Language Shoes Unveils Luxe Kent Loafer
Language Shoes unveils the Kent Loafer, a luxurious footwear choice crafted for modern gentlemen who appreciate refined style and uncompromised comfort. With its polished patent leather upper, supple leather lining, and cushioned leather footbed, the Kent Loafer offers day-to-night wearability wrapped in timeless elegance.
Available in Wine and Black, the loafer is designed for festive gatherings, weddings, and sophisticated formal occasions. A classic leather sole completes the look, adding structure without sacrificing flexibility.
Retailing at ₹8,990, the Kent Loafer is accessible across Language's exclusive stores in cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, and Chandigarh, and over 250 multi-brand retail outlets across India. It's also available online via languageshoes.com, Amazon, and Tata CLiQ.
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Time of India
3 days ago
- Time of India
Toefl iBT overhauled: ETS brings AI, adaptive testing, CEFR scores, and relevant content for today's learners
ETS transforms TOEFL iBT with AI, adaptive testing, and faster scoring. (AI Image) TOEFL iBT updated: In a landmark move aimed at transforming the English-language testing experience, Educational Testing Service (ETS) has announced a sweeping overhaul of the TOEFL iBT test. The upgrades, designed to better align with modern learning environments, integrate AI-powered features, adaptive testing, and globally relevant academic content. These changes are part of ETS's broader mission to deliver a more equitable and student-centered assessment platform. The announcement, made on May 29, 2025, introduces a series of phased enhancements beginning May 30, 2025, with further major changes rolling out in January 2026. ETS confirmed that the updates are focused on fairness, faster results, improved accessibility, and a more intuitive scoring system—all without compromising the academic rigor and reliability that institutions across the world have trusted for over six decades. A more supportive at-home testing experience Starting May 30, 2025, test takers using the TOEFL iBT Home Edition will benefit from a redesigned experience. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Memperdagangkan CFD Emas dengan salah satu spread terendah? IC Markets Mendaftar Undo ETS will deploy its own trained in-house proctors and use AI-assisted identity verification technology, known as ENTRUST, to ensure smooth and secure test sessions. These updates also include simplified registration and streamlined test-day procedures to minimize stress and reduce cancellations. 'We're transforming TOEFL to be more fair, flexible, and relevant,' said Omar Chihane, global general manager of TOEFL at ETS. 'Whether testing at a center in India or from home in Denmark, every student deserves a fair shot to demonstrate their English proficiency.' Adaptive testing for real-world performance Beginning in January 2026, ETS will implement a multistage adaptive testing model for the Reading and Listening sections. This adaptive design will personalize the test in real time, adjusting the difficulty of questions based on a student's performance. According to ETS, this approach offers a more accurate measure of real academic English skills, such as understanding group discussions and engaging in project work. The updated content will move away from outdated topics and focus on equitable, relevant materials that resonate with today's global learners. ETS emphasizes that all content is carefully reviewed to reduce cultural bias and better reflect diverse academic scenarios. Faster scores and easier interpretation TOEFL test takers will now receive scores within 72 hours or less, a critical improvement for students facing tight university application deadlines, particularly in countries like India. Starting in January 2026, ETS will also introduce dual score reporting: the traditional 0–120 scale will be supplemented by a new, easy-to-understand 1–6 banded scale aligned with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). Upgraded equipment and expanded prep support ETS is also enhancing the in-person testing experience by outfitting all global test centers with new state-of-the-art custom 'stereophones' developed in collaboration with Koss, a leading audio brand. To support preparation, ETS will launch new free and paid prep resources in July 2025. Rohit Sharma, senior vice president of Global Mobility Solutions at ETS, noted, 'We're preserving our high bar for quality while evolving the experience—removing friction, improving fairness, and making the process more inclusive.' With acceptance from 100% of universities in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia—and over 13,000 institutions globally—TOEFL iBT remains the gold standard in high-stakes English proficiency testing. Ready to empower your child for the AI era? Join our program now! Hurry, only a few seats left.
Mint
24-05-2025
- Mint
Behind Xi's strongman image, a demanding father always loyal to the party
When President Trump paused his tariff fight against Beijing this month, prominent voices in China praised their leader Xi Jinping as having fended off American pressure with resilience and resolution. Beijing had taken a tough stance toward Trump's tariffs, retaliating with economic countermeasures and vowing to 'never kneel down" before foreign bullies. This defiance burnished Xi's self-styled image as a leader with absolute authority, one imbued with the fortitude and spirit of sacrifice needed to guide China's resurgence as a great power. These qualities, some historians say, have roots in Xi's formative years as a son of the revolutionary hero Xi Zhongxun, whose harsh parenting and unwavering loyalty to the Communist Party—throughout a tumultuous career rocked by years of persecution—seem to have inspired Xi Jinping to show the toughness his father demanded. Party lore celebrates the elder Xi as a stoic figure who fought bravely for the Communist revolution and stayed true to the cause despite being wrongfully purged under Mao. 