Latest news with #Bazaar
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Amazon India adds flat ₹5 fee on all customer orders, Prime included
Amazon has introduced a uniform ₹5 fee on every customer order placed through its platform in India, a change that now applies even to Prime subscribers. The decision brings the e-commerce giant in step with rival quick-commerce services such as Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart, all of which have implemented comparable surcharges in recent months. Flipkart, a key competitor, began levying a ₹3 fee on orders earlier this year, in mid-2024. 'Amazon is doing it as part of its monetisation strategy and following an industry standard set by others such as Blinkit, Swiggy and Zepto,' said Satish Meena, an advisor at Datum Intelligence, a consumer technology-focused market research firm. 'Customers don't have any other option not to pay.' Industry experts observe that many platforms are introducing small fees on each order as a way to manage the growing costs of delivery operations, including transportation, staffing and fuel. 'E-commerce companies also have the confidence that customers are willing to pay for convenience,' said Meena. 'We may expect a further increase in this fee in the future by various e-commerce players.' Amazon India has introduced the marketplace fee of ₹5 on every order since May. This flat fee will apply to all orders, with exceptions for specific purchase categories such as gift cards and digital services, according to a company blog post. The marketplace fee, which Amazon says is a common industry practice, supports the firm's commitment to offer millions of products from diverse sellers. 'It enables Amazon to offer a vast range of products from millions of sellers,' said Amazon. At launch, the marketplace fee will not apply to gift card purchases, Amazon Business and Bazaar orders, or orders on Amazon Now and Fresh. It also excludes digital purchases like mobile recharges, bill payments, travel and movie bookings, insurance, Alexa skills, Fire TV apps, Prime Video rentals or purchases, subscriptions, and digital products delivered by email (e.g. software or Apple Store codes). For Pay on Delivery orders or prepaid orders with other applicable fees (such as offer processing or exchange fees), the marketplace fee will not appear as a separate charge for now, as outlined in updated terms and conditions. It may still be combined with other fees, either fully or partially. Amazon India does not disclose daily order volumes, but analysts say activity surges sharply during major sales events. In July last year, Amazon India said that Prime Day 2024 was the biggest Prime Day shopping event ever, with the e-commerce firm getting the highest-ever Prime member engagement and new membership sign-ups. Amazon India said a peak of 24,196 orders were placed by Prime members in a single minute (2024) as compared to 22,190 orders in 2023. In November last year, Amazon India said its month-long Amazon Great Indian Festival (AGIF) 2024 witnessed 1.4 billion customer visits, the highest ever. More than 85 per cent of customers were from non-metro cities. Last year, Amazon India saw 1.1 billion customer visits on the platform during the event, with almost 4 million new customers.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Can Celibacy Unlock Heightened Levels of Pleasure?
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." What if abstaining from sex and romance wasn't a retreat from intimacy but a pathway to deeper self-knowledge, creative clarity, and radical autonomy? In The Dry Season, writer Melissa Febos chronicles a year of intentional celibacy—an experiment that began in the wreckage of a devastating breakup and transformed into a radical reclamation of self. What started as a 90-day pause from sex and dating in 2016 extended into a full year of disentanglement from romantic attachment. But rather than deprivation, Febos discovered joy, clarity, and sensual fulfillment on her own terms. Her celibacy was not an escape but a deep inquiry into desire, intimacy, and autonomy—a way to interrogate how socialized narratives of love and devotion had shaped her identity as a queer woman. Abstaining from romance didn't mean denying pleasure—it meant redefining it. Through solitude, Febos reconnected with neglected friendships, deepened her creative life, and uncovered new modes of intimacy outside the bounds of romance or sex. Using what she describes as a '12-step-style inventory' of her romantic past, she traced how her relationships had often been marked by performance, self-erasure, and dependence. Far from isolating, her celibate year became rich with connection. Seeking models beyond the cultural obsession with coupledom, Febos turned to a lineage of women who embraced solitude as a source of power, from 11th-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen and the beguines of medieval Europe to 20th-century icons like Virginia Woolf and Octavia Butler. These figures served as both companions and