and ideology that was allowed to trump evidence and safety’.

Finally, politicians are taking these concerns seriously. Until very recently, they did not want to know. Back in May 2019, I was one of a handful of people to attend the First Do No Harm meeting at the House of Lords. There, in a tiny cramped room, we listened to clinicians and campaigners who were desperately worried about the goings on in the GIDS Tavistock clinic in London.

First Do No Harm was organised by campaigner Venice Allan and Let Women Speak founder Kellie-Jay Keen (aka Posie Parker), with the aim of bringing together journalists, politicians and medical experts. It was chaired and spon.sored by Labour peer Lord Lewis Moonie, who himself had a background in psychology and clinical pharmacological research. Among the attendees was psychoanalyst Marcus Evans. He had resigned from his post as a governor at the Tavistock clinic in February that year, citing concerns about the influence of lobby groups on clinical practice.

Despite this wealth of knowledge and expertise, First Do No Harm went largely ignored by politicians. Invitations were sent out to every member of parliament. But, aside from Moonie, the only politicians in attendance were Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and Conservative MP David Davies. As Evans explained at the time: ‘No one would basically attend, they’d be threatened that they would have the whip withdrawn if they attended… the silencing of opposition in this area is unbelievable.’

There was certainly a cost for Moonie. After over 40 years in the Labour Party, he was told by party general secretary Jenny Formby that his membership would be at risk if he proceeded with the event. So he resigned. Five years on, and the concerns of Moonie, a small band of whistleblowing clinicians and tenacious campaigners have finally been acknowledged.

While First Do No Harm was the first public meeting bringing concerned voices together, staff within GIDS had already been sounding the alarm for some time. It was all the way back in 2004 that Susan Evans, wife of Marcus, first spoke out about the ‘precipitous referral’ of gender-confused children on to a medical pathway. As a clinical nurse at the Tavistock, she tried to raise the possibility that there were alternatives to medically transitioning children. But she was advised that GIDS would be unable to attract patients without offering puberty blockers. Evans resigned in 2007.

Today, Evans tells me that, while she is relieved about the findings of the Cass Review, she is frustrated to see ‘what happened at GIDS described as a debate between two sides’:

‘I wanted to ensure that kids were receiving a thorough assessment and that as a team there would be a more holistic exploration… That’s not a toxic debate, that is clinical discussion and that’s what a responsible clinician ought to do. All I ever did was raise ordinary but important clinical and safeguarding concerns and questions. I was inquisitive.’

Thankfully, there were still some other inquisitive clinicians out there. In 2018, Dr David Bell, consultant psychiatrist and staff governor at the Tavistock, wrote an internal report that slammed GIDS for promoting a model of uncritical gender affirmation. He blamed trans lobby groups like Mermaids and Stonewall for infecting the organisation. He also explained that many of the young patients seeking to medically transition would otherwise grow up to be lesbian, gay or bisexual. For this, senior management at GIDS threatened Bell with disciplinary action, in an attempt to silence him.

Shortly afterwards, in 2019, clinical psychologist Kirsty Entwistle, who had previously worked at the GIDS satellite clinic in Leeds, penned an open letter, echoing similar concerns. She warned that patients were falsely being told that puberty blockers were ‘fully reversible’ and that accusations of transphobia were stifling important medical and safeguarding discussions.

GIDS was desperate to silence anyone who expressed doubts about how clinics were operating. One such whistleblower was Sonia Appleby, who was a social worker and safeguarding lead at the Tavistock. In 2016, Appleby began to raise concerns about the shambolic record-keeping and the potential over-prescription of puberty blockers. For this, she was bullied and monstered by management, and shunned by GIDS director Dr Polly Carmichael. Carmichael apparently told her team that Appleby had ‘an agenda’ and discouraged staff from sharing any safeguarding concerns with her. In a small act of justice, in 2021 Appleby was awarded £20,000 in damages for the appalling way she was treated at the Tavistock.