'While some may wonder why Jinping would remain so devoted to an organization that severely persecuted his own father, perhaps the better question is, How could Jinping betray the party for which his father sacrificed so much?" historian Joseph Torigian writes in the first English-language biography of Xi Zhongxun, which offers fresh vignettes and insights into the father's influence on the Chinese leader. Many within the party elite misread Xi Jinping when he took power in 2012, expressing expectations that he would emulate his father's reputation as a reformer who helped open up China's economy and managed religious and ethnic minorities with a softer touch. Instead Xi used iron-fisted tactics to centralize power, squelch dissent and tighten party control over the economy and society. Xi's hard-line approach belies a deeper degree of continuity with his father, whose 'absolute devotion" to the Communist Party may have inspired his son's own commitment to it and its long-term rule, Torigian argues in 'The Party's Interests Come First." Xi Zhongxun joined the Communist Party as a teenager in 1928 and won Mao's trust as a revolutionary fighter. After the Communist victory in 1949, he took on roles as a regional leader, propaganda minister and vice premier, but was purged in 1962 for alleged 'anti-party" activities. Stunned by his downfall, the elder Xi told a friend that he felt like 'a person who fell off an eighteen-floor building," according to the biography. He was sent away from Beijing to work in a factory and separated from his family. During Mao's 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, which began as Xi Jinping entered his teens, militant Red Guards abused Xi Zhongxun at public-shaming rallies and, according to party accounts which don't offer details, 'persecuted" one of his daughters to death. But Xi Zhongxun 'never abandoned his emotional attachment to Mao," writes Torigian, who describes how the patriarch—while still in political disgrace—made Xi Jinping memorize some of Mao's speeches. During a brief reunion in 1976, the father watched his son recite the speeches by heart while they both sat in their underwear, according to the book. 'Although the party betrayed Xi Zhongxun, Xi Zhongxun never betrayed the party," Torigian writes. The elder Xi was rehabilitated after Mao's death in 1976, serving as a provincial chief, a member of the party's elite Politburo and a senior lawmaker before being sidelined after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. A father of four daughters and three sons across two marriages, the patriarch died in 2002 at the age of 88. Xi Jinping is the elder of the two sons he had with his second wife, Qi Xin. Historians and people who knew Xi Zhongxun say he molded his son's character by imposing brutal discipline at home—including strict rules on frugality enforced with physical beatings—and by recounting tales of his revolutionary exploits. During the Mao era, Xi Jinping often faced persecution as a child of a disgraced official—experiences he later credited for hardening his character and schooling him on the vagaries of power. Xi Jinping 'does seem to have learned quite a bit from his father about the nature and dynamics of Chinese politics, which even insiders struggle to navigate successfully—including Xi's own father," said Jonathan Czin, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution and a former director for China on President Joe Biden's National Security Council. Xi Jinping showed reverence for his father, publicly and privately. Torigian recounts how the son would kowtow to his father at Lunar New Year gatherings, wait for the patriarch's go-ahead before taking his seat, and on one occasion even finished a piece of food that his father had started eating but found too difficult to chew. 'The ways in which Xi has gone out of his way to almost perform respect and obedience to his father…is striking," said Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London, who has written books on Xi. 'Xi [Zhongxun] respected toughness—Jinping was his favorite son precisely because of a belief that Jinping had the most 'mettle,'" writes Torigian. Xi Jinping has sought to demonstrate that mettle as China's leader. He has pursued a more assertive style of diplomacy to advance Beijing's interests and called on the Chinese people to show grit in adversity such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the current trade war with the U.S. The younger Xi's forcefulness in cleansing corruption and disloyalty within the party echoes his father's approach. Notwithstanding his reputation as being relatively liberal, Xi Zhongxun was zealous in implementing Mao's brutal purges, according to Torigian. During the 1942-1945 Yan'an rectification drive, a purge that Mao launched to consolidate power, Xi Zhongxun directed an 'aggressive hunt for spies" that led to many wrongful persecutions, according to the book. Suspects often made false confessions to avoid torture, sometimes while Xi watched. Entire classes of school children were denounced as enemy agents, Torigian writes. In the early 1950s, as a senior official overseeing northwestern China, Xi fervently enforced a Mao campaign to hunt counterrevolutionaries, saying that 'it is necessary to remember that the more bad people whom we kill, the more they will be afraid." 'Studying his father enables us to understand how Xi [Jinping] would have gained a view on how vicious elite-level politics in China was, and what would need to be done to stay in power," said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London and co-author of a book on Xi's political ideas. Write to Chun Han Wong at
Indian Express
24-05-2025
- Indian Express
Sarvam AI debuts flagship open-source LLM with 24 billion parameters
Indian AI startup Sarvam has unveiled its flagship Large Language Model (LLM), Sarvam-M. The LLM is a 24-billion-parameter open-weights hybrid language model built on top of Mistral Small. Sarvam-M has reportedly achieved new standards in mathematics, programming tasks, and even Indian language understanding. According to the company, the model has been designed for a broad range of applications. Conversational AI, machine translation, and educational tools are some of the notable use cases of Sarvam-M. The open-source model is capable of performing reasoning tasks like math and programming. According to the official blog post, the model has been enhanced through a three-step process – Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR), and Inference Optimisations. When it comes to SFT, the team at Sarvam curated a wide set of prompts focused on quality and difficulty. They generated completions using permissible models, filtered them through custom scoring, and adjusted outputs to reduce bias and cultural relevance. The SFT process trained Sarvam-M to function in both 'think', which is complex reasoning, and 'non-think' or general conversation modes. On the other hand, with RLVR, Sarvam-M was further trained using a curriculum consisting of instruction following, programming datasets, and math. The team used techniques like custom reward engineering and prompt sampling strategies to enhance the model's performance across tasks. For inference optimisation, the model underwent post-training quantisation for FP8 precision, achieving negligible loss in accuracy. Techniques like lookahead decoding were implemented to boost throughput; however, challenges in supporting higher concurrency were noted. Notably, in combined tasks with Indian languages and math, such as the romanised Indian language GSM-8K benchmark, the model achieved an impressive +86% improvement. In most benchmarks, Sarvam-M outperformed Llama-4 Scout, and it is comparable to larger models like Llama-3.3 70B and Gemma 3 27B. However, it shows a slight drop (~1%) in English knowledge benchmarks like MMLU. The Sarvam-M model is currently accessible via Sarvam's API and can be downloaded from Hugging Face for experimentation and integration.
