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In March 2024, a 21-day strike by Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers ended in Maharashtra, a state in the western peninsula of India, as health ministers announced an increase in salaries. However, some of these promises have been made only verbally, leading ASHA workers to question whether the state will really deliver on increased salaries and additional benefits. According to one story in Pari, a digital publication that publishes stories about rural India, there has been no official government resolution (GR) to reflect  Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s promises, including a salary hike.

Historically, fair pay has eluded ASHA workers for a few reasons. For one, there is a lack of coordination between India’s state and central governments. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) launched the ASHA worker program in 2005 to provide healthcare to even the most remote villages in India, promising to deploy an “ASHA in every village.” However, fragmentation between India’s governments makes it difficult to pass sweeping changes for pay increases for ASHA workers across the country.

This also extends to the judicial system. In one instance, a woman ran for local office but, after facing pressure from a local board of elections, she was forced to withdraw her nomination ahead of elections if she wanted to keep her job as an ASHA worker. This kind of fragmentation, where some ASHA workers are unable to run for local office but others are, depending on the state or region, is emblematic of the difficulties of securing any kind of federal agreement that would stipulate higher pay for Asha workers across the country.

There is also a conflict around the level of education versus low pay received by an ASHA worker. NRHM states that an ASHA worker should be educated until Class 10, a near-high school-level minimum. However, they are being asked to work for less than minimum wage.

Though ASHA workers’ strikes have been suspended in Maharashtra, many of the verbal promises about salary increases remain verbal commitments rather than contractual obligations. It is crucial to highlight the labor rights issues involved with promising salary increases but the government’s failure to implement these. ASHA workers have been the backbone of India’s rural health mission, yet the government hasn’t bothered to consider them as salaried professionals, instead wanting to treat women ASHA workers as “honorary volunteers.” ASHA strikes have made headlines in The Times of India and Hindustan Times, but have not touched the international community as much.

Sources:

Ritu Sharma and Swadesha Sharma, “State Reassures Protesting ASHAs… Once Again,” Pari, March 8, 2024.

Shreya Ramon and Abhijeet Gurjar, “Their Roles Ambiguous, ASHA Workers Fight For The Right To Contest Elections,” Behanbox, January 5, 2024.

Student Researcher: Kelsey Oliver (University of California, Berkeley)

Faculty Evaluator: Ankita Kumar (University of California, Berkeley)

In this Weekend Essay, Amanda Newman Smith shares a personal story highlighting the importance of excellent customer service, especially when dealing with vulnerable clients. She contrasts negative experiences with a paint company and a clock supplier against a positive resolution with NatWest bank when assisting her elderly mother. This episode underscores the significance of empathy, clear communication, and proactive problem-solving in building trust and loyalty.

When I was younger, I never considered myself a reader until — at 12 years old —  I picked up a copy of Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief off of a library shelf at school. My nose was perpetually stuck in a book after that. I spent my formative years reading anything I could get my hands on, but I quickly found my home in the Young Adult (YA) section of every library or bookstore I walked into. 

Chances are, if you’re someone who consider yourself a reader, you have also spent a significant amount of time perusing the stacks labeled YA at your local bookstore or library. YA is home to some of pop culture’s biggest hits, like Divergent, The Hunger Games and Twilight. However, the fact that YA has become so popular does not mean that it is intended for all audiences. In recent years, adult readers have poured into the category, altering it significantly.

What is YA?

YA is a category — not a genre. A genre groups books by a set of thematic elements, while a category groups books by their intended audience. When YA gets redefined as a genre, it can lose touch with its audience.

The Young Adult Library Service Association first created the YA category in the 1960s to cater to readers aged 12–18. They realized that there was not a space for teens in the literary world, so they gave them one.

Other than age range, there are no conventions that YA must follow. However, there is a lot of overlap in the content that these stories explore. YA books tend to share common tropes, character archetypes and plotlines. The main characters tend to be 12–18 years old, the same age as the readers. “Good girls” and “bad boys” are frequent archetypes. Plots often center on love triangles and coming-of-age narratives. 

Since YA is intended for a younger audience, it tends to avoid explicit content like intense descriptions of sex and sexual or physical violence. YA can explore these topics, but not with graphic detail; you’re not going to find Game of Thrones sitting in the YA section. Think of YA in terms of cinema: If it were a rating, it would be PG-13.

In the past five years, however, the content we have been seeing would be rated R. Adult consumers of YA have demanded more explicit content. This raises the question: Why are so many adults reading YA in the first place?