Many of the stories from those who spoke out chime with one another. They talk about being alarmed that children’s underlying issues were being systematically overlooked. GIDS was more interested in prescribing medical treatments than in helping children who were suffering from homophobic bullying, mental-health issues, sexual abuse or other traumas. When questions were asked about the safety of puberty blockers and hormones, staff faced an atmosphere where clinical curiosity was discouraged. In all, between 2016 and 2019, a total of 35 clinicians left the Tavistock, with many citing concerns about children being over-diagnosed. Meanwhile, management ignored all these concerns and children continued to be prescribed puberty blockers.

It was shortly after Carmichael’s appointment in 2011 that GIDS began its first trial of puberty blockers. Before the research had even concluded, these drugs, which have also been used to chemically castrate sex offenders, were made more widely available to children. In 2014, the minimum prescription age was dropped from 16 to 11. Some private clinics even started prescribing them to children as young as nine.

GIDS management, it seemed, was remarkably unbothered by the lack of evidence for puberty blockers. In 2016, Carmichael told a World Professional Association for Transgender Health conference in Amsterdam that they were crucial for trans-identified kids and ‘incredibly successful’. But in the same speech, she admitted that ‘actually, the Dutch are the only team really who have published long-term perspective studies about this. So there is very little data available.’ Indeed, as Carmichael admits, virtually the only bit of evidence ever referenced in support of puberty blockers is a piece of flawed research from the Netherlands. It was later revealed that the findings from GIDS’s own puberty-blocker trial were far from reliable.

It was left to those on the outside to bring public attention to what was happening at GIDS. Yet, just as with the silencing of clinicians, those outside the medical profession were also smeared as transphobic for questioning the new wisdom about so-called trans kids.

One of the earliest groups to demand an evidence-based approach was Transgender Trend, which was founded by Stephanie Davies-Arai in 2015. She and her organisation were almost instantly hounded and derided by trans extremists. A children’s book published by Transgender Trend was even compared to ‘terrorist propaganda’. But this smear campaign wouldn’t stop the truth from being revealed. Transgender Trend soon attracted the attention of Oxford professor Michael Biggs. In 2019, he published a report with the organisation, showing that the use of puberty blockers did not reduce the mental distress experienced by patients – a conclusion now backed up by Cass.

This reality became impossible to ignore, especially as ‘detransitioners’ began to speak out. The existence of people who regretted their decision to transition proved to be a thorn in the side of the trans movement and a powerful testimony against so-called trans healthcare. In November 2019, a women’s rights group called Make More Noise hosted the first panel discussion of detransitioners in the UK, giving them an opportunity to share their stories with journalists. With testosterone-cracked voices and mastectomy scars, these young women embody the harms of gender medicine. They were the ‘data’ that the clinicians at GIDS had overlooked.

Detransitioners fought to make themselves heard. In 2020, a high-profile legal challenge by detransitioner Keira Bell against the Tavistock prompted NHS England to commission the Cass Review. Leading paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass was then tasked with finding out what was really happening at GIDS.

Detransitioner Sinead Watson, who, as a young adult, took medical steps to present as male, is one of those who gave evidence to the Cass Review researchers. She tells me: ‘They asked about my story, how I was evaluated, how quickly, about the side effects of [testosterone] and about the surgery. They asked how I was helped to deal with the regret when I sought out support from the NHS, and seemed genuinely surprised I had received no help.’

It truly is a scandal that children and youngsters were put on a pathway to medicalisation and then promptly abandoned. There are now calls for a public inquiry, and it looks like adult services will also now face their own Cass-style review. But the problem with the trans ideology is that it extends far beyond medicine. It is a mind virus that has infected almost every British institution.

Certainly, there can never be true justice for detransitioners. They will continue to carry the mistakes of the medical establishment, and the failure of the government, on their bodies. It also seems unlikely that any of the whistleblowers who were vilified for raising the alarm will receive apologies or retractions. Trans cheerleaders will continue to deny any complicity. No doubt the GIDS management and healthcare professionals who tried to suppress the truth will be able to slink off to lucrative careers elsewhere.

Still, the Cass Review has revealed that the witches were right. Its publication ought to mark a historical turning point, and serve as a reminder that truth can win out. We must remember all this when the next hysterical mania sweeps over society.

[reasonsforhope]

Camera-trapping data revealed in a new study show a steady recovery of tigers in Thailand’s Western Forest Complex over the past two decades.