intellectual ancestors, helping her situate her experience within a feminist tradition of resistance to conformity and the marriage-industrial complex. A memoirist by trade, Febos has previously written about sex, gender, and power through the lens of her own life. In 2010, she published Whip Smart, about her three and a half years working as a dominatrix, while 2021's Girlhood, a collection of essays about the pressures and societal conditioning females face, which remains a best-seller. Ahead of The Dry Season's release, Bazaar spoke with Febos about how celibacy reshaped her relationship to self-expression, attention, pleasure, and artistic purpose. Ultimately, the memoir asks readers to consider what our lives might look like if we stopped orienting them around the desire to be desired. From the age of 15 into my early 30s, I'd been in nonstop committed monogamous partnerships. I had a story about myself that I was a romantic, that I was a very passionate person; I just fell in love a lot. But in my early 30s, I got into a relationship that I think is safe to characterize as addicting. At that point, I had been sober for 10 years, but I experienced depths of addiction in that relationship that were worse than anything I'd ever experienced when I was a heroin addict. It was very obsessive. I was crying all the time. I lost friends. I crashed my car. My health suffered, and when the relationship finally ended, I looked around and I thought, Damn, I feel like I should be better at this, having been doing it for so long. How did I get here? So I thought, okay, let me take stock and see what's actually going on here, because this was the most painful experience of my life, and I would not like to repeat it. So, I started with 90 days celibate. That was laughable to some of my friends, but it was a familiar unit of time; 90 days is seen as a good metric for how long it takes to let go of a habit and see your situation more clearly. But it was also as long as I could imagine going. My [version of] abstinence included no sex, no dating, no flirting, no sexually charged friendships. And three months was a pretty radical length of time in the context of my life up until that point. It took a minute for me to figure out what celibacy was. In the first few weeks, I definitely had some flirtations and got some texts and was like, Wait a minute, this feeling inside me that's releasing these delicious brain chemicals and making me want to keep doing whatever it is I'm doing is actually the thing I need to stay away from. I had to redraw the contours of what my definition of celibacy was, but once I did that, it was not very hard; almost immediately, I was so much happier. My life got better instantly. All my other relationships started to flourish. I had vastly underestimated the amount of time and energy I had been devoting to these romantic pursuits for my entire adult life, and when I recouped that time and energy for myself, I got to spend it on every other passion that I had. I was having long, fun, languorous conversations on the phone with my friends. I was visiting family. I was writing more. I was exercising more. I donated a bunch of clothes, got a haircut, hit all my deadlines, taught better classes than I had been before. It really felt like I got infused attention and energy into every other area of my life, and I started having a great time. at I had much more emotional capacity. I had this joke when I was spending that time celibate where I started saying to my friends, 'Yeah, I'm making celibacy hot again,' which is really corny and kind of embarrassing but also was very true. I think our culture suffers from an obsession with categories. We consider our sex life and our home life and our work life as separate, but they're not; we're the same person in all of those parts of our lives, and they're deeply intertwined. I had designated sex and love as the area where I experienced some sensual pleasures of being human and living in a body, and it's where I had also located emotional intimacy. And when I sort of shut down that category, those experiences started to surface in so many other areas of my life. I had erotic experiences eating watermelon that summer that I was celibate; I had incredibly romantic experiences with dear friends of mine that were not sexual but that had a similar quality. I realized that I had been dramatically limiting myself and narrowing the aperture of my own experiences by only looking for the erotic or the sublime in lovers, when actually there were opportunities for it everywhere I looked. I also went dancing more that year than any other year of my life. I started an email list of all my friends, and every weekend, I was like, 'Who's coming dancing with me?' We would go dancing until, like, two in the morning. I also had a really fun time exploring and redefining my relationship to food and clothes. I had identified as a high femme for most of my adult life, and I had almost every day since my late teens. And during my celibacy, I started wearing sneakers all