Parliamentary Panel on Agriculture recommended to ban GM Food Crops

In a major setback to the production of genetically modified (GM) foods in the country, a parliamentary panel on agriculture asked the government to ban all field trials of GM crops until it develops until it develops a better system of monitoring and oversight.
In the 389-page report submitted in the parliament on 9 August 2012, the panel also demanded a complete probe into how permission was granted in 2009 for the commercialisation of  Bt brinjal (also known as aubergine, or eggplant). Bt Brinjal was developed by Pune-based Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Company) in a joint venture with US seed giant Monsanto.
The Genetic Engeneering Appraisal Committee had cleared the commercialization of Bt Brinjal on 14 October 2009, though soon after its clearance it was caught amidst bitter controversies ranging from its environmental impacts to ethical concerns such as corporate control of the food supply and intellectual property rights. Bt cotton was the only GM crop before Bt Brinjal which had got clearance for commercialization.

Improving Access to Justice – National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms

The National Mission for Justice Delivery and legal Reforms was set up in June, 2011 to achieve the twin goals of increasing access by reducing delays and arrears; and enhancing accountability through structural changes and by setting performance standards and capacities. The Mission has become fully functional from 2012-13 and is pursuing strategic initiatives: outlining policy and legislative changes; re-engineering of procedures and court processes; focussing on Human Resource Development; and leveraging Information and Communication Technology & tools for better justice delivery. The Mission will adopt a coordinated approach for phased liquidation of arrears and pendency in judicial administration which would, inter alia, involve better infrastructure for courts including computerisation, increase in strength of subordinate judiciary, policy and legislative measures in the areas prone to excessive litigation, re-engineering of court procedure for quick disposal of cases.

Policy and Legislative Changes

            In short span of its existence, the Mission has taken several steps in each of the strategic areas towards fulfillment of its objectives. Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill has been prepared.  The Bill has already been passed by the Lok Sabha and is now before the Rajya Sabha for consideration.  Constitution amendment bill for raising the retirement age of High Court Judges is also before the Parliament.

A comprehensive proposal has been formulated for constitution of All India Judicial Service and the proposal is before Committee of Secretaries. 25 States have formulated their Litigation Policies with a view to reduce the Governmental litigation.  Litigation Policy at the national level is also on the anvil.   

An Inter-Ministerial Group has been constituted to suggest necessary amendments to the Negotiable Instruments Act along with other policy and administrative measures to check increasing litigation relating to cheque bounce cases. First meeting of IMG was held on 30^th, May 2012 and decisions taken in the meeting are being pursued for follow up action with Department of Financial Services, Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks Association for reducing the burden of cheque bouncing cases on our criminal justice system.

Re-Engineering Court Procedures and Court Processes

            An important aspect of the judicial reforms relates to re-engineering court procedures and court processes for early disposal of cases.  A National Court Management System has been recently notified by the Supreme Court for addressing the issues of case management, court management, setting measurable standards for performance of the courts and the National System of Judicial Statistics in the country. The National Mission would coordinate with NCMS and would render necessary assistance in achieving the goal of reducing pendency in courts.

            A Sub Group on improving the court procedure and court processes for better criminal justice system has been constituted under Chairman, Law Commission to suggest necessary changes in this regard. The Commission has already prepared a Report on inordinate delays in investigation and prosecution of criminal cases against influential persons and measures needed to reform the criminal justice system.

Infrastructure Development

Infrastructure development for the subordinate judiciary is a major thrust area of the National Mission.  With a view to enhancing the resources of the State Governments, the Government has increased the central share by revising the funding pattern from 50:50 to 75:25 (for States other than North Eastern States) under modified Centrally Sponsored Scheme for development of infrastructure facilities for the judiciary from the year 2011-12 onwards.  The funding pattern for North-Eastern States has been kept as 90:10 from 2010-11.  Central assistance amounting to over ` two thousand crore has been released to States and Union Territories since inception of the scheme out of which an amount of over ` two hundred crore has been released so far during current financial year.

Gram Nyayalayas

The Gram Nyayalayas Act, 2008 has been enacted for establishment of Gram Nyayalayas at the grass roots level for providing access to justice to citizens at their doorstep.The Central Government provides assistance to States for non-recurring expenses for setting up of Gram Nyayalayas and for meeting the cost of recurring expenses for running these Gram Nyayalayas for the first three years.

