Latest news with #TLM
Indian Express
03-07-2025
- General
- Indian Express
Inspect, update report, assess academic indicators: Over 50 Delhi govt schools flagged for poor results, put under mentorship
The Delhi Education Department has identified 56 government schools with the lowest pass percentages in Class 9 and Class 11 during the 2024-25 academic session, and placed them under the direct mentorship of its senior officers. The list, prepared based on result analysis by the Directorate of Education (DOE)'s Exam Branch, includes schools where Class 9 pass percentages dipped as low as 45.37 per cent. Among the lowest-performing schools in Class 9 are West Azad Nagar-Government Co-ed SSS (pass percentage: 45.37 per cent), Qutab Road-SBV (46.75 per cent), Katewara-GBSSS (48.57 per cent), and Bindapur-GBSSS (50.83 per cent). Several others recorded pass rates in the range of 51–59 per cent. Only two schools from the list were flagged for low performance in Class 11 — Sunder Nagari-GBSSS and Keshavpuram-SBV. In a circular Tuesday, DOE assigned one officer to each school 'for mentoring the overall academic performance during the session 2025-26'. 'Mentors are expected to visit the respective schools at least once in a fortnight and submit the Inspection Report… preferably on the same day of visit,' read the circular. Deputy directors of education (DDEs) from various zones and districts have been tasked with adopting these schools. After conducting the inspections, the officers must submit updated, detailed reports to the Delhi Education Management Information System (MIS), according to officials. As part of the inspection, officials will assess a comprehensive set of academic indicators, including the identification of low-performing subjects, teacher vacancies, student attendance, availability of learning materials, usage of NCERT textbooks, the status of ICT labs, and the implementation of vocational education, among others. The officials would check whether school heads and teachers have adopted individual low-performing students for academic mentoring, and whether their progress is being tracked. A verification of the usage of CBSE/DoE-issued sample papers, action plans for low achievers, and whether parents are being regularly informed about attendance and performance will also be done. Beyond a one-time intervention, the academic recovery plan is grounded in long-term monitoring. The mentors have been instructed to observe three-year result trends for classes 9 to 12. With year-wise performance and fail percentages being tracked, this is also not the first time the Delhi Government has undertaken the initiative. In 2024, 67 Delhi Government schools were put under 32 district-level officers in the Education Department for mentorship. The circular also refers to Mission Mathematics, an ongoing programme introduced to strengthen math learning, which was expanded this year to Classes 6 to 10. The officials are expected to monitor the implementation of this programme and Teaching Learning Material (TLM) competitions during their school visits. The emphasis, the Directorate noted, is on 'need-based academic support' and improving learning outcomes in a 'joyful' and 'centric' manner.
Hans India
29-06-2025
- General
- Hans India
KPTCL leads electricity safety education initiative
Udupi: A spirited initiative unfolded in the rural landscapes of coastal Karnataka as the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL), teamed up with TLM and MESCOM, to deliver an electrical safety awareness campaign at the Government Higher Primary School in Nallur of Karkala taluk in Udupi district. Launched on June 27, 2025, as part of the National Electrical Safety Week, this event aimed to educate young minds and address safety concerns in underserved areas. The central message disseminated in the campaign was to raise awareness about electrical risks, and fire outbreaks due to electricity. The National Electrical Safety Week, driven by the National Safety Council of India with backing from the Central Electricity Authority, kicks off each year on June 26 to tackle these hazards head-on, making events like this a vital part of the national strategy. This program delivered practical advices such as avoiding circuit overloads and spotting unsafe electrical goods. Local educators hailed the approach, noting that these young learners could spread safety knowledge within their families and communities. By harnessing the school's community influence, it fills a void in rural safety efforts, which often center on urban areas. With the National Electrical Safety Week ongoing, the Karkala success story could pave the way for similar efforts across Karnataka and beyond say KPTCL officials.