the time, and the clothes I was wearing suddenly started to change and get more comfortable and weirder. I had no idea how much my personal style was actually defined based on the imagined gaze of strangers or potential lovers or how I might appeal to the other instead of myself. And in the absence of that, I was actually trying to repel the gaze of others. After the first few weeks [of celibacy], I started to understand how deeply entrenched and embedded in my consciousness the issues in my relationship to love and sex were, and if I really wanted long-term change, I had to take a more active role in it. For me, because I had a lot of experience [with the] 12-step [program] and because I love making lists, I thought, okay, let me start by really taking stock and seeing what I've actually been up to. It was becoming clear to me that the story I had about myself and relationships was probably not true, because there was a common denominator among them all, and it was me. If I was the romantic, devoted partner that I had always thought myself to be, why was I bottoming out in such an ugly way? And why were all my relationships ending on similar grounds? So I started making a list of everyone I had ever been in a relationship with: major crushes, entanglements, one-night stands, everybody. I was looking for patterns, and they very quickly emerged. I found when I really committed to an honest accounting of my own behavior and relationships, it started to become really clear to me that I hadn't been honest with my partners and that, in fact, the behavior that I've characterized as devoted and self-sacrificing and accommodating of other people had actually been a form of manipulation. My project of celibacy had almost everything to do with the emotional part of it. The sexual symptoms that I wanted to change were consequences of the emotional dynamics more than anything else. Not having sex with other people for a year was not very hard. There were only a couple of times where I felt tempted and I clicked back into my old operating system, but for the most part, I was incredibly relieved to set down those preoccupations and all of the energy and the inner conflicts that I experienced around them. The emotional part of it was a lot harder. Making a conscious decision to change your own orientation to a part of life for which we have really, really strong cultural stories is challenging. If I'm honest, a huge part of that work has happened since my celibacy. It wasn't until I engaged in relationships with other people that the rubber really hit the road, and I got to learn how to actually practice those things. My marriage has been the greatest education of putting ideals into practice, and I got really lucky to have a good collaborator in that. The emotional rewards of doing that work has made it entirely worth it, and nothing has brought me closer to other people. I started doing research during my celibate year because once I was celibate for a while and I started to change my ideal for who I wanted to be in relationships, I realized that I needed some new role models. Before that, I had looked to women who had been artistically fulfilled but had also been really messy and chaotic in their love lives, like me. I wanted to find some people whose behavior, not just in their romantic lives but in their lives, was really aligned with what they believed. I wanted my actions and my beliefs to be more congruent. I started by reading about women who were voluntarily celibate, and almost immediately I got deeply obsessed with a lot of nuns and spiritual ladies, especially those living in medieval times, like Hildegard von Bingen, who was a naturalist and a politician and an artist and wrote a language for her nuns to speak. This lady was tied to the Catholic Church, and she lived in a stone room for 35 years and managed to do all of that after she got out. I also became super obsessed with the set of religious laywomen called the Belgian beguines, who flourished in Europe in the 13th century. They lived in separatist communes and were financially independent and made art, wrote poetry, preached; they did a lot of service in their communities. They worked as nurses and teachers and performed last rites for the dying. It was unheard of at the time for women to be living that independently. It was actually illegal in multiple ways. And eventually, a lot of the beguines were burned as heretics. At a time when it's so easy to feel discouraged by the erosion of civil rights in our country and other countries, I am so grateful to have the touch of these women who were living against the grain and leading these incredibly brave, self-actualized, joyful, fulfilled lives at a time when their lives were in danger because of it. If they could do it in the Middle Ages, I can muster the gumption today to enjoy so many of the freedoms that they didn't. After the first three months, I extended it, and then I extended it again, and when I got past the nine month mark, I was so happy and so disinclined to re enter that world that I stopped counting. I just thought, I am deeply uninterested in being in a relationship with another person. But shortly after the year mark, I started corresponding with a woman who would become my wife. Our communication didn't start as flirtation. We had read each other's work and became friends out of a sense of mutual artistic admiration. When we met, it was instant chemistry. I thought, Okay, I want to pursue this, but I want to do it really differently. I communicated that to her right off the bat, and she was like, that sounds really cool. We've been together ever since. You Might Also Like 4 Investment-Worthy Skincare Finds From Sephora The 17 Best Retinol Creams Worth Adding to Your Skin Care Routine