            At the time of enactment of Gram Nyayalayas Act it was envisaged that 5067 Gram Nyayalayas would be set up throughout the country for which Central Government would provide recurring and non-recurring assistance to States as per prescribed norms. The progress of the Gram Nyayalayas Scheme has not been up to expectations so far.

            To further incentivize the State Governments for early operationalisation of Gram Nyayalayas, a comprehensive proposal for merger of Gram Nyayalayas scheme with the Centrally sponsored Scheme for development of infrastructure facilities for the subordinate judiciary has been prepared.  The norms for providing central assistance towards recurring expenditure are also proposed to be revised upwards. The proposal is presently awaiting approval of Planning Commission and Ministry of Finance.

Pendency Reduction Drive

            The Government had launched a pendency reduction drive from July 2011 to December, 2011.  Chief Justices of the High Courts were requested by the Minister of Law and Justice to initiate a campaign mode approach towards clearing long pending cases and cases relating to marginalized sections of the society.  As per feedback received from various High Courts, total pendency was reduced by over 6 lakh cases out of which about 1.36 lakh cases belonged to targeted groups such as senior citizens, disabled, minors and marginalized sections of society.

One of the important components of pendency reduction drive related to release of under-trial prisoners from jail. In terms of the extant provisions of Criminal Procedure Code, the under-trials who have completed half of the maximum specified punishment for various offences in jail need to be released on personal bond.  As per the information received from various High Courts, around 3.16 lakh under-trial prisoners were released from the prisons during the campaign period.

A similar drive has been launched by the Minister of Law and Justice this year as well from July, 2012 to December, 2012. The main focus of pendency reduction drive this year is to make our judicial system ‘five plus’ free. Simultaneously emphasis is being laid on increasing the number of judges in subordinate judiciary by filling the existing vacancies and creating additional posts so that disposal of cases is expedited by setting up of additional courts.

London Olympics 2012 Medal Tally India

 

Silver

● Vijay Kumar - Shooting (Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol)

● Sushil Kumar - Wrestling (Men's 66kg Freestyle)

Bronze 

● Saina Nehwal - Badminton (Women's Singles)

● Chungneijang Mery Kom Hmangte - Boxing  [Women's Fly (51kg)]

● Gagan Narang - Shooting (Men's 10m Air Rifle)

● Yogeshwar Dutt - Wrestling (Men's 60kg Freestyle)

London Olympics 2012 Medals Tally

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
USA	46	29	29	104
China	38	27	22	87
Great Britain	29	17	19	65
Russia	24	25	33	82
Republic of Korea	13	8	7	28
Germany	11	19	14	44
France	11	11	12	34
Italy	8	9	11	28
Hungary	8	4	5	17
Australia	7	16	12	35
Japan	7	14	17	38
Kazakhstan	7	1	5	13
Netherlands	6	6	8	20
Ukraine	6	5	9	20
Cuba	5	3	6	14
New Zealand	5	3	5	13
Islamic Republic of Iran	4	5	3	12
Jamaica	4	4	4	12
Czech Republic	4	3	3	10
DPR Korea	4	0	2	6
Spain	3	10	4	17
Brazil	3	5	9	17
Belarus	3	5	5	13
South Africa	3	2	1	6
Ethiopia	3	1	3	7
Croatia	3	1	2	6
Romania	2	5	2	9
Kenya	2	4	5	11
Denmark	2	4	3	9
Poland	2	2	6	10
Azerbaijan	2	2	6	10
Turkey	2	2	1	5
Switzerland	2	2	0	4
Lithuania	2	1	2	5
Norway	2	1	1	4
Canada	1	5	12	18
Sweden	1	4	3	8
Colombia	1	3	4	8
Georgia	1	3	3	7
Mexico	1	3	3	7
Ireland	1	1	3	5
Serbia	1	1	2	4
Argentina	1	1	2	4
Slovenia	1	1	2	4
Tunisia	1	1	1	3
Dominican Republic	1	1	0	2
Trinidad & Tobago	1	0	3	4
Uzbekistan	1	0	3	4
Latvia	1	0	1	2
Algeria	1	0	0	1
Grenada	1	0	0	1
Bahamas	1	0	0	1
Uganda	1	0	0	1
Venezuela	1	0	0	1
India	0	2	4	6
Mongolia	0	2	3	5
Thailand	0	2	1	3
Egypt	0	2	0	2
Slovakia	0	1	3	4
Armenia	0	1	2	3
Belgium	0	1	2	3
Finland	0	1	2	3
Puerto Rico	0	1	1	2
Taipei (Chinese Taipei)	0	1	1	2
Indonesia	0	1	1	2
Estonia	0	1	1	2
Bulgaria	0	1	1	2
Malaysia	0	1	1	2
Gabon	0	1	0	1
Botswana	0	1	0	1
Guatemala	0	1	0	1
Cyprus	0	1	0	1
Portugal	0	1	0	1
Greece	0	0	2	2
Singapore	0	0	2	2
Qatar	0	0	2	2
Republic of Moldova	0	0	2	2
Bahrain	0	0	1	1
Afghanistan	0	0	1	1
Honk Kong, China	0	0	1	1
Tajikistan	0	0	1	1
Saudi Arabia	0	0	1	1
Kuwait	0	0	1	1
Morocco	0	0	1	1

