Feature
Obama ranks 12th best leader in US presidential history
Washington : Barack Obama ranks as the 12th best leader in US presidential history, according to a new survey.
The survey of 91 presidential historians conducted by C-SPAN placed the 44th president just below Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) and just above James Monroe (1817-1825), NBC News reported on Friday.
This is the third such survey by the organisation, which began polling the panel of presidential experts in 2000.
The poll ranks each US president on various issues, including “crisis leadership”, “moral authority”, “international relations” and “pursuing equal justice for all”.
Obama scored particularly high on the “equal justice” scale, coming in third behind only Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) and Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969).
But Obama ranked fifth from the bottom on “relations with Congress”, and got a middling 24th best score on “international relations”, the survey showed
Historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University said that Obama’s presidency, despite its weak points, may age well and notch an even higher ranking as time passes.
“There tends to be kind of an upward mobility, particularly if you are a president who had no major scandals,” he said, noting that presidents are also often judged in comparison to their immediate predecessors and successors.
“If the Trump presidency is problematic, people may judge Obama even higher yet.”
For the third time in a row, Abraham Lincoln ranked as the nation’s best presidential leader, according to the panel. George Washington, the first US President (1789-1797), came in second, and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) rounded out the podium at third.
Others in the top ten are: Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961), Harry Truman (1945-1953), Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), John F. Kennedy (1961-1963), Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) and Lyndon Johnson.
George W. Bush’s dismal ranking of 36rd in the 2009 survey has improved slightly with time. He is now ranked as the nation’s 33rd best presidential leader.
Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), whose populist movement has been compared by some historians to Donald Trump’s unconventional political rise, dropped several pegs in the latest survey, falling from the 13th slot in 2000 and 2009 to 18th.
The survey named James Buchanan (1857-1861), as the worst leader whose incompetence to address the onset of the Civil War is noted as one of the greatest leadership failures in American history.
Buchanan joins four other presidents – Andrew Johnson (1865-1869), Franklin Pierce (1853-1857), Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) and John Tyler (1841-1845) – at the bottom of the presidential barrel, below even William Henry Harrison (March 4-April 4, 1841), who died after a month in office.
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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