Express Tribune
4 days ago
- Express Tribune
Crafts bazaar showcases cultural heritage
Visitors examine handmade artefacts and crafts from across the country, each of which represent the varying customs and colourful cultures of different regions, at the crafts bazaar held at a local hotel in the federal capital. PHOTOs: EXPRESS The Nomad Art Gallery brought Islamabad to life with a vibrant cultural event that seamlessly merged art, craft and cinema into an inspiring experience for visitors from all walks of life. The event drew diplomats, artists, entrepreneurs and members of the public in celebration of Pakistan's diverse cultural heritage. The event was inaugurated by the Ambassador of Austria to Pakistan, Andrea Wicke, alongside the Ambassadors of Ireland and Jordan. In their opening remarks, the dignitaries underscored the vital role that art and culture play in promoting peace, tolerance and understanding among communities. Ambassador Andrea Wicke, in particular, highlighted the power of cultural expression to bridge divides and foster dialogue. A major highlight of the event was the Crafts Bazaar, which offered a carefully curated selection of handmade crafts from across Pakistan. The bazaar presented a colourful and captivating showcase of textiles, jewellery, accessories and home décor, all crafted by talented artisans representing a wide range of cultural traditions. Visitors had the rare opportunity to interact with the artisans, understand the stories behind their work and purchase items directly — supporting local talent and community-based entrepreneurship. Exhibits included a diverse range of products from Nomad Art Gallery's artisan partners spread across the country. These included vibrant Ajrak prints from Sindh, finely woven Kashmiri shawls and embroidery, eco-friendly block-printed textiles, handmade toys by Granmani and exquisite silver jewellery by Amna Shariff and the SS Collection. The event highlighted the immense potential of Pakistan's traditional crafts sector, particularly when supported by platforms that value cultural integrity and sustainability.
Eater
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
José Andrés Dishes on His New Memoir, TV Show, and Top Travel Tip
The day after a whirlwind press tour in NYC this spring — which included sit-down segments on the Kelly Clarkson Show and the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon — global humanitarian and celebrity chef José Andrés trained down to his D.C. home base, swinging by his downtown Spanish stunner the Bazaar to unveil his most personal book yet. The late-April release of Change the Recipe: Because You Can't Build a Better World Without Breaking Some Eggs coincided with the premiere of Yes, Chef! , NBC's new cooking competition show in which Andrés teams up with Martha Stewart to train a roster of 12 hot-headed chefs. The Emmy-winning, made-for-TV culinary combo met years ago over a meal at Jaleo, Andrés's first-ever restaurant in Penn Quarter. In one previously aired episode of Yes, Chef! , contestants vying for a $250,000 prize took on the gastronomic challenge of spherification — specifically, whipping up a believable-looking olive that reveals a burst of silky, liquid flavor in one bite. The delicate technique was born at Spain's legendary el Bulli, the three-Michelin-starred institution where Andrés himself worked as a young chef. Now diners can sample the molecular tapa that started it all, with a 10-day special running through Saturday, May 24, at the Bazaars in D.C., Vegas, and NYC. Two years after closing inside the SLS hotel, the avant-garde restaurant is gearing up to stage a big South Beach comeback at the Andaz Miami Beach. With 40 restaurants under his José Andrés Group umbrella, the founder of disaster relief nonprofit World Central Kitchen has no plans to balloon the Bazaar brand. 'For me, we can't have a Bazaar in every city in America. I want to have a passion for the city and I'm super proud of this one here in D.C.,' says Andrés, speaking to an intimate crowd during his April 29 book launch party. The two-year-old location, situated off the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in the historic Old Post Office building, famously has a full-circle backstory tied to Trump. Change the Recipe' s author Richard Wolffe goes way back with Andrés, having penned his first book full of Spanish recipes. 