INDIA PROFILE IN OLYMPICS

The first authentic Indian team took part at the 1920 Antwerp Olympic Games in athletics and wrestling.
A National Olympic Committee was finally formed in 1927.
India's greatest successes at the Olympics have come in men's hockey. They won every men's title from 1928 to 1956. In 1960 they reached the final but lost to Pakistan to end the sequence.
India's first gold medal winning squad at the Amsterdam Olympic Games in 1928 included legendary hockey player Dhyan CHAND, known as the “ wizard of hockey” who won three consecutive gold medals.
After independence India continued their hockey success with a gold at the London Olympic Games. The final was played on grass at Wembley Stadium. India were an ever present on the men's hockey medal podium until 1976 and their last gold medal success in this sport came at the Moscow 1980 Olympic Games.
Indian shooters have challenged for medals in the new millennium. Rajyavardhan Singh RATHORE won silver in the men's double trap in Athens 2004. Shooter Abinav BHINDRA became India's first individual gold medallist when won the 10m air rifle at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
At the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, Norman PRITCHARD won silver medals in the men's 200m and the now discontinued 200m hurdles. He was the first medal winner born in India but confusion surrounds his nationality as India was then under British rule.
 India have not yet staged the Olympic Games but have hosted IOC sessions.
Anthem: Title
Jana Gana Mana (Thou Art the Ruler of the Minds of all People)
Anthem: Year of Induction
1950
Anthem: Composer
Words and music Rabindranath TAGORE.
Official NOC/NPC name
India
IOC recognition date
1927
NOC/NPC President's name
Professor Vijay KUMAR MALHOTRA
NOC/NPC General Secretary's name
Raja Randhir SINGH
IOC Member's Name
Raja Randhir SINGH, Mr Ashwini KUMAR (Honorary)
Year of first appearance in an Olympic and Paralympic Games
1900
Number of appearances in Olympic and Paralympic Games
23, including Paris 1900 and London 2012
Summary of Olympic and Paralympic Games Appearances

Medals per sport
Sport	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Boxing	0	0	1	1
Hockey	8	1	2	11
Shooting	1	1	0	2
Tennis	0	0	1	1
Weightlifting	0	0	1	1
Wrestling - Freestyle	0	0	2	2
Total	9	2	7	18
Medals per year
Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1928	1	0	0	1
1932	1	0	0	1
1936	1	0	0	1
1948	1	0	0	1
1952	1	0	1	2
1956	1	0	0	1
1960	0	1	0	1
1964	1	0	0	1
1968	0	0	1	1
1972	0	0	1	1
1980	1	0	0	1
1996	0	0	1	1
2000	0	0	1	1
2004	0	1	0	1
2008	1	0	2	3
2012	0	2	4	6

