Instagram tests new limits in user privacy






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.


In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed some rights that have been practically unheard of among its prominent social media peers, legal experts and consumer advocates say.






Users who decline to accept Instagram’s new privacy policy have one month to delete their accounts, or they will be bound by the new terms. Another clause appears to waive the rights of minors on the service. And in the wake of a class-action settlement involving Facebook and privacy issues, Instagram has added terms to shield itself from similar litigation.


All told, the revised terms reflect a new, draconian grip over user rights, experts say.


“This is all uncharted territory,” said Jay Edelson, a partner at the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire. “If Instagram is to encourage as many lawsuits as possible and as much backlash as possible then they succeeded.”


Instagram’s new policies, which go into effect January 16, lay the groundwork for the company to begin generating advertising revenue by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information such as who users follow in advertisements.


The new terms, which allow an advertiser to pay Instagram “to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)” without compensation, triggered an outburst of complaints on the Web on Tuesday from users upset that Instagram would make money from their uploaded content.


The uproar prompted a lengthy blog post from the company to “clarify” the changes, with CEO Kevin Systrom saying the company had no current plans to incorporate photos taken by users into ads.


Instagram declined comment beyond its blog post, which failed to appease critics including National Geographic, which suspended new posts to Instagram. “We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service and if they remain as presented we may close our account,” said National Geographic, an early Instagram adopter.


PUSHING BOUNDARIES


Consumer advocates said Facebook was using Instagram’s aggressive new terms to push the boundaries of how social media sites can make money while its own hands were tied by recent agreements with regulators and class action plaintiffs.


Under the terms of a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook is required to get user consent before personal information is shared beyond their privacy settings. A preliminary class action lawsuit settlement with Facebook allows users to opt-out of being included in the “sponsored stories” ads that use their personal information.


Under Instagram’s new terms, users who want to opt-out must simply quit using the service.


“Instagram has given people a pretty stark choice: Take it or leave, and if you leave it you’ve got to leave the service,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet user right’s group.


What’s more, he said, if a user initially agrees to the new terms but then has a change of mind, their information could still be used for commercial purposes.


In a post on its official blog on Tuesday, Instagram did not address another controversial provision that states that if a child under the age of 18 uses the service, then it is implied that his or her parent has tacitly agreed to Instagram’s terms.


“The notion is that minors can’t be bound to a contract. And that also means they can’t be bound to a provision that says they agree to waive the rights,” said the EFF’s Opsahl.


BLOCKING CLASS ACTION SUITS


While Facebook continues to be bogged in its own class action suit, Instagram took preventive steps to avoid a similar legal morass.


Its new terms of service require users with a legal complaint to enter arbitration, rather than take the company to court. It prohibits users from joining a class action lawsuit unless they mail a written “opt-out” statement to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park within 30 days of joining Instagram.


That provision is not included in terms of service for other leading social media companies like Twitter, Google, YouTube or even Facebook itself, and it immunizes Instagram from many forms of legal liability, said Michael Rustad, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.


Rustad, who has studied the terms of services for 157 social media services, said just 10 contained provisions prohibiting class action lawsuits.


The clause effectively cripples users who want to legally challenge the company because lawyers will not likely represent an individual plaintiff, Rustad argued.


“No lawyers will take these cases,” Rustad said. “In consumer arbitration cases, everything is stacked against the consumer. It’s a pretense, it’s a legal fiction, that there are remedies.”


Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends. Facebook acquired Instagram in September for $ 715 million.


Instagram’s take-it-or-leave-it policy pushes the envelope for how social networking companies treat user privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.


“I think Facebook is probably using Instagram to see how far it can press this advertising model,” said Rotenberg. “If they can keep a lot of users, then all those users have agreed to have their images as part of advertising.”


(Additional reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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The Voice Crowns a Winner!















12/18/2012 at 11:20 PM EST







From left: Terry McDermott, Cassadee Pope, Nicholas David and host Carson Daly


Tyler Golden/NBC


The Voice has a new winner!

After several powerful performances the night before, the top three singers – Nicholas David (of Team Cee Lo) and Terry McDermott and Cassadee Pope (of Blake Shelton's team) – faced the music on Tuesday during the final results show of season 3.

Which one was the winner? Keep reading to find out ...

Cassadee Pope was named the winner of The Voice!

Pope thanked her fans who supported her throughout the competition. She was joined onstage by McDermott, who was the runner-up, and David, who came in third place.