Why are adults flooding into YA?

As an active reader and a participant in online book communities for a decade, I can safely say that most — if not all — of the books I have read in the past five years have been recommended to me via social media. The Internet connects us all, and the book community is no exception. The literature sides of TikTok, Instagram and YouTube (affectionately dubbed BookTok, Bookstagram and BookTube) have allowed readers to share the works they love with one another.

An unintended consequence of this connection is the use of these platforms as a means to promote books. BookTok especially has had a major impact on the way that books are being promoted. Walk into your local Barnes and Noble and there will be a display table piled high with books that are “Popular on BookTok!”

The problem with this form of marketing is who is participating. Most YA promoters are adults, and most of their audience is adults too. It’s not that teens don’t use social media or that they aren’t also a part of these spaces, but they do not make up a large enough portion to have a voice. There are fewer of them, and besides, they have less money to spend.

Adult marketers attract adult readers and isolate teen fans by reducing YA to a set of tropes that readers are accustomed to seeing, without regard to who they are meant for. The protagonist is a teenager and the plot is a love triangle, not because this is what appeals to young people but because this is what the aesthetic demands. Booktok promoters hawk books on popular tropes — “try this new enemies-to-lovers book!” These are abstractions of teenage experiences, and often cliches, that no longer appeal to young people as such. This ageless marketing strategy draws in readers from across the board.

In April, The Guardian reported that 74% of YA readers were adults; 28% of them were over 28. If you go onto BookTok, Bookstagram and BookTube, you’ll find that the vast majority of people promoting YA books are above the intended reader age range.

How are adult readers changing YA?

There is nothing wrong with adults reading YA books. In fact, a lot of adults gravitate to YA because it contains less smut. However, since the typical buyer is now over 18, authors are shifting to please the largest and most vocal part of their reader base.

Remember that YA is a category, defined by its age base. With the influx of adult readers, it has instead become a genre that peddles the same themes but to a redefined audience. When you pick up a “YA” book now, you will find the same characters, plots and tropes you would have found 15 years ago — but in between these familiar themes, you’ll also find loads of “spicy” content meant to service the new audience.

YA was the perfect place for teens to begin to explore the topic of sex. This came in the form of fade-to-black, closed-door or non-graphic sex scenes. Today, you’re going to find very detailed — and numerous — descriptions of sex. While these scenes might not use the exact vocabulary that novels in the Adult category would, the level of detail becomes graphic regardless of the word choice.

One notable example is the A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) series by Sarah J. Maas. When Maas originally wrote the book, she intended for it to be published in the Adult category. However, her existing fan base was in YA, thanks to her Throne of Glass series. So, Maas’s publisher pushed ACOTAR into the category. She accepted this change on the condition that she would not have to cut any of the smut.

The first four books in the ACOTAR series were all published as YA despite containing chapter-long, in-depth sex scenes. Only with the release of the fifth book — A Court of Silver Flames — came a rebrand of the series as Adult. Which raises the question: Why was it ever allowed to be published as YA if the content has always been Adult?

How does adultified YA affect young readers?

The YA category is meant to be a space for teens to find themselves and explore topics that help them through their adolescence. For these readers, sexuality is something new, unfamiliar, awkward and exciting. They deserve books that can help them make sense of this part of reality — not just books that put it on display for a meaningless thrill.

The more Adult books get pushed into YA, the more teens engage with explicit content. Remember, YA starts as early as 12. Between the ages of 12 and 18, there is a lot of mental development occurring. It is not healthy for children to be reading what can — in some of the worst cases — be porn. Whether we can “separate fiction from reality” or not, the media we take in affects us mentally. Porn has documented effects on the brain similar to drugs or alcohol, especially for children who lack the mental defenses to this sort of assault.

Sex in YA novels is not inherently a bad thing. However, there is a difference between scenes that are meant to convey the awkwardness of adolescence and new experiences and scenes that are meant to be erotic. Authors need to be very conscious of what purpose the sex in their books has. If they want it simply for the sake of having it, then YA is not the category they need to be publishing in.

How do we prevent children from reading porn?

The lines get even blurrier when you consider that there is no longer a uniform age range for YA. When the Young Adult Library Service Association coined the term, the age range was 12–18. If you look up what the age range for YA is today, you might get a slightly different answer. The lack of uniformity allows people to stretch the bounds of what is acceptable for the traditional YA reader to be exposed to. The older the age range gets, the more explicit the content becomes.

