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Can meditation make us better individuals?Know here

Published

7 years ago

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Disputing popular claims that meditation can change how people behave towards others and make them more compassionate, new research suggests this is not the case.
 
Meditation plays no significant role in reducing aggression or prejudice or improving how socially-connected someone is, said the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
 
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“The popularisation of meditation techniques, like mindfulness, despite being taught without religious beliefs, still seem to offer the hope of a better self and a better world to many,” said Miguel Farias from Coventry University in England.
 
“We wanted to investigate how powerful these techniques were in affecting one’s feelings and behaviours towards others,” Farias said.
 
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The researchers reviewed more than 20 studies that investigated the effect of various types of meditation, such as mindfulness and loving-kindness, on pro-social feelings and behaviours.
 
Initial analysis indicated that meditation did have an overall positive impact.
 
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The researchers said meditation made people feel moderately more compassionate or empathic, compared to if they had done no other new emotionally-engaging activity.
 
However, further analysis revealed that meditation actually played no significant role in reducing aggression or improving how socially-connected someone was.
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The most unexpected result of this study was that the more positive results found for compassion had important methodological flaws — compassion levels in some studies only increased if the meditation teacher was also an author of the published report.
 
Overall, these results suggest that the moderate improvements reported by psychologists in previous studies may be the result of methodological weaknesses and biases, said the researchers.
 
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Their research only included studies where meditators were compared to other individuals that did not meditate.
 
All these studies used meditation techniques derived from Buddhism, such as mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation, but not other related activities, like yoga or Tai-Chi.
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“None of this, of course, invalidates Buddhism or other religions’ claims about the moral value and eventually life changing potential of its beliefs and practices.
 
But our research findings are a far cry from many popular claims made by meditators and some psychologists,” Farias said.
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Meghalaya Reserves Legalized Gambling and Sports Betting for Tourists

Published

2 years ago

on

June 25, 2022

By

PureWin Online Betting

The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index

Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.

The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports

Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.

All for the Tourists

The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.

“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.

To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.

Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market

With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.

Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).

Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.

Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.

Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting

Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.

Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.

The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.

If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.

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