'He made me do it — he said, 'a chef has to have a book,'' says Andrés. 'And here we are a few years later with a few.' (Eleven and counting.) The cute new canary-colored hardcover, just 5x8 in size and under 200 pages long, is a departure from his norm. It's a collection of short stories that cover a swath of topics, including his childhood to nurse parents in Barcelona, why he used to hate (and grew to love) green peppers, food being a universal comfort in conflict zones, and teachable lessons learned in the hectic restaurant world. 'In a night when printers stop working, the bathroom breaks down, and every [customer] has a request, we make it through and 'change the recipe,'' says Andrés. 'The beauty of our profession is you adapt.' He says his daughters were ultimately the motivating factor behind the memoir. 'I think we all have to do this — write down memories. Especially if you're no longer here,' he says. But he's not going anywhere soon. 'I've been doing this for 32 years — and I look forward to the next 32,' he says. 'So we'll all be together for my 87th birthday. Probably I'll even be making the food.' We snagged a quick chat with Andrés on the side, in which he reveals a bonafide biography is on the future horizon. Eater: What's Martha got that you don't? José Andrés: She's very practical — she doesn't hesitate and she knows what she wants. She has so much energy. [While filming, she'd ask me,] ''Where are we going to dinner tonight, José?' What? I have to go to bed.' Why is it more important than ever to mentor chefs these days? As you grow older, you learn and then try to pass that on to others. The restaurant business is still one of the most brutal and difficult businesses at every level, [between] the success rate and the hours that anyone has. But still at same time, it's one of the most fascinating professions anybody can be a part of. Tell me more about what this new book means to you. The short stories are very simple, yet sharing a moment that's important in my life — maybe a lesson I gained from it, and maybe someone's searching for the same answer to the question. I want to write something bigger later in my life. And I will, eventually. Longer stories and thoughts. Congrats on taking D.C.'s decades-old Oyamel to NYC this spring. That was a good move. I bring another concept to Hudson Yards and get to expand another brand. I heard you got off the Amtrak from NY about an hour ago. You travel so much — what would you say is your top packing tip? [Whips off navy suit jacket and waves it around like a napkin]: Buy clothing that doesn't wrinkle! This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 'Yes, Chef!' airs Monday nights at 10 p.m. on NBC; Andrés also stars in Netflix's newly released spinoff series, Chef's Table: Legends . Sign up for our newsletter.
Hindustan Times
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Naseeruddin Shah recalls doing movies just for money, working three shifts a day: ‘There's no worse torture in world'
Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah, known for his films like Bazaar, Aakrosh, Sparsh, A Wednesday! and more, recalled in an interview with Aadyam Theatre how he once took on certain films purely for financial reasons. He described working three shifts a day as "torture". (Also Read: Naseeruddin Shah 'could hardly hold back tears' as he attended Manthan screening at Cannes almost 50 years after release) The actor revealed that his technique does not differ when acting in front of the camera versus on stage. When asked if he had ever done four shifts a day, Naseeruddin said, "I've done three shifts a day, and there's no worse torture in the world. There was a time when I was acting in several films just for the money. And I realised no amount of money is worth this agony — jumping from one set to another. Half the time, you're just socialising on set. You arrive for a 9 am shift, then spend another hour or so having breakfast, enjoying the scenery, and gossiping. I know someone who'd love that," he added, pointing towards Ratna. Ratna spoke about putting equal effort into all her work, even if the quality varied, and said, "I've done very little work that is of high quality. Most of my work has been on television, so that's not the kind of quality we refer to when we talk about great art. But I've realised that if I don't give it my all — if I don't apply the same skills I use while doing theatre — then it neither sounds nor looks right." Naseeruddin Shah was last seen in the film Fateh. Sonu Sood's directorial debut also starred Jacqueline Fernandez, Vijay Raaz, and Dibyendu Bhattacharya in key roles. Released in February, the film follows the story of Fateh, an ex-agent who comes out of his peaceful life to dismantle a cyber mafia syndicate after a local girl becomes a victim and goes missing. Fateh received mixed reviews from both audiences and critics, and failed to make a significant impact at the box office, earning only ₹19.06 crore worldwide.