The term “Young Adult” itself is confusing. I have spoken to many people who quite naturally interpreted the phrase as “adults who are young,” aged 18–24, rather than 12–18. Dan Weiss and S. Jae-Jones of St. Martin’s Press attempted to resolve this confusion by creating a new category for the 18–24 age range called New Adult (NA). It would serve as a bridge between YA and Adult by allowing these people to have their own space to explore this transitional period in their lives.

Despite the need, NA has failed to pick up as a category in its own right. Most publishers will tell you that it simply doesn’t exist. A big part of its failure is due to the perception of NA as “YA with smut.” Ultimately, the public does not understand that NA is a category, not a genre. They see no value in creating NA because, when seen as a genre, it produces similar stories to YA. Until the public can learn to separate genres and categories, NA will continue to fail and YA will continue to suffer. 

You sometimes see explicit books marketed to “older YA” audiences. They’ll have labels like “16+” to convey that the material is not suitable for everyone who falls under the YA category. However, YA is still YA. There is no real differentiation between “older YA” and “younger YA” in terms of publishing. Libraries and bookstores do not uniformly police this distinction. Authors, editors and publishers should consider that, when it comes to YA, a 12-year-old might always pick up their book.

Just as importantly, 12-year-olds are still an important part of the YA reader base, and they deserve to be treated as such. Instead of trying to split up YA into “older” and “younger”, authors and publishers need to focus more on promoting NA as its own category and leave YA to the people it’s meant for.

Ultimately, re-labeling categories is not going to magically fix the problem. The forces at play are too great to be stopped by a sticker on a dust jacket. What we have is a cultural problem, and it needs a cultural solution. Authors, editors and publishers of integrity should nudge adult readers to seek explicit content in the Adult section instead of pushing it into a space meant for kids.

It’s never going to be possible to give YA a hard set of rules and conventions to follow, because there is a lot of subjectivity involved in defining what is appropriate for its audience. However, we can give some soft recommendations to follow so authors can write content suitable for everyone who falls within their target age range. A rule of thumb, to which I alluded above, is that if sex is presented primarily for the reader’s pleasure, it does not belong in YA.

None of this is meant to shame people for what they read or write. If you’re an adult who loves YA, great! I love YA. There is nothing wrong with reading books that fall outside of your age category. But as responsible consumers and producers of literature, we can make sure that there is enough space for all to enjoy the joys of reading.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The US derivatives watchdog has finalised the first federal guidelines for unregulated carbon offsets, as the Biden administration seeks to standardise a disorderly market in a bid to tackle climate change. 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission adopted measures announced on Friday that ask exchanges to validate carbon offset derivatives, which base their prices on those of financial instruments bought by companies to offset emissions.

Treasury secretary Janet Yellen issued a statement on Friday praising the new guidelines as a means to “promote the integrity of carbon credits and enable greater liquidity and price transparency”.

The unregulated market for carbon credits is estimated to grow to $100bn by 2030, up from $2bn this year, according to Morgan Stanley. But the voluntary carbon derivatives market has languished, with only a handful of contracts attracting substantial trading volume due to concerns about credibility.

“We actually have a legal responsibility to ensure the health and transparency of both the derivative side, but also the underlying cash market,” CFTC chair Rostin Behnam told the Financial Times.

The guidelines, which were initially proposed in December, seek to crack down on manipulation and price distortions by pushing exchanges to ensure that voluntary carbon credit derivatives comply with CFTC regulation as well as US law. 

“With any project that has the scale that the carbon market is seeking, you’re going to have error rates, you’re going to have bad actors,” Behnam said. 

The CFTC voted 4-1 in favour of adopting the guidelines, with Summer Mersinger, one of the agency’s two Republican commissioners, voting against.

Boosting the reputation of carbon markets has been a political priority for the administration of US President Joe Biden, which sees carbon credits as a way to lure more private sector money into renewable energy and conservation.

While the credits have been initially popular among companies, they have also attracted criticism for failing to deliver the carbon removals they promise.

Earlier this summer, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen unveiled guidelines for developers selling credits, and for the companies buying them to offset emissions. Former US climate envoy John Kerry has also thrown his weight behind carbon credit markets, launching a state department-led initiative in 2022 aimed at decarbonising regional power sectors.

Despite the political momentum behind efforts to develop voluntary carbon markets, Behnam cautioned that the energy transition would “take decades”.