Finextra
13-06-2025
- Business
- Finextra
SmartStream expands AI reconciliation and data management to insurance sector
SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) and solutions provider, has announced the expansion of its AI-driven reconciliation and data management platform, SmartStream Air, into the insurance sector. This move aims to help insurers tackle fragmented data challenges, reduce operational costs, and strengthen compliance through robust audit trails. 0 As the insurance industry struggles with limited digital maturity, it faces mounting pressure from increasing transaction volumes, persistent data quality issues, and the complex demands of evolving regulations such as IFRS 17 and DORA. In this environment, the need for advanced, rapidly deployable SaaS data management solutions has never been more urgent. Addressing these challenges requires a fundamental transformation in how insurers manage systems, streamline operations, and ensure data integrity across the enterprise. SmartStream Air leverages cutting-edge AI to reconcile and manage high volumes of data, for example across payments, reimbursements, claims, policyholder transactions, and investment operations. The platform enables insurers to rapidly identify exceptions and resolve discrepancies - regardless of data format or source – in a matter of seconds. Robin Hasson, Global Head of Reconciliations at SmartStream, states: 'Our heritage and experience in working with the world's top 100 banks, gives us a strong foundation to support the insurance sector as firms identify use cases for increased automation. We're already partnering with leading insurers to implement AI-powered solutions that enable data-driven agility. In today's environment, insurers must respond swiftly to market shifts and customer expectations, or risk falling behind due to inefficiencies and increased exposure'. Karlyn Carnahan, Insurance Practice Leader, Head of North American Research, Celent, states: 'Celent expects 2025 to be a transformative year in insurance, buoyed by a clarity of purpose around efficiency and growth and with lessons in technology strategy, partnerships, and market dynamics from the past several years of chaos absorbed. While getting arms around AI from a compliance and use case perspective is difficult, deploying proven technologies from other industries to support it will help insurers achieve their goals to grow efficiently and set up for the next several decades of business'. Deployed as a SaaS solution, SmartStream Air is flexible enough to offer a comprehensive suite of capabilities tailored to insurance operations, including: premium collection and processing, commission payments, claims management, financial reporting, reinsurance settlements, policyholder refunds, investment account reconciliation, data integration and validation, risk and reserve management, expense tracking, and fraud detection. With this expansion, SmartStream is positioning itself as a key enabler of digital transformation in insurance, helping firms modernise operations and meet the demands of a data-intensive future.
Spectator
11-06-2025
- Spectator
Can Pope Leo end the liturgy wars?
Last weekend, under windswept banners depicting the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, nearly 20,000 young pilgrims marched through fields and forests between the cathedrals of Paris and Chartres. All of them carried rosaries and chanted in Latin, sometimes breathlessly: it's a punishing 60-mile trek through mud and rocks. Each 'chapter' of the column was accompanied by priests. Like the lay pilgrims – drawn from 30 countries but dominated by French teenagers in scouting uniform – they wore backpacks and trainers, but also full-length cassocks or habits. They were traditionalists and so were the young people: despite their informality, they were utterly committed to intricate Latin worship. Making peace is the first great challenge of his pontificate From a distance, the banners and fleur-de-lys flags summoned folk memories of St Joan of Arc. When the Maid's forces approached Orléans in 1429, her English enemies were startled by the hymn 'Veni Creator Spiritus' sung by priests emerging from the woods. Was this an army or a religious procession? It's tempting to ask the same question about the Chartres pilgrimage, an event that grows bigger every year. Though the atmosphere was joyful, this time the gathering was overshadowed by the 'liturgy wars' raging most fiercely in the United States and France. Pope Leo XIV, himself an American, must know how desperate the situation is; making peace is the first great challenge of his pontificate. The casus belli is the old Latin Mass that a growing number of young Catholics are discovering, more than half a century after the Church decided that it was too reactionary for their grandparents' generation. Celebrated ad orientem (facing east), it follows a rubric of crossings, bows and genuflections that can take years to master. Until recently it was known as the Tridentine Mass, a name derived from the Council of Trent that codified it in 1570. Now its devotees call it the Traditional Latin Mass or 'TLM', recognising that most of its prayers and ceremonies long predate the Counter-Reformation. In other words, it was already centuries old when Joan of Arc attended it. The Traditional Latin Mass is the western counterpart of the ancient eastern liturgies that Pope Leo praised within days of his election, telling Catholics whose rituals developed in Byzantium or the Holy Land that 'we have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies'. But was that sense of mystery lost or thrown away? In 1970, after the Second Vatican Council, Latin-rite parishes – making up most of the world's Catholic