Last week’s Dresden Drop looked to the future, revealing the long-awaited trailer for Peace Talks and the bombshell announcement that there will be TWO Dresden novels this year. This week, we’ll look to the past, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the publication of Storm Front on April 1st, 2000. Paranoid? Probably. But just because you’re [...]

Faraway galaxies have been spotted unexpectedly flashing up to 100 times their usual brightness, and it seems to be caused by eddies in Earth’s atmosphere

Coffee has been linked to changes on our DNA that affect how active certain genes are. The finding may help explain some of coffee's touted health benefits

The UK government will begin trials of its coronavirus contact-tracing app this week, but what impact it will have on slowing the spread of covid-19 is unclear

Once the coronavirus pandemic is over, we must work out how to stop the spread of poor information that has helped make a bad situation that much worse

I was scheduled to get a routine physical a while back, cancelled for obvious reasons, and last week Stevens County Medical Center called me to come in for it today, which feels odd. I guess our local clinic has not been overwhelmed — there have been zero reported cases of COVID-19 in Stevens County, perhaps […]

This story is a bit on the nose. Hello, Peter Ludlow here, CEO of InGen, the company behind the wildly successful dinosaur-themed amusement park, Jurassic Park. As you’re all aware, after an unprecedented storm hit the park, we lost power and the velociraptors escaped their enclosure and killed hundreds of park visitors, prompting a two-month […]

Currently making the rounds: I was suspicious, though. It’s too good to be true. So I snooped about, and found the original on the ADL website. OK, now, really — who thought they needed to edit the original sign to make it less evil and more obviously stupid? That was a waste of effort. Just […]

A lower court had ruled that the prisoner’s gender-affirming surgery is a medical necessity, and denying it constituted a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

On Thursday, the country reported its largest one-day increase in new cases of 11,231 — yet President Putin already has his eyes on reopening.