US imposed Fresh Sanctions on Belligerent Iran

In pursuit of its goal to debilitate Iran’s oil exporting economy, the US government on 2 August 2012 announced to impose some fresh sanctions on Iran. Sanctions, imposed under Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISADA), put punitive regulation on those who continued to maintain ties with Iran.
Under the sanction Bank of Kunlun in China and Elaf Islamic Bank in Iraq faced cut off from transactions with US institutions. The two banks were punished for facilitating transactions worth millions of dollars on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks. The new sanctions categorically target the Iranian energy and petrochemical sectors.
The sanctions are aimed at preventing Iran from establishing payment mechanisms for the purchase of Iranian oil to circumvent existing sanctions, and utilises the existing structure of our sanctions law, including exceptions for significant reductions in the purchase of Iranian oil.
Earlier this year India, China and a host of other nations had opposed US’ dictate to cut down their oil imports from Iran. US and European Union have come down heavily on Iran’s nuclear programme seeking all possible diplomatic methods to stop the belligerent nation to carry on its nuclear programme. Though the heavy sanctions imposed by the US and EU over Iran have not yielded them the desired result as Iran has thus far not gave up its plan to build nuclear armaments.

Goa Launched Ladli Laxmi Scheme

State Government of Goa launched Ladli Laxmi Scheme on 6 July 2012.  Women and Child Welfare department initiated this scheme. The meeting was headed by the Chief Minister of Goa. It aims to prevent female foeticide in the state.
Under this scheme, girls who are 18 years and above would be provided with Rs. 1 Lakh for their marriage. This scheme is for those girls who lie between the age group of 18-40 years.

This scheme is valid for those girls whose parents are living in Goa for the last 25 years. In addition, the girl should have been born and brought up in the state.

The State Government had reserved the fund of Rs. 150 crore for this scheme. Five banks were enrolled with the Women and Child Welfare department. Goa registers 1000 marriages (approx) every year.

Kishore Chandra Deo Inaugurates Silver Jubilee Celebration TRIFED

V. Kishore Chandra Deo, Union Minister of Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj inaugurated the Silver Jubilee celebration of the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) here today. In his inaugural address, Sheri Deo said there is a need to concentrate on Minor Forest Produce, termed as Non-Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) by TRIFED. The NTFP has significant economic and social value for the forest dwellers. He said that Central Government has enacted two major legislations, namely PESA and FRA to empower the forest dwellers. He further that said the Minimum Support Price Scheme for NTFPs is in the offing and Central Government will provide financial support for procurement, creation of enabling infrastructure, training for sustainable harvesting and also provide subsidy to State level agencies in case they incur any loss in the transaction so that they do not hesitate from procurement of NTFPs from tribals, a major source of income for tribals. The TRIFED has an important role as the nodal agency for implementation of this scheme, in order to translate the objectives of these Acts into reality. He said Central Govt. will provide financial support for procurement, creation of enabling infrastructure, training for sustainable harvesting and also provide subsidy to State level agencies in case they incur any loss in the transaction so that they do not hesitate from procurement of NTFPs from tribals, a major source of income for tribals.

The Minister said the Silver Jubilee function of TRIFED’ provides us an opportunity to take stock of the situation, ponder over the future challenges and redefine the role for the organization in the rapidly changing environment. He said that TRIFED was started in August1987 with the main objective of providing marketing support for the tribal products so that remunerative prices can be ensured to the tribals for the products collected/cultivated by them. TRIFED’s effort to build “TRIBES INDIA” as a brand needs special mention as it provided tribal handicrafts and textile products a distinct identity in the market. The TRIFED has been consistently growing in terms of sales and from a single store in 1999 at Delhi now TRIBES India network has covered 16 States with 26 stores and still expanding. The Minister expressed his support to TRIFED and expressed the hope that TRIFED would emerge as a big and successful organization.

Shri Mahadeo Singh Khandela, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, Dr. Rameswar Oraon, Chairman, ST Comission, Smt. Vibha Puri Das, Secretary of the Ministry and Jiji Thomson, MD, TRIFED were also present in the function. Eminent Gandhian, Dr. Abhay Basng delivered a lecture on tribal issue on the occasion.

Keshubhai launches new political party Gujarat Parivartan Party'

Former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel  launched a new political outfit 'Gujarat Parivartan Party' ahead of the assembly elections, marking a decisive phase in his campaign against his bete noire and successor Narendra Modi.

Announcing the launch of the party that could signal a realignment of anti-Modi forces, 83-year-old Patel, a known baiter of the BJP strongman, said his party GPP would contest all the 182 seats in Gujarat assembly elections due to be held by the end of this year.

Mars rover Curiosity touches down on the Red Planet

The Mars science rover Curiosity landed on the Martian surface  to begin a two-year mission seeking evidence the Red Planet once hosted ingredients for life, NASA said.

Mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles burst into applause and cheered as they received signals relayed by a Mars orbiter confirming that the rover had survived a make-or-break descent and touched down within its landing zone.

NASA described the feat as perhaps the most complex achieved in robotic spaceflight.

Moments later, Curiosity beamed back its first three images from the Martian surface, one of them showing a wheel of the vehicle.

"I can't believe this. This is unbelievable," said Allen Chen, the deputy leader of the rover's descent and landing team.

The car-sized rover apparently came to rest at its planned destination near the foot of a tall mountain rising from the floor of Gale Crater in Mars' southern hemisphere, mission controllers said.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity project, formally called the Mars Science Laboratory, is NASA's first astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes.

The landing marks a major victory and milestone for a U.S. space agency beleaguered by budget cuts and the recent loss of its 30-year-old space shuttle program.

"It's an enormous step forward in planetary exploration. Nobody has ever done anything like this," said John Holdren, the top science advisor to President Barack Obama, who was visiting JPL for the event. "It was an incredible performance."

The exact condition of the one-ton, six-wheeled, nuclear powered vehicle upon its arrival could not be immediately ascertained.

Union Cabinet approved the Launch of Satellite to study Mars

The Union Cabinet on 3 August 2012 gave its consent to the launch of satellite to the Mars proposed in 2013. The Cabinet decision came following a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The Department of Space had sent a proposal to the Union Cabinet, in which it had sought government’s permission to launch a satellite to study Mars, also called Red Planet. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is expected to launch a Mars Orbiter in November 2013 with a 25kg scientific payload.
The Mars mission will be launched by ISRO’s advanced Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The objective of the mission is to study the climate, geology, origin, evolution and sustainability of life on the planet.  If the ISRO fails to launch the Mars Mission next year, other opportunites are available in 2016 and 2018.
India has undertaken the massive space project with the help of United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and China.  The mission is estimated to cost the government exchequer about 450 crore rupees. An initial allocation of 125 crore rupees was already made in the budget 2012-13.

Human Resource Development Projects of North East Council

The North Eastern Council (NEC) is the nodal agency for the economic and social development of the North Eastern Region (NER). The Council’s Secretariat had been functioning to bring expediate socio-economic development of the Region including Sikkim. Consisting of many Sectors such as Planning, Transport and Communication, Agriculture and Allied, Medical and Health, Power, Human Resource Development & Employment, Evaluation and Monitoring, Banking, Industries and Tourism, Information and Public Relations, Science and Technology and Irrigation and Flood Control, the NEC has taken up many developmental projects for overall development of the Region.

In order to implement and complete the projects and programmes sanctioned by the North Eastern Council on time, without delay and cost overrun, the Council has taken concerte effort in monitoring and evaluation of the projects being implemented in different states and as a result of which more than 82 projects were inspected and assessed.

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs, jointly with the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER)/NEC, have initiated the works on construction of a 500 seats capacity girls’ hostel in Delhi University for girl students from the NER and other tribal girl students studying in Delhi University. Total cost of the project amounting to Rs.23.33 crores is being shared between the NEC and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs on 60:40 basis, i.e., the NEC shares an amount of Rs13.998 Crores(60%) towards the project. Out of this amount, the NEC has so far released an amount of Rs.11.50. crores.

A 500-seater Working Women’s Hostel in Jasola Delhi was constructed in association with the Ministry of Women and Child Development. Accommodation will be provided for the working women hailing from North Eastern States. Total cost of the project is Rs.17.44 crores, wherein the NEC’s share is 25%. Land cost for the hostel is being shared in 50:50 ratio. NEC has released Rs.4.36 crores for construction and Rs.0.42 Lakhs for Furniture, Electricity, Water Supply etc.

Pilot Project of sponsoring students in school has been taken up and accordingly 23 students each for all 7 North Eastern States and two for Sikkim are being sponsored at Assam Rifles Public School, Laitkor, Shillong for Financial Year 2011-12 in class VI. Selection/Examination conducted by Assam Rifles in all the States after proper advertisement. Besides that, brilliant students and girl children and students from economically backward classes also need to be supported in schools and colleges. About 5,500 students have so far been benefited under this scheme during the last Financial year and equal number, if not more, are to benefit this Financial year also.