It was a night of music as Rihanna, newly engaged Kelly Clarkson, Bruno Mars and the Killers celebrated with the finalists by displaying their talents.

Season 4 of The Voice premieres March 25, 2013, with Shakira and Usher stepping in to take over for Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green.

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma


WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.


Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?


For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.


But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.


"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.


And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.


"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.


Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.


Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.


Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.


There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.


Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.


Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.


In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.


Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.


But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.


Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.


To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.


Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.


When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.


Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.


Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.


Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.


___


EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.


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U.S. budget optimism send shares, euro up

LONDON (Reuters) - World shares hit 17-month highs and the euro surged on Wednesday on hopes that U.S. politicians will reach a budget deal and that further monetary stimulus will come from Japan.


European shares extended their recent rally in early trading with the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> near an 18-month high ahead of the German Ifo survey, which is likely to point to a gradual improvement in business conditions for December.


"What is important, and what is driving the market higher, is that the two parties (in the U.S.) are now in constructive discussions over specific tax levels and spending programs, and working towards a common middle ground," said Cameron Peacock, a strategist at IG Markets.


MSCI's world equity index <.miwd00000pus>, which is in its fifth week of gains, was up 0.3 percent at 342.29 points - a level which surpasses its peaks for this year and has not been seen since July 2011.


In Europe London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> and France's CAC-40 <.fhci> indexes all rose around 0.3 percent in early trading. <.l><.eu/>


Behind the rally is a view that, once the U.S. fiscal crisis is resolved, the massive monetary stimulus by the world's top central banks will lead to an expansion in economic growth for 2013, supporting equities at the expense of safe-haven bonds.


The Bank of Japan is widely expected to join in the growing activism of central banks to support growth by expanding its asset-buying program aggressively an the end of a two-day policy meeting on Thursday.


The prospect of extra stimulus sent Tokyo's Nikkei share average <.n225> up 2.4 percent on Wednesday and back through the 10,000 points for the first time since April.


The easier policy outlook also sent the yen to a 16-month low against the euro, while the dollar gained 0.2 percent on the Japanese currency to edge back towards its strongest level in 20-months of 84.48 yen hit on Monday.


The growing demand for riskier assets on the hopes for a U.S. budget deal also benefited the euro against the dollar and it touched a 7-1/2-month high of $1.3256.


"Unless U.S. fiscal cliff talks take an unexpected turn for the worse, we believe that EUR/USD will meet our 1.33 year-end target," analysts at BNP Paribas wrote in a note.


Commodities were in consolidation mode, however, as investors waited for a U.S. fiscal deal.


Oil held steady, with Brent crude rising about 10 cents to be just short of $109 a barrel at $108.80, and U.S. crude was little changed below $88 a barrel.


Copper was also flat at $8,017 a tonne. Copper has rallied almost 8 percent from mid-November and hit a two-month high a week ago, but has since lost some ground.


Gold rose 0.3 percent to around $1,675 an ounce, after falling to $1,661.01 on Tuesday, its lowest since August.


(Editing by Anna Willard)



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Pew Study Finds One in 6 Follows No Religion





A global study of religious adherence released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center found that about one of every six people worldwide has no religious affiliation. This makes the “unaffiliated,” as the study calls them, the third-largest group worldwide, with 16 percent of the global population — about equal to Catholics.




The study also found a wide disparity in the median age of religious populations, with Muslims and Hindus the youngest, and Buddhists and Jews the oldest. The median age of the youngest group, Muslims, was 23, while the median for Jews was 36.


Over all, Christians (including Catholics) are the largest religious group, with 2.2 billion people, about 32 percent of the world’s population. They are followed by Muslims, with 1.6 billion, about 23 percent. There are about one billion Hindus, about 15 percent of the global population, and nearly half a billion Buddhists, about 7 percent.


The study, “The Global Religious Landscape,” is a snapshot of the size and distribution of religious groups as of 2010, and does not show trends over time.


“Something that may surprise a lot of people,” said Conrad Hackett, a primary researcher on the report, “is that the third-largest religious group, after Christians and Muslims, is the religiously unaffiliated. There may have been some guesses floating out there before, but this is the first time there are numbers based on survey data analyzed in a rigorous and scientific way.”


More than three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated live in Asia, the majority in China. Many of the people in this group do hold some religious or spiritual beliefs and may even believe in a deity, but they do not identify with a particular faith.