Former director of national intelligence James Clapper in 2018 said that he hadn't seen evidence that the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 general election.Clapper was responding to a query from then-representative Tom Rooney, a Florida Republican, during an interview before the House Intelligence Committee. The transcript of the interview was released on Thursday."I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting [or] conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election," Clapper said."That's not to say that there weren't concerns about the evidence we were seeing, anecdotal evidence…[redacted]," Clapper added. "But I do not recall any instance when I had direct evidence of the content of these meetings. It's just the frequency and prevalence of them was of concern."Rooney then asked Clapper, "At what time is collusion collusion, and at what time is it just people that may have an affiliation with the campaign meeting or talking with… the Russian ambassador or somebody that's of Russian origin, and when should that be taken as something that rises to the level of an Intelligence Community concern?""I really can't answer it other than the sort of visceral reaction to why all these meetings with the Russians," Clapper responded. Clapper admitted that it would be "legitimate" for incoming Trump administration officials to meet with representatives of Russia, "but I think there is a line…between that and violating the principle that in this country we traditionally have one President and one administration at a time."The interview was part of a set of 53 transcripts of interviews held by the House Intelligence Committee as part of the Russia investigation. Current committee chairman Adam Schiff had called for the release of the transcripts in 2018.However, after 43 transcripts had been reviewed and redacted by intelligence agencies as of June 2019, Schiff refused to relase the completed transcripts to the public. Current acting DNI head Richard Grenell informed Schiff on Wednesday that all the transcripts were ready for publication.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department's decision to drop the criminal case against Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, even though he had twice pleaded guilty to lying to investigators, was extraordinary and had no obvious precedent, a range of criminal law specialists said Thursday."I've been practicing for more time than I care to admit and I've never seen anything like this," said Julie O'Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches criminal law at Georgetown University.The move is the latest in a series that the department, under Attorney General William Barr, has taken to undermine and dismantle the work of the investigators and prosecutors who scrutinized Russia's 2016 election interference operation and its links to people associated with the Trump campaign.The case against Flynn for lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador was brought by the office of the former special counsel, Robert Mueller. It had become a political cause for Trump and his supporters, and the president had signaled that he was considering a pardon once Flynn was sentenced. But Barr instead abruptly short-circuited the case.On Thursday, Timothy Shea, the interim U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, told the judge overseeing the case, Emmet G. Sullivan, that prosecutors were withdrawing the case. They were doing so, he said, because the department could not prove to a jury that Flynn's admitted lies to the FBI about his conversations with the ambassador were "material" ones.The move essentially erases Flynn's guilty pleas. Because he was never sentenced and the government is unwilling to pursue the matter further, the prosecution is virtually certain to end, although the judge must still decide whether to grant the department's request to dismiss it "with prejudice," meaning it could not be refiled in the future.A range of former prosecutors struggled to point to any previous instance in which the Justice Department had abandoned its own case after obtaining a guilty plea. They portrayed the justification Shea pointed to -- that it would be difficult to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the lies were material -- as dubious."A pardon would have been a lot more honest," said Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches criminal law at Duke University.The law regarding what counts as "material" is extremely forgiving to the government, Buell added. The idea is that law enforcement is permitted to pursue possible theories of criminality and to interview people without having firmly established that there was a crime first.James G. McGovern, a defense lawyer at Hogan Lovells and a former federal prosecutor, said juries rarely bought a defendant's argument that a lie did not involve a material fact."If you are arguing 'materiality,' you usually lose, because there is a tacit admission that what you said was untrue, so you lose the jury," he said.No career prosecutors signed the motion. Shea is a former close aide to Barr. In January, Barr installed him as the top prosecutor in the district that encompasses the nation's capital after maneuvering out the Senate-confirmed former top prosecutor in that office, Jessie K. Liu.Soon after, in an extraordinary move, four prosecutors in the office abruptly quit the case against Trump's longtime friend Roger Stone. They did so after senior Justice Department officials intervened to recommend a more lenient prison term than standard sentencing guidelines called for in the crimes Stone was convicted of committing -- including witness intimidation and perjury -- to conceal Trump campaign interactions with WikiLeaks.It soon emerged that Barr had also appointed an outside prosecutor, Jeff Jensen, the U.S. attorney in St. Louis, to review the Flynn case files. The department then began turning over FBI documents showing internal deliberations about questioning Flynn, like what warnings to give -- even though such files are usually not provided to the defense.Flynn's defense team has mined such files for ammunition to portray the FBI as running amok in its decision to question Flynn in the first place. The questioning focused on his conversations during the transition after the 2016 election with the Russian ambassador about the Obama administration's imposition of sanctions on Russia for its interference in the American election.The FBI had already concluded that there was no evidence that Flynn, a former Trump campaign adviser, had personally conspired with Russia about the election, and it had decided to close out the counterintelligence investigation into him. Then questions arose about whether and why Flynn had lied to administration colleagues like Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the ambassador.Because the counterintelligence investigation was still open, the bureau used it as a basis to question Flynn about the conversations and decided not to warn him at its onset that it would be a crime to lie. Notes from Bill Priestap, then the head of the FBI's counterintelligence division, show that he wrote at one point about the planned interview: "What's our goal? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"Barr has also appointed another outside prosecutor, John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to reinvestigate the Russia investigators even though the department's independent inspector general was already scrutinizing them.And his department has intervened in a range of other ways, from seeking more comfortable prison accommodations last year for Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, to abruptly dropping charges in March against two Russian shell companies that were about to go to trial for financing schemes to interfere in the 2016 election using social media.Barr has let it be known that he does not think the FBI ever had an adequate legal basis to open its Russia investigation in the first place, contrary to the judgment of the Justice Department's inspector general.In an interview on CBS News on Thursday, Barr defended the dropping of the charges against Flynn on the grounds that the FBI "did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage."Anne Milgram, a former federal prosecutor and former New Jersey attorney general who teaches criminal law at New York University, defended the FBI's decision to question Flynn in January 2017. She said that much was still a mystery about the Russian election interference operation at the time and that Flynn's lying to the vice president about his postelection interactions with a high-ranking Russian raised new questions.But, she argued, the more important frame for assessing the dropping of the case was to recognize how it fit into the larger pattern of the Barr-era department "undercutting the law enforcement officials and prosecutors who investigated the 2016 election and its aftermath," which she likened to "eating the Justice Department from the inside out."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

The officer used a “takedown measure” to gain control of the woman because of “other threat factors in the store,” a police official said.

The experiment is part of the government's track and trace strategy aimed at limiting a second wave.

Banks see stampede for bounce-back loans within hours of the new government scheme going live.

A judge dismisses Christian Hacking's bid to overturn a ban on posters put up around Waltham Forest.