The tiger recovery has been mirrored by a simultaneous increase in the numbers of the tigers’ prey animals, such as sambar deer and types of wild cattle.

The authors attribute the recovery of the tigers and their prey to long-term efforts to strengthen systematic ranger patrols to control poaching as well as efforts to restore key habitats and water sources.

Experts say the lessons learnt can be applied to support tiger recovery in other parts of Thailand and underscore the importance of the core WEFCOM population as a vital source of tigers repopulating adjacent landscapes.

The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data.

Thailand is the final stronghold of the Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti), the subspecies having been extirpated from neighboring Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam over the past decade due to poaching, habitat loss and indiscriminate snaring...

Fewer than 200 tigers are thought to remain in Thailand’s national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, only a handful of which are sufficiently undisturbed and well-protected to preserve breeding tigers. 

The most important of these protected areas for tigers is the Huai Kha Khaeng Thung Yai (HKK-TY) UNESCO World Heritage Site, which comprises three distinct reserves out of the 17 that make up Thailand’s Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM). Together, these three reserves — Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Thungyai Naresuan West and Thungyai Naresuan East — account for more than a third of the entire WEFCOM landscape.

Now, a new study published in Global Ecology and Conservation documents a steady recovery of tigers within the HKK-TY reserves since camera trap surveys began in 2007. The most recent year of surveys, which concluded in November 2023, photographed 94 individual tigers, up from 75 individuals in the previous year, and from fewer than 40 in 2007.

Healthy tiger families  

The study findings reveal that the tiger population grew on average 4% per year in Hua Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, the largest and longest-protected of the reserves, corresponding to an increase in tiger density from 1.3 tigers per 100 square kilometers, to 2.9 tigers/100 km2. 

“Tiger recoveries in Southeast Asia are few, and examples such as these highlight that recoveries can be supported outside of South Asia, where most of the good news [about tigers] appears to come from,” said Abishek Harihar, tiger program director for Panthera, the global wildcat conservation organization, who was not involved in the study.

Among the camera trap footage gathered in HKK-TY over the years were encouraging scenes of healthy tiger families, including one instance of a mother tiger and her three grownup cubs lapping water and lounging in a jacuzzi-sized watering hole. The tiger family stayed by the water source for five days during the height of the dry season.

The team of researchers from Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Kasetsart University, and India’s Center for Wildlife Studies deployed camera traps at more than 270 separate locations throughout the HKK-TY reserves, amassing 98,305 days’ worth of camera-trap data over the 19-year study period.

Using software that identifies individual tigers by their unique stripe patterns, they built a reference database of all known tigers frequenting the three reserves. A total of 291 individual tigers older than 1 year were recorded, as well as 67 cubs younger than 1 year [over the course of the study].

Ten of the tigers were photographed in more than one of the reserves, indicating their territories straddled the reserve boundaries. The authors conclude that each of the three reserves has a solid breeding tiger population and that, taken together, the HKK-TY landscape is a vital source of tigers that could potentially repopulate surrounding areas where they’ve been lost. This is supported by cases of known HKK-TY tigers dispersing into neighboring parts of WEFCOM and even across the border into Myanmar.

Conservation efforts pay off

Anak Pattanavibool, study co-author and Thailand country director at the Wildlife Conservation Society, told Mongabay that population models that take into account the full extent of suitable habitat available to tigers within the reserves and the likelihood that some tigers inevitably go undetected by camera surveys indicate there could be up to 140 tigers within the HKK-YT landscape.

Anak told Mongabay the tiger recovery is a clear indication that conservation efforts are starting to pay off. In particular, long-term action to strengthen systematic ranger patrols to control poaching as well as efforts to boost the tigers’ prey populations seem to be working, he said.

“Conservation success takes time. At the beginning we didn’t have much confidence that it would be possible [to recover tiger numbers], but we’ve been patient,” Anak said. For him, the turning point came in 2012, when authorities arrested and — with the aid of tiger stripe recognition software — prosecuted several tiger-poaching gangs operating in Huai Kha Khaeng. “These cases sent a strong message to poaching gangs and they stopped coming to these forests,” he said."

...ranger teams have detected no tiger poaching in the HKK-TY part of WEFCOM since 2013.

-via Mongabay News, July 17, 2024