The ‘Youth to the Edge’ programme was taken up to promote integration and a sense of brotherhood in the country. This programme will help mitigate to some extend the notion of North East being a foreign country. More than thousand youth from rest of India will be visiting the North Eastern Region where combined adventure activities are being conducted to promote the spirit of brotherhood, adventure, environmental awareness, national integration, disaster management, promotion of adventure tourism, channelizing youth in a positive direction, sense of self-employment and self-recognition, etc. The programme will expose the youth to the Flora, Fauna, culture, livelihood, practices and to the people in general of the North Eastern State. It is to promote general understanding of the region and promote integration. To start with, three trails namely; Dzukou Velley in Nagaland, Roing and Hayuliang in Arunachal Pradesh are identified and more than nine hundred youth are already exposed under this programme.

To encourage and develop sport talent in the region, the NEC had constituted the Chairman’s Sport Award for Excellence on International and National Sport where Cash Awards are given to Medal Winners of Olympic, Asian Games, Common Wealth Games and National Games. This is a popular scheme amongst the Achievers and also act as an encouraging factor for the sport persons to perform better in the sport events. More than Rs. 7.00 crores were distributed to the medal winners of the recently held National Games at Jharkhand. It may be mentioned that the Manipur Stated had bagged 2nd highest medals next only to the services.

To encourage football skills and inculcate the sense of competitiveness amongst the players, the Dr. T. Ao Football Tournament was constituted for the NE States to be held annually in the states on rotation. The tournament is aptly named after the legendary Barefoot Indian Football Captain and is a great morale booster for the players.

In line with the skill development mission of the Union government, the NEC has sponsored many job Oriented Training programmes to cater to the need of unemployed youth in the field of computer hardware and software, BPO, Hair Style and Beauty Care, Banana Fiber Extraction, Ayurveda Therapist, Hearing Disability sector, adventure sports, CNC technology and Machinery Operation, Plastic Processing and Recycle, Retail Management, Automobile Repairs etc. These programmes are conducted for various levels of educational background including school drop outs who forms majority of the unemployed youths and who needs this value addition the most. More than 6000 youth have been trained with good placement report. These training programmes help develop their personalities and confidence of the trainees and also supplement the family income.

To increase competitiveness among NER students for preparation in entrance examinations and Government job opportunities, the NEC has for the first time sponsored coaching programmes for various examinations.

Michel Phelps became the Most Successful Athlete in the Olympic History

US swimmer Michel Phelps became the most successful athlete in the history of Olympic games after he won the gold medal in 4x200 metre freestyle relay in final race at the Aquatic Centre on 31 July 2012.
Phelps, who is playing his 4th Olympics, with this victory took his individual Olympic tally to 19 (15 gold, two silver and two bronze), surpassing the 18 won by Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina between 1956 and 1964.
He first swam at the Olympics in 2000 Sydney Olympics, when he was just 15. He became the youngest American male swimmer in 68 years and placed fifth in the 200m butterfly. He also holds the world record in swimming when he swam1:54.92 in the 200m butterfly event in March 2001.
Six-time winner of the World Swimmer of the Year Award, Phelps has to his credit the record of winning maximum number of gold medals (8) won in a single Olympics, the feat he achieved  hduring 2008 Beijing Games surpassing American swimmer Mark Spitz's seven-gold record at Munich in 1972.

9 physicists worldwide received the Fundamental Physics Prize

9 physicists worldwide were given the Fundamental Physics Prize on 31 July 2012. The prizes were given to the physicists for their remarkable contribution to the field of fundamental physics. Fundamental Physics Prize has been established by Russian Businessman Yuri Milner and the most money-spinning academic prize in the world.
Winners of the award include , Ashoke Sen, N J Nima, Arkani-Hamed, Juan Maldacena, Nathan Seiberg, Edward Witten, Andrei Linde, Alexei Kitaev, Maxim Kontsevich, Ashoke Sen

The winners will receive 3 million dollar as the prize amount. The Nobel Prize currently comes with an award of 1.2 million dollar, which is generally divided between two or three people.

Rover: first step to human space programme to Mars

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has high expectations for the upcoming landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars and is certain of great science results, a lab engineer says.

Torsten Zorn, a robotics engineer with JPL and a four-year veteran on the Curiosity project team, told Xinhua in an interview that the most interesting part of the venture could be learning more about the geological history of Mars.