Nadia Whittome claims she was "sacked" but the care employer says she was no longer needed.

In states like Texas, malls can operate at a 25% capacity and for some, it's a reason to get out of the house.

Watford become the third team to publicly oppose the use of neutral venues when Premier League football returns.

Andrew's mother was dying in hospital under lockdown, so he used technology to spend time with her.

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Velma, Emma and Dean believe mobile phone signals, wi-fi and other modern technology makes them ill.

The CEO of Methodist Homes says a secure supply chain from government would mean avoiding inflated prices.

Without any modifications, React is really fast as-is. There are, however, a few things that you can do to improve performance. While working at HelloSign, I discovered some quick fixes that made our apps incredibly snappy. With these simple changes, I was able to reduce render time from over 3000 milliseconds to less than 200 milliseconds.

Without any modifications, React is really fast as-is. There are, however, a few things that you can do to improve performance. While working at HelloSign, I discovered some quick fixes that made our apps incredibly snappy. With these simple changes, I was able to reduce render time from over 3000 milliseconds to less than 200 milliseconds.

Editor’s Note:

Check out our upcoming React University Workshops. Our next workshop, React 2016, will be held on April 23 at Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco and will offer a deep dive into creating modern Single-Page Applications (SPA) using React, Redux, React Router, Immutable.js, and Webpack. Also, if you’re interested in learning the basics about what it takes to be a Data Visualization Engineer, check out React and D3.

Introduction

HelloSign is a cloud-based electronic signature tool founded in 2010. As you can imagine, HelloSign is a very JavaScript-heavy codebase. A lot of client-side behavior is necessary to create a rich signing experience. Lately, we’ve moved much of our codebase toward React. In fact, in many places we’ve broken up our codebase into several single-page applications written in React.

Although the HelloSign team was happy with React’s performance before I initially joined the project, I quickly found some low-hanging fruit that could improve runtime speed. Here are the steps you should take to see similar improvements in your own applications.

Create a Baseline Performance Measurement

Before you begin, you should take a baseline measurement. Optimizations are meaningless if you can’t verify the results of your modifications.

Thankfully, Chrome has excellent developer tools to help. One, little-used feature of Chrome’s DevTools is the “Timeline” tool. It allows you to record and analyze all activity in your application. You can record interactions on the page, locate potential memory leaks, measure the total time it takes to perform a task, and identify areas of potential jank. Best of all, the results can be recorded for comparison with your final benchmark.

There’s actually a really awesome video on Chrome’s DevTools that goes into detail about the “Timeline” feature. You can view it here.

We chose to measure the time elapsed between the initial paint of our signer page to the final rendering of the entire page. The initial download of our bundles still needs some optimization, but we’re neither going to mess with nor measure this parameter. It’s fairly easy and consistent to test render time rather than trying to click areas around the page and trying to measure its performance in a repeatable way. Then, all we needed to do was to go to the signer page, open Chrome’s DevTools “Timeline” tab, and refresh the page.

As a side note, make sure that when performing this test, the “Paint” and “Screenshots” boxes are checked so that you can see what the user sees as the page is being rendered.

After all that, we determined that our rendering time from initial paint was a little over 3 seconds. Much too long. Luckily, there was little we had to do to make this quite a bit faster.

Set NODE_ENV to Production

This step is easy to get wrong, even if you are well-informed. React’s documentation provides an overview, but doesn’t provide many specifics. React has great developer warnings and error checking, but these are only intended for development; if you take a look at React’s source code, you’ll see a lot of if (process.env.NODE_ENV != 'production') checks. This is running extra code that is not needed by the end user, not to mention that calling process.env.NODE_ENV is extremely slow. For production environments, we can remove all this unnecessary code. Just keep in mind that you don’t want to do this in development because it will remove all those helpful developer warnings.

If you’re using Webpack, you can use DefinePlugin to replace all instances of process.env.NODE_ENV with 'production', and then use the UglifyJsPlugin to remove all the dead code that no longer runs. Here’s a sample setup that you might use:

// webpack.config.js
  ...
  plugins: [
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      // A common mistake is not stringifying the "production" string.
      'process.env.NODE_ENV': JSON.stringify('production')
    }),
    new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({
      compress: {
        warnings: false
      }
    })
  ]
  ...