People who practice folk or tribal religions, like African, Chinese, American Indian and Australian aboriginal traditional religions, make up another 6 percent of the world’s population. Smaller faith groups — like Bahais, Jains, Sikhs, Shintoists, Taoists, Wiccans and Zoroastrians — combined make up less than one percent of the global population. Jews, with about 14 million, make up only 0.2 percent of the global population.


The study is based on analysis of 2,500 different data sources, including censuses and demographic surveys of children and adults in 232 countries. It relies on self-identification, so it includes people who are not regular practitioners or orthodox believers of the religion they claim.


The religious groups with the youngest median ages have the highest levels of fertility and poverty and the lowest levels of female education, Jack A. Goldstone, director of the Center for Global Policy at George Mason University, in Virginia, said in an interview by e-mail. He noted that in predominantly Muslim countries where the government supports the education of women and girls, like Tunisia, Iran and Indonesia, the median age is higher than for Muslims in Africa and the Middle East.


The study also shows that about one-fourth of the world’s population lives in countries where they are a religious minority. But 97 percent of Hindus and 87 percent of Christians live in countries where they are the majority faith, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.


“Christians are the most evenly dispersed — except in one place, and that’s the Middle East and North Africa, which happens to be the place where Christianity originated,” Mr. Cooperman said.


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How to turn an old Kindle Fire into a Nexus 7 with Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean [video]









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The Voice's Top Three Give Final Performances in the Competition






The Voice










12/17/2012 at 10:25 PM EST







From left: Judges Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton


Trae Patton/NBC


Monday night's episode of The Voice gave the final three contestants three chances to earn fans' votes. Each singer revisited a "breakout" song that set them apart in the competition, sang a new song and performed a duet with his or her coach.

But the night opened with a touching tribute to the victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Coaches and singers held up the names of each life lost while singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."

Team Cee Lo's Nicholas David then kicked off the competition with Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire." Not able to resist a pun, his coach chimed in on his performance: "Your fire tonight burned this house down," Green said. David later revisited his performance of Bill Withers's "Lean On Me," and joined Green for a duet of Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music."

Team Blake's two contestants also had the crowd cheering. Terry McDermott's sang his best song, Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is," and took a stab at Mr. Mister's "Take These Broken Wings." But the crowning moment of the night for McDermott was his duet with Shelton of Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)." Adam Levine played guitar alongside them, decked out in a long rocker wig.

Cassadee Pope sang "Over You," which her coach and his wife, Miranda Lambert, co-wrote. She received huge praise for singing it the first time, but the song about Shelton's late brother had special meaning in the wake of the shootings in Newtown, Conn. "America's heart is heavy, and that's about healing," Shelton said. She also moved the coaches with her take on Faith Hill's "Cry." "I don't care that you weren't on my team," Levine said. "I am so proud of you and so happy that you're here at this moment." Pope finished the night with Shelton for a duet of Sheryl Crow's "Steve McQueen."

The Voice returns Tuesday, when the season's winner will be named. Who will it be? Tell us in the comments below.

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence


NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.


Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.


"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.


Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.


A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.


High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.


Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.


"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.


"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.


Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.


Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.


"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.


She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.


"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."


After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.


__


AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.


___


Online:


Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5


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U.S. budget hopes lift shares, other risk assets

LONDON (Reuters) - Global shares and other risk assets rose on Tuesday, encouraged by signs of a U.S. budget compromise aimed at stopping a package of tax hikes and spending cuts hurting the economy next year.


The differences over how to resolve the "fiscal cliff" narrowed significantly on Monday night when the White House proposed leaving lower tax rates in place for everyone earning under $400,000.


That was a change of position for President Barack Obama who has been pushing for a $250,000 threshold although it is still far from Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner's preference of $1 million.


"Overnight news on the fiscal cliff has been taken positively by the markets here in Europe after underperforming the U.S. recently," Securequity sales trader Jawaid Afsar said.


European shares <.stoxx50e> mirrored an upward push by Asian equities, opening up 0.5 percent as London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> climbed between 0.4 and 0.5 percent.


It left the MSCI index of global stocks <.miwd00000pus> 0.2 percent higher, on the cusp of a three-month high and with a more significant 1-1/2 year high also in its sights.


Futures suggested a higher Wall Street opening too<.n> and oil, copper and gold also firmed. Expectations of more monetary easing in Japan kept the yen soft, however.