congregations – were ordered to ditch the TLM in favour of simplified vernacular masses, often badly translated and influenced by Protestant models. Pope John Paul II tried to purify the new mass by curbing the excesses of priests who, grinning like game-show hosts, turned the Holy Sacrifice into a 'communal meal' in which the 'people of God' worshipped themselves. He was widely ignored. He also faced the challenge of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), founded by the ultra-conservative French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who broke away from the main Church. John Paul excommunicated Lefebvre after he illicitly ordained bishops. Yet the SSPX flourished, and when the Pope set up a rival body, the Priestly Society of St Peter, whose priests had permission to celebrate only the old mass, that also flourished. Then came Benedict XVI, who declared that 'what earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred'. In 2007 his apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum horrified liberal cardinals. From now on, any priest could say the TLM in parish churches so long as people wanted it – and a small but formidably well-organised Catholic subculture wanted it very much. But in 2013 the conclave elected Francis. In his native Argentina he was a merciless opponent of the TLM – but as Pope he held fire because Benedict was still alive. By 2021, however, Francis's health was failing. Worried that his predecessor might outlive him, he tore up Summorum Pontificum. Francis's Traditionis Custodes banned the TLM from parishes and forbade new priests from learning it. However, many bishops found ways of circumventing the carelessly drafted ruling. They weren't necessarily fans of the old mass, but they deplored the brutal tactics of the Pope's enforcer, the Yorkshire-born Cardinal Arthur Roche. 'It was like watching some monstrous child pulling the wings off flies,' says one source. With Leo XIV's election, traditionalists hoped for reprieve. But it was only a faint hope, because the new Pope – who combines a quiet charisma with a certain frustrating inscrutability – was so fond of quoting their tormentor Francis. Then the liturgy wars went nuclear. Bishop Michael Martin of Charlotte, North Carolina – a Birkenstock-wearing Franciscan with a Trumpian ego – announced that from 8 July the old mass would be banned from the four parishes where it was celebrated. Ignoring protests from their pastors, he designated an out-of-town chapel as the location of just one TLM on Sundays. Other bishops had taken similar actions, but what disgusted traditionalists was Martin's tone, dripping with contempt for anyone who preferred the ancient rite. Someone then leaked a memo in which the bishop planned a dumbing-down of the new mass, removing all traces of Latin, ripping out altar rails, banning kneeling for communion and even forbidding women readers from wearing head coverings. This scorched-earth policy caused such outrage from priests that he withdrew the memo. Too late: overnight Martin became the most reviled bishop in the United States, and not just in Latin Mass circles. Catholic YouTube channels went into overdrive. Was Martin implementing Leo XIV's secret agenda, or was he trying to force the Pope's hand? Last week, though, something odd happened. Martin announced that he was pausing the TLM restrictions until October, something he'd previously ruled out. He did so immediately after a meeting between Pope Leo and Cardinal Roche, who is expected to retire soon as the Vatican's head of liturgy. Also, Martin said that if the Vatican changed the rules restricting the TLM, the Diocese of Charlotte 'would abide by those instructions'. What did that mean? Everyone is sick of the confusion. 'It was like watching some monstrous child pulling the wings off flies' Things are no better in France. On Monday there was a glorious Solemn Mass in Chartres Cathedral – but it nearly didn't happen. Some French bishops wanted to slam the doors in the face of the pilgrims for wanting the wrong sort of 'youth mass'. A moment in the ceremony explains why boomer Catholics are so alarmed. The dozens of priests genuflecting before the altar, birettas in hand, were only a few years older than the worshippers. Something similar is happening in some of London's Anglican churches, where Generation Z are flocking to old-fashioned evensong. The difference is that the Church of England long ago stopped harassing anyone attached to the Book of Common Prayer, agreeing with Pope Benedict that what earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred. Progressive cardinals and bishops, by contrast, freak out at the sight of a maniple, a strip of silk worn over the arm of a priest celebrating the old mass. To be fair, they have always hated this sort of vestment; but Pope Francis and Cardinal Roche encouraged them to channel their dislike into the sort of petty-minded persecution that English Catholics endured under the penal laws. Pope Leo cannot allow the liturgy wars to drag on. He may choose to dismantle Traditionis Custodes gently, employing loopholes rather than trashing his predecessor. That's fine. But dismantle it he must. Contrary to some reports, it's not true that significant numbers of young people in the West are turning to Catholicism. But among those few young Catholics who practise their faith, a rising proportion are drawn to the 'Mass of the ages', as it's sometimes called. If Pope Leo wants their loyalty, enabling him to pass on the spiritual gifts of tradition to his successors, then he must learn one lesson now, in the first months of his pontificate: he cannot square the circle of singing plainchant from his balcony while suppressing the supreme expression of Latin worship.