React Constant and Inline Elements Transforms

React 0.14 introduced support for certain transpile time optimizations with Constant and Inline Element Babel Transforms. React Constant Elements treats JSX elements as values and hoists them to a higher scope. In other words, it hoists static elements and thereby reduces calls to React.createClass. React Inline Elements converts JSX elements into the object literals that they eventually return. Again, this minimizes the runtime calls to React.createClass.

The implementation is rather simple. We added our Babel configuration in our package.json file:

// package.json
  ...
  "babel": {
    "env": {
      "production": {
        "plugins": [
          "transform-react-constant-elements",
          "transform-react-inline-elements"
        ]
      }
    }
  },
  ...

Final Measurement / Conclusion

Lastly, you’ll want to run the benchmark again and compare it with that saved benchmark from before these optimizations. As you can see, the total runtime profile ends 200ms after initial paint! That’s 15 times faster!

World Cup-bound Suarez flourishing in Finland

Monterrey’s Cardenas happy to be a hero

Former India captain MS Dhoni's presence in the current India squad for the WT20 is the biggest topic of debate at the moment. Many cricketers, current and former have their own views.

Former Indian cricketer Krishnamachari Srikkanth shared his views on MS Dhoni’s chances of making it to the Indian team for the 2020 ICC T20 World Cup on Star Sports 1 show Cricket Connected and said “I am not going to be diplomatic. I am talking about if I was the chairman of the selection committee, what would I do. If the IPL does not happen then his chances are very, very bleak. Because straightaway, in my opinion, KL Rahul will be the wicketkeeper-batsman. Rishabh Pant, I still think he might be a bit of a doubt, but I believe that Rishabh Pant is highly talented. So, I wouldn’t mind taking him along with the squad, but definitely, if the IPL doesn’t happen, then Dhoni will have a difficult time getting back into the team for the T20 World Cup. Let’s be very honest about it. He is absolutely fit, he is a legend, he is brilliant. I am a great fan of Dhoni myself. But the question is for the World Cup team. So you’ll have to put the Indian team first and then the individuals.

Meanwhile, former opening batsman Gautam Gambhir also expressed his thoughts on Yuvraj Singh’s recent comments pertaining to role models in the current team and said, “I agree with Yuvraj that there is a dearth of role models in the Indian team currently, like in the 2000s, we had Dravid, Kumble, Laxman, Sourav and Sachin to guide the team. It is important to have senior players around you who can help you when you’re going through a rough patch. Right now, I don’t think there are enough seniors in the Indian camp, who will set aside their self-interest to help youngsters.

Who are the role models in #TeamIndia’s dressing room?

Watch @GautamGambhir, @VVSLaxman281 and other experts weigh in on the discussion and much more on #CricketConnected!

⏳: Saturday, 7 PM
📺: Star Sports Network & Disney+Hotstar pic.twitter.com/fwsyqil4Wp

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) April 15, 2020

Another ex-Test opener VVS Laxman also shared his views on Rohit Sharma not featuring in Wisden Cricketers of the Year list said on Star Sports 1 show Cricket Connected, “I think anyone who follows the game of cricket will be surprised and shocked not to see Rohit Sharma’s name in those five players list. Because yes, The Ashes is an important series, the World Cup is bigger than Ashes. And someone who has scored five hundreds; remember the first hundred was on a tough wicket in Southampton against South Africa and none of the other batsmen got runs. And he played another important knock against Pakistan. I am really shocked and surprised, and every cricketer will be shocked and surprised by this announcement from Wisden.”

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Indian shuttlers Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy have finally got some time to pause and reflect due to the COVID-19 pandemic and they are making the most of it by creating a database to analyse their past performances while waiting for another shot at Olympic qualification. The coronavirus outbreak has left over 1.2 lakh people dead and infected nearly 2 million globally, and brought all sports activities, including badminton, to a halt after countries imposed lockdowns. Ashwini and Sikki are doubles specialists and endured an underwhelming season last year. The time at hand has given them a chace to analyse the past performances.

"We don't have any one to sit and do analysis for us, so now that we have time, I'm doing some analysis of our performance. I am jotting down points, about areas where I can improve. I started with my matches and then other players on tour," Ashwini, who represented India at the London and Rio Olympic Games, told PTI. "You can always watch and analyse and understand the patterns but it is different when you see things on paper. It is more concrete. So trying to set up a complete database. My brother will help me out. He made an app for me in the past." Ashwini and Sikki fell at the first hurdle 13 times in 20 tournaments last year, and exited from the second round thrice.