“This notion that we’re going to be able to just transition to renewables in the near future and not rely on carbon-based energy sources . . . it’s not reality, right?” said Behnam. “The transition is going to take time.”

The guidance puts the onus on exchanges registered with the agency to ensure the integrity of voluntary carbon credit derivatives.

Exchanges should consider whether a contract ensures that a project creates emission reductions that would not occur without it. They should also seek to ensure there is no “double-counting”, which occurs when multiple carbon credits are backed by the same trees, for example.

The guidance “will help professionalise and scale voluntary carbon markets,” said Mark Carney, the UN special envoy on climate action and finance and former Bank of England governor. “Other global regulators should now follow the CFTC’s lead.”

Guidance is not the same as regulation, a more powerful tool. But “it was pretty clear that a guidance document would be the best starting point . . . and one that would get support from a broad coalition of stakeholders”, Behnam said.

For years, the unregulated carbon market has suffered from greenwashing concerns, and the guidelines come as the market has narrowed. Derivatives exchange CME Group on August 30 said it would delist one of its futures products for emissions offsets that was launched only two years ago.

Recent surveys of carbon credit users have found worries about carbon offsets’ credibility has discouraged businesses from buying them, MSCI said in a September 19 report.

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U.S., U.K. and United Nations officials urged restraint as tensions ramped up between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. After days of escalating conflict, Israel carried out extensive airstrikes targeting Southern Lebanon on Sept. 19 and Hezbollah retaliated on Sept. 20, prompting fears of further conflict and a wider Middle East war. It comes just days after thousands of pagers and other wireless devices, many of which were used by Hezbollah, exploded in Lebanon and parts of Syria in an unprecedented deadly attack that killed at least 37 people and wounded 3,000. While Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, Hezbollah officials and multiple news outlets have suggested that the Israeli government was responsible.

Hezbollah said on Sept. 20 that it had launched multiple strikes targeting Israel’s military in the north of the country. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said around 140 rockets had been launched at the Golan Heights, Safed and the Upper Galilee areas, adding that it had intercepted some of those. The IDF later said that it had launched an airstrike on Lebanon’s capital Beirut. In a post on social media platform X earlier in the day, the Israel Foreign Ministry wrote, “Make no mistake: those who harm the people of Israel will pay the price.”

Read More: ‘It Sounded Like Gunfire.’ Fear Grips Lebanon After Deadly Pager and Radio Blasts

The 15-member United Nations Security Council is expected to meet today to discuss the tensions. A spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Peace Keeping Force in Lebanon, expressed concern about the tensions at the border between Israel and Lebanon, known as the Blue Line. “We are concerned at the increased escalation across the Blue Line and urge all actors to immediately de-escalate,” Andrea Tenenti, told Reuters.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that the U.S. is “afraid and concerned about potential escalation.” During a press briefing on Sept. 19, Jean-Pierre said, “The way to move forward is diplomatic resolution. We think it is achievable. Obviously it is urgent.” She added: “Diplomacy is key here when we talk about potential escalation, which we do not want to see.” On Sept. 18, Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, called on “all parties” to avoid further escalating the conflict. Meanwhile, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah on Sept. 19.

In October 2023, Hezbollah began striking Israel’s Northern border region in solidarity with Gaza, where there is an ongoing war with Israel. Israel has responded, striking Lebanon’s Southern border, and the two groups have been trading strikes almost daily for nearly a year. Until now, neither group has let things escalate into a full-scale war, but some in the diplomatic community are concerned that could change soon.

Israel says its goal is to allow all internally displaced Israelis to return to their homes in the border region. Currently, 97,000 Lebanese people and 60,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate their homes since the tensions began in October of last year, according to Al Jazeera.

Late on the evening of Sept. 16, before the pager attack, Netanyahu’s security cabinet officially added the safe return of Israel’s Northern residents to their homes as one of the war’s goals.

“The possibility for an agreement is running out as Hezbollah continues to ‘tie itself’ to Hamas, and refuses to end the conflict,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Sept. 16. “Therefore, the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes, will be via military action.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasralla said in a televised address on Sept. 19 that Israel’s actions were a declaration of war and vowed to respond. “The enemy crossed all rules, laws, and red lines. It didn’t care about anything at all, not morally, not humanely, not legally,” he said. “It can be called war crimes or a declaration of war–whatever you choose to name it, it is deserving and fits the description.”