Epoch Times
19-05-2025
- General
- Epoch Times
The Traditional Latin Mass Movement and the Romance of Orthodoxy
Commentary The Traditional Latin Mass recently has been the subject of a surprising number of articles in mainstream publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. It is estimated that only 2 percent of Catholics attend this ancient form of the Mass, yet it is attracting much attention. Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) communities in America have seen growth of about 10 percent year over year since 2022, according to one priest who surveyed several TLM parishes across the United States. Many other parishes experience a 3 percent decrease yearly. The story of the diocese of Oakland, Calif., on the one hand, and the parish of St. Vitus in Los Angeles are representative of what is happening in the Catholic Church at large right now, and it would behoove the newly elected Pope Leo XIV to pay attention to the traditionalist movement in the Church, a movement driven by young laypeople and young priests. In 2022, Oakland Bishop Michael Barber commissioned a report to investigate solutions to the collapse of the faith in the diocese. This 73-page document details the lack of priests and lack of funds and discusses the possibility of parish closures, mergers, and clusters. Right now, Oakland is working on clustering parishes together under shared priests. This is happening in other cities, too. In Los Angeles, on the other hand, a single priest has grown the Latin Mass to such an extent that several church upgrades have not been enough. The TLM parish of Related Stories 12/27/2023 1/14/2022 However, because it continued to grow, coexistence became difficult. St. Vitus was soon able to purchase its own church, which its parishioners fixed up and beautified. Yet it quickly outgrew this space and, during COVID, 'expanded' with the use of a large outdoor tent. Last year, the parish purchased a larger property north of the city, and yet even here, on an ordinary Tuesday, the Masses are standing-room only. For the Easter Vigil Mass at 8 p.m., one family arrived at 4:30 pm to get seats inside of the church. This is happening at many traditional Latin Mass parishes around the country. In order to understand why the old Latin Mass is experiencing an incredible revival, it is necessary to look beyond the explanations that most of the mainstream media outlets offer. Contrary to these narratives, the TLM movement is not political, social, or aesthetic. It is liturgical. The The liturgical life of many traditional Latin Mass Catholics encompasses much more than church on Sundays. They honor saints with real feasts; seasonal festivities such as Christmas and Easter take place after an extended fast and last for a whole season, not just one day. Children often do not have cellphones until late high school or college. It is not uncommon for their homes to lack a television, or for it to be relegated to the basement for family movie night. These folks sometimes uproot and move or drive very long distances to celebrate the Latin Mass. They seem to live according to a pre-modern rhythm of life. The very 'weirdness' of this older form of Christianity is part of what makes it attractive to young people, who form its base. A 2022 survey that found that over 80 percent of priests ordained after 2020 identify as 'conservative/orthodox,' while none of the priests described themselves as 'very progressive.' This marks a distinct change from the views of older clergy, Pope Francis having been among them, who embraced the 'modernizing' efforts of the Young people are rebelling against a disenchanted world of materialism, nihilism, and depression. They yearn for re-enchantment, for beauty, and for the ancient form of worship that gives meaning and rest to restless souls. Pope Leo XIV would do well to encourage this blossoming youth movement, and to remove the restrictions on it that his predecessor put in place. Wherever a Traditional Latin Mass is celebrated, a community grows around it. Within a couple of years, formerly dying parishes could be utterly revived. Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