Ashwini also picked up a calf injury during the Syed Modi International but the duo was still confident of qualifying by performing well in the remaining Olympic qualifiers. But with Badminton World Federation (BWF) cancelling all tournaments due to the coronavirus pandemic, their fate remains uncertain. "The problem is we don't know the new BWF rules regarding the qualification. There is one year left now, you can't take a two year old performance to select for Olympics, it has to be present performance, so we have to wait," said Sikki. "In badminton, there is a ranking cut off, so how will they accommodate the cancelled qualifiers, how will they count the ranking points, everything is too messed up now," she added. Sikki and Ashwini had reached the finals at Hyderabad Open Super 100 and Maldives International Challenge, last year.

The Indian pair is ranked 28th and will need to be inside top 16 on April 29, 2021 -- the new Olympic cut off date. Ashwini said: "Me and Sikki were confident of doing well in the 4-5 tournaments left but now no one knows what would be the criteria of Olympic qualification and BWF can't really say anything with things changing every moment." They are using the coronavirus-forced break to learn cooking, besides doing some wall practice and exercises for physical fitness. Talking about the effects of the lockdown on mental health, Sikki said: "We have been travelling a lot all these years and now for a month, we are at home, it is fine. But what if it is for 2-3 months, then it will get tough to stay away from the game.

"So it is important to stay motivated for once the lockdown is lifted because you will in a comfortable zone in the break and then all of a sudden you will need to push yourself." Ashwini added: "...now that Olympics have been postponed, nothing is certain and it is tough, you have to be really strong." The economic fallout of the coronavirus outbreak has hit sports hard and Ashwini said badminton too will be affected. "It will hit in terms of sponsors, in terms of tournaments being conducted because countries need sponsors to host events, and after this, I'm not sure what the economic status of many countries would be. "The way things are, it is will be tough to host tournaments, it will not be easy for countries to have tournaments with many big companies shut and struggling to survive," she signed off.

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They would have been striving together to make Rajasthan Royals win at this time of the year in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Instead, the coronavirus pandemic has forced the likes of Jos Buttler, Robin Uthappa, Varun Aaron and Riyan Parag to be at home and help the women in their lives.

"We have been home for three weeks now and we are loving it. He is also been doing lots of cooking. He has even done some cleaning for me," Louise Buttler said during a Rajasthan Royals social media interaction.

"It's been amazing to have Robin home for this long at a stretch. Robin's been cooking. He is trying his hand at cooking," said Shheethal, Uthappa's better half.

For 18-year old Riyan Parag, who impressed one and all last season, his mother Mithoo Barooah complained the Guwahati-born batsman has been into gaming all the time but it is good to be around him.

"I am actually loving it, having my kid around with me for so long. I also don't want him to be away from cricket as that's his passion. Not just that, he is gaming all the time which annoys me," Mithoo said.

Ragini, Aaron's wife, said she is getting used to the pacer's mess lying all around the house but also spending quality time with the husband.

"Spending time with my husband has been really great. It's the usual Varun Aaron mess all throughout the house."

The IPL has been postponed due to the lockdown getting extended till May 3.

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India badminton star Jwala Gutta posted this picture to her 1.5 million Twitter followers on Wednesday as she distributed food items and medical supplies near her Hyderabad home.

“During these unprecedented times we chose to contribute some basic essentials like rice, pulses, oil, sugar, masks n more to daily wage migrants near our residence!! #lockdown #migrantworkers ##coronavirus #unitedindia #standtogether #wewillgetthroughthis #WeAreOne,” the World Championships medal-winner captioned her post.

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

During these unprecedented times We chose to contribute some basic essentials Like rice,pulses,oil,sugar,masks n more to daily wage migrants near our residence!! #lockdown #migrantworkers ##coronavirus #unitedindia ##wewillgetthroughthis #wewillgetthroughthistogether

A post shared by Jwala Gutta (@jwalagutta1) onApr 21, 2020 at 9:28pm PDT

The 36-year-old badminton player has been a prominent player in the sport over the past two decades. Jwala Gutta is known for her fierce gameplay and even fiercer attitude.