As European trading gather pace, the dollar inched up 0.1 percent to 83.96 yen, off a 20-month high of 84.48 yen hit on Monday but well above its late New York levels on Friday. The euro hovered at $1.3158.


Concerns that fiscal stimulus could seriously increase the country's debt burden pushed the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yield to a one-month high of 0.750 percent.


In European bond markets, trading remained subdued ahead of the year-end. German Bund futures slipped to 144.62 as increasing signs of progress in the U.S. budget talks eased demand for low-risk assets.


"We're lower on the fiscal cliff progress. The markets are very thin out there and so price moves could get overdone today," said one bond trader.


(Additional reporting by David Brett; William James; editing by Anna Willard)



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Darjeeling Journal: Darjeeling Tea Growers Get Protection From E.U.


Enrico Fabian for The New York Times


A woman on the Sungma Tea Estate in Darjeeling, India, where growers have followed the example of Scottish whisky distillers and French wineries in limiting the use of certain geographic names to products from those places. More Photos »







DARJEELING, India — Among connoisseurs, few teas surpass a good Darjeeling. The smooth and mellow taste commands a premium price, and the name itself evokes a bygone era when the British first introduced Chinese tea plants here in the Indian foothills of the Himalayas.




To Anil K. Jha, the superintendent of the Sungma Tea Estate, all this would be extremely good for business, except that much of the tea sold globally as Darjeeling is not actually grown here. Foreign wholesalers often put the name on a blend of the real stuff and lesser teas. And in some cases, growers elsewhere simply slap a Darjeeling label on their tea.


So Mr. Jha and other Darjeeling growers have followed the example of Scottish whisky distillers and French wineries, winning legal protection for the Darjeeling label under laws that limit the use of certain geographic names to products that come from those places.


In a decision this year, the European Union agreed to phase out the use of “Darjeeling” on blended teas. Now, just as a bottle of Cognac must come from the region around the French town of Cognac, a cup of Darjeeling tea will have to be made only from tea grown around Darjeeling.


“That flavor, that uniqueness that comes from here — it is nowhere else,” Mr. Jha said as he stood among manicured tea bushes on a hillside about 5,000 feet above sea level, near the border with Nepal. “People have tried to replicate it, but have failed,” he said.


The uniqueness of Darjeeling as a place certainly seems beyond dispute. On clear days, the white peaks of Kanchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain after Everest and K2, floats over the hilltop city like an ethereal fortress. Beyond the clamor of the city, many of the steep surrounding foothills are carpeted with tea estates, some planted more than 160 years ago when a British surgeon found that tea bushes thrived in the region’s alpine setting.


The mountainous terrain also limits production. India produces almost two billion pounds of tea annually, more than any other country, but Darjeeling accounts for only about 1 percent of that output. The Darjeeling district has 87 certified tea gardens, as they are locally known, producing about 20 million pounds of tea every year, and the potential for expansion is almost nil.


That is why local tea growers grew annoyed that as much as 88 million pounds of tea were being sold as Darjeeling on the global market each year.


“Darjeeling tea has always been more expensive,” said Ranen Datta, a longtime adviser to local tea growers, noting that the wholesale price is about five times that of ordinary teas. “And we found that sellers all over the world were selling tea under the name Darjeeling.”


And not only tea: A French company that makes lingerie has fought legal battles with the Tea Board of India to keep using the name.


“This brand name, Darjeeling, was being misused,” Mr. Jha said. “The basic interest of Darjeeling was being killed.”


Local tea growers had already fought to save their product from the vagaries of cold war politics. During the era of British rule, Darjeeling tea was shipped mainly to Europe, which remained the primary market after Indian independence in 1947, when Darjeeling’s tea gardens shifted from British to Indian ownership.


But as India drew politically closer to the Soviet Union, a deal to sell tea to Moscow ushered in a dark period for Darjeeling. The Soviets ordered in bulk and mixed Darjeeling with pedestrian teas from Soviet satellite countries so it could be marketed more widely.


“Russians were not particular about the quality of Darjeeling,” Mr. Datta said. “They took it if it was clear and black.”


Growers saturated their tea gardens with chemicals and pesticides to maximize output, and annual production rose to about 29 million pounds. But when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, so did the export deal, leaving Darjeeling with a crop it had trouble selling in Europe, where many customers, especially in Germany, were aghast at the chemical use.


“There were no buyers,” Mr. Jha recalled. “It took a long time to revive the image of Darjeeling.”


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