He also said that Israel would pay a price for its actions and that Hezbollah would continue to attack Israel’s Northern border so long as Israel maintains its presence in Gaza. “The enemy will face a severe and fair punishment from where they expect and don’t expect,” he said. 

I’ve always got a DIY project going on at home, so I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to paint. There’s a textured paint that looks like stone, which I bought a while back to revamp my fireplace. This paint is fantastic, but pretty expensive. So when the company I ordered if from threw in the recommended natural bristle brush as a freebie, I was happy.

But when the paint arrived, there was no brush. Thinking it had been overlooked, I called the firm. I got through to one of the business owners who told me they’d run out. Fair enough, but it would have been nice to have been told. A simple ‘out of stock’ on the dispatch note would have done.

The free brush offer was also still listed on the website but when I pointed this out to the owner, she became defensive. This was just a small family-run business, I was told. The technology used to run the website couldn’t update these things automatically and they couldn’t afford an upgrade. They didn’t have the time to update these things manually either.

I love small businesses and I understand they don’t have it easy, but all this put me off as a customer. I tried to explain how this hadn’t created a good impression on me, a first-time customer, but it fell on deaf ears. I haven’t used this company since.

My experience with another small firm – an online business from which I’d ordered a glass clock – was so different. The owner had been let down on this by her European suppliers and was so apologetic and friendly that I was happy to wait for my order. I waited three months but in the end it needed to be cancelled due to the ongoing supply issues. I was disappointed, of course, but I was offered a discount on anything else I wanted from the website.

I mention those two contrasting experiences because of an experience I had recently while trying to help my mum with her banking. My mum is a younger pensioner and though still in the active retirement phase, she does have a few health issues that clip her wings. Like the hip pinning she had several years ago after slipping on some leaves. Walking long distances has got harder and she doesn’t drive.

When it comes to financial matters, the big problem is that my mum has never been comfortable talking on the phone about ‘official’ things. She gets nervous about what to say and doesn’t know how best to put things. And because she’s focusing on that, she doesn’t always take in what’s being said to her.

My dad used to deal with all that stuff and when he died, I started stepping in as I realised my mum needed a bit of help.

Requesting a new debit card for my mum from NatWest to replace one that had worn out should have been quick and easy. With mum and I both in the same room, GDPR should have been no problem to navigate. But everything about this call was painful and it took about 40 minutes.

My mum had lost her glasses and struggled when NatWest’s customer services agent insisted she read out her debit card number herself, as that was the required procedure. To tick that box, I had to read the number out to my mum, who then repeated it down the phone to the agent.

Then the agent discovered my mum’s phone number was out of date on the system and without that, she said there was nothing she could do. It was only when I asked whether the agent was aware of the Consumer Duty – to which I got no answer – and NatWest’s responsibilities towards vulnerable clients that we were passed to the over-60s helpline.

The agent there was brilliant but was still unable to send my mum a new debit card due to the out-of-date phone number. For that, mum was to visit a branch with some ID. It wasn’t ideal – the local branch has permanently closed and I’ve already explained mum’s difficulty with longer distances. Mum would potentially be left without access to cash because her debit card was unreliable. But at least we knew what to do.

When I got home, I decided to tell NatWest what had happened in an email. I was worried how my mum would have fared if she hadn’t had someone with financial services knowledge to speak up and get transferred to the over-60s helpline.

At this point, I have to give credit to NatWest. They swiftly apologised and started to investigate. Neil Wainwright, the firm’s customer protection manager, was amazing. He spoke to mum and me to get everything sorted without mum having to get to a physical branch. NatWest also gave mum some cash as a goodwill gesture and if we need anything else we just need to ask.

I told NatWest I was writing about our experience and asked for a response. A spokesman told me its staff are trained to recognise the differing needs of customers including vulnerabilities that may be present. “They have access to supportive guidance on how to help and can refer to the specialist teams we have available to support customers with more complex needs,” he said.

Customers can also tell the bank about any support they need through “Banking My Way”, a free service that can be used within its mobile app, online banking or by speaking to a member of staff.

But after listening back to our calls, NatWest acknowledged it let us down. “We had several opportunities throughout the discussion to give you both a better experience, including a missed opportunity to handover the call to Neil’s team,” the spokesman said. “As a result of your email we have arranged additional training to be given to the colleagues involved.”

All of us get it wrong sometimes – it’s the care and effort we take to put things right that really counts.