Jwala Gutta formed a dominant force alongside Ashwini Ponnappa in women's doubles over the years. At the Commonwealth Games, Jwala has won a gold, two silver and a bronze medal. She also has a bronze medal at the Asian Championships. Gutta has won 5 gold medals at South Asian Games.

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Wicket-keeper batsman Sanju Samson recently said that one cannot copy MS Dhoni and that the former India skipper can only be appreciated for whatever he has achieved in international cricket.

The official Instagram handle of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Chennai Super Kings shared a video in which Samson can be seen talking about Dhoni.

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

@imsanjusamson VC: @ruphas #WhistlePodu

A post shared by Chennai Super Kings (@chennaiipl) onMay 4, 2020 at 4:00am PDT

"MS Dhoni is a hero, he is a hero for everyone, he has spent so many years in international cricket, he has given us many memories, everyone will be inspired with what he has achieved in international cricket, a guy coming from Jharkhand and then going on to become the most successful Indian captain, he has achieved everything, I feel emotional and connected whenever I talk about MS Dhoni," Samson said in the video posted by Chennai Super Kings.

"You cannot copy MS Dhoni, you just have to look at him and clap your hands. I shared the dressing room with him when I was 19 years old, we were on a tour to England, after that I did not play for India for the next five years," he added.

In the video, the 25-year-old Samson also said that he once had a dream featuring MS Dhoni. The young wicket-keeper then revealed how that dream was fulfilled.

"I really had a dream that Mahi bhai was the captain of the team and he was changing the field. I was standing in the slips and he shouted Sanju go there, this is the dream I had, after some days the news came in that he has stepped down as the captain, and I thought how will my dream come true now," Samson said.

"But after a few days we played a pratice match against England at Mumbai, and Dhoni was the captain in the match and he indeed changed my fielding position, my dream came true, I need to tell this to Mahi bhai that my dream was fulfilled," he added.

Thirty-eight-year-old Dhoni has been currently enjoying some time away from the game. He last played competitive cricket during the 2019 World Cup. Dhoni had to face criticism for his slow batting approach during India's matches in the high-profile game.

This year, Dhoni did not find a place for himself in the BCCI's centrally contracted players list.

The board had released the list of central contract list of players for the period from October 2019 to September 2020.

Dhoni is the only captain to win all major ICC trophies (50-over World Cup, T20 World Cup, and Champions Trophy).

Under his leadership, India also managed to attain the number one ranking in Test cricket.

IPL 2020 was slated to begin from March 29, but the tournament has been postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Mahi Malini Pujari says initially she would avoid interacting with guests, but has now grown more confident

Last year, restaurant manager Josein Fernanda found herself in a tough spot when a colleague spotted a bodice and a bunch of padded bras in her bag while they were working on a cruise liner in Goa, where she was working as a manager. The 44-year-old, born a boy in Mumbai's Lamington Road area, says she has always felt like a girl and would clandestinely cross-dress. But, it was a secret that Fernanda had zealously guarded until then. "My boss called me and said, 'I don't want this news to leak. So stop indulging in this.' Well into my 40s, I had reached a point where I couldn't conform to society anymore. There was an overwhelming sense to come out of the closet," she says. Fernanda resigned from the job and returned to Mumbai, liberated but uncertain about what the future held.

Shonali Mude, a former runner-up at Miss Trans Queen 2017 joined in January this year. Mude, who might have in another gender made it as a model or an actor, says jobs for transgender are limited. Having gone to auditions at fashion weeks, Mude says she had no luck. She now works as a floor attendant

Being in the public eye
When we meet Fernanda on a weekday afternoon at Third eye Cafe, located on the ground floor of Palm Galleria Mall, Navi Mumbai, she is sitting near the bar with her laptop. The wall facing her reads, 'Be the Change You Want to See'. Wearing a black blazer with slim fit pants and glinting earrings, Fernanda - formerly known as Innocento - has finally embraced change. She chanced upon the cafe while browsing through YouTube, and got in touch with the owners. She now proudly identifies herself as a woman. Along with her, five other trans-women found their lives transformed when were hired as staffers at the restaurant. The cafe currently has six transgender employees, five of whom work as table attendants, while one works as the manager. The restaurant employs around 20 persons.

Josein Fernanda - formerly known as Innocento - finally came out of the closet on learning of this job in January

"As the name suggests, the restaurant was launched with the intention of providing the third gender an opportunity to lead a more respectable life," says co-owner and architect Nimesh Shetty, who started the venture with his partners Prasad Shetty and Nitesh Kandarkar. Nimesh, 27, conceptualised the cafe almost six years ago while working on an architectural thesis around building a community centre for the transgenders. As envisioned, the cafe would be part of the centre. He even conducted a survey to understand whether people would visit a place like this during the thesis. "A lot of people said yes, we accept the third gender. But, are you willing to accept your sister or closest friend as a transgender? That's when people fumbled. This is something we want to work on," says Shetty, who hails from a family of hoteliers.

A typical day
At the restaurant, we see Mahi Malini Pujari, 24, on her feet taking orders and interacting with guests. She's aware of the reaction her presence normally invites - raised eyebrows, unflinching stare, giggles and sometimes nonchalance - but she has learnt to take it all in her stride. In fact, when a bunch of guests arrive, she's the first to guide them to the table and make them comfortable by offering water and exchanging pleasantries. "Initially, I wouldn't utter a word to the guests. I'd take orders and do clearances. I didn't have the confidence to initiate or a hold conversation," says Pujari. The make-up is minimal, just enough to make her look fresh-faced. The 24-year-old worked at Arzoo Foundation, a de-addiction and rehabilitation centre situated at Palghar. Before that she would beg on the streets and in trains. "I joined the hijra community in Bandra after I left home. I didn't even complete my Std X because my parents gave me an ultimatum: 'either I behave like a boy or leave'," she says. Pujari chose the latter. She now lives in an apartment provided by the owners, in Vashi along with the other staff. While the response from the hijra community to her choice of a new career has been fairly encouraging, her family has still not accepted her. "I've let it go," she says.

Know your food
In almost two months' time, Pujari has upped her social skills and also memorised the menu. A part of the credit goes to Fernanda, who the staff treats as 'didi'. "Of course, they need to know how conduct themselves in public. Along with that, she must know the food that we serve here and what goes into its making like the back of their hand. The guests always check with the server first," says Fernanda.

Spread over eleven pages, the menu is extensive with sections separating Italian, Oriental and Indian cuisine. Currently, the restaurant doesn't serve alcohol but it's in the pipeline. We order the beetroot falafel made with parsley pesto, tahini yoghurt and pomegranate for R199. The portion is impressive and scores well on the taste front. "Many come here for the novelty value. But, they'll return only if the food and service is good," says senior staffer Shonali Venkatesh Mude, a former runner-up at Miss Trans Queen 2017, who joined in January this year. Mude, who might have in another gender made it as a model or an actor, says careers as a transgender are limited. Having gone to auditions at fashion weeks or even advertisements, where she'd have to portray a woman, Mude says she had no luck. "I wanted a job where I'd get a steady income."

A group of women sitting next to our table have dropped by from Nerul during lunch hour to celebrate a colleague's birthday. That's the overt reason. The real one is to experience what's it like to be served by transgender staff. "I don't mean to treat them as specimens, but we wanted to experience this. I'm happy that we're finally getting to see them in mainstream jobs. Till now, you would see them begging inside trains," says Divyani Fulzele, who works at an IT firm. When they're about to leave, they compliment Mude and promise to return. This time for the peppy vibe and the food. "Compliments work as a confidence-booster. While I'm more educated and experienced than the rest, there was a trepidation about how it'd pan out. But I like coming to work," smiles Mude, who lives with her partner in Khargar.

Setting an example
In 12 months, owner Nimesh Shetty has interviewed over 600 transgenders for the job by seeking help from NGOs and transgender activist Gouri Sawant. "Actually, it's they who interviewed me because they had more questions than I did. It's natural, because they are leaving their comfort zone and for an all-new territory," he adds. He admits some quit the job within weeks because of adjustment issues. "It's a high-pressure job, where sometimes you clock in 10-12 hours. Some couldn't deal with that," he says.

Shetty feels the challenges of being transgender are different from what gay men or women face. "Here, we are talking about survival. Many get thrown out of the house when they come out." For now, Shetty is hopeful that the restaurant will inspire others to follow suit. "We don't want to capitalise on this as a gimmick. The goal is to inspire."

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