Zorn said scientists want to find out how Mars’ once wet surface dried up, how long the process took and what caused the changes. The findings will be important for scientists to determine whether Mars is habitable for humans.

To find life, in any form, Zorn said, is a goal of Curiosity. The rover is equipped with a drill to gather samples underground and send them to a self-contained lab to determine Mars’ geological conditions and changes, and if there are any microorganisms present on the planet. The small lab will also test the soil samples to see if there are signs of life in the history of Mars.

Curiosity will test the Mars soil only with its own equipment after it lands on the planet on Sunday (August 5) but future missions will bring samples back to Earth for more study, Zorn said.

Zorn said many Americans have volunteered for the first one-way trip to Mars, but he said that if scientists can send human to Mars, they can also guarantee a return trip.

India joins U.S. in opposing E.U. emission plan

India has joined the U.S. and 15 other major countries in opposing European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) which requires carriers flying to or from Europe to offset their carbon emissions.

The two-day meeting hosted by the United States to chalk out a common strategy against the E.U.’s emission trading scheme concluded on Wednesday.

“They (India) have been clear both in that meeting and any number of times thereafter that they are strongly opposed to the application of the ETS and have had quite strong and vigorous words concerning the application of the ETS to foreign carriers,” a senior administration official said on condition of anonymity.

Since the meeting was held under what is called “Chatham House Rules” — which is to say people are encouraged to speak freely and candidly because what they say isn’t going to be reported afterwards — the senior administration official was not at the liberty to divulge India’s point of view during the meeting.

India, in fact, has hosted meetings against E.U.’s ETS in New Delhi in the past.

“So I think you can get a pretty good flavour of where India stands, looking at other things that they’ve said, but I’m not going to discuss what they said in this meeting,” the official said, noting that probably every country outside of Europe has opposed the emission trading system on both legal and policy grounds.

“But at the same time as we have opposed the application of the ETS in that manner, we have been strongly supportive and many countries strongly supportive of the objective of reducing emissions from aviation,” the official noted.

The meeting was convened in Washington with a group of major aviation countries for supporting the process of making progress on reducing emissions in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which is the multilateral body charged with handling international aviation.

“We wanted to bring that group together to discuss ongoing progress and continued progress that can be made and also to explore whether there seemed to be some basis for an overall global solution that would have the additional effect of causing the E.U.’s ETS to be set aside with regard to foreign carriers,” the U.S. official said.

The meeting confirmed the very solid and strong opposition to the ETS as applied to foreign carriers, but also indicated that there was a lot of interest among countries in continuing to work on the suite of activities that ICAO has been working on.

“And those include developing a CO2 efficiency standard for aircraft and engines.

“There was, in that respect, a quite important development just within the last week or so from the Committee on Aviation Environmental Protections known as CAEP,” the official said.

Experts are also working on the development of the global standards needed to enhance the improvement of airline operations, things like air traffic management, which are actually enormously important, a big part of reducing emissions, the official added.

According to the U.S. official, a trading system by itself doesn’t cause aviation emissions to get reduced.

It might cause airlines to go into the market and buy reductions, buy allowances from their governments if the governments are supplying them or from other businesses, but there are a whole lot of steps that airlines can take — more efficient airplanes and airplane engines, much better air traffic management operations, the development of alternative fuels, the official argued.

Power grids collapse: Five reforms that the sector urgently needs

A second consecutive day of Northern grid failure, coupled with the collapse of Eastern and North-Estern grids has brought in stark light, the need for reforms in India's power sector.

In what is being called as the biggest ever power failure in India, half of of the country was without electricity supply on Tuesday afternoon.

This affected hundreds of trains and lakhs of households and establishments as the grid that connects generating stations with customers collapsed for the second time in two days, highlighting the precarious state of the power sector in the country. The failure has raised concerns about the power sector.

Here is a look at five reforms that the power sector urgently needs.

1) Fuel. Scrap coal nationalisation, till that happens, allow all those holding coal mines to produce as much coal as they can, the incentive being permission to sell at the best price possible. Tax away supernormal profits.

2) Mandate regulators to allow pass-through of fuel costs and state grids to permit open-access. At least those who can afford to buy power at the market price will not be starved of power.

3) Stamp out power theft and subsidised power. No industry can survive if close to 40% of what it produces is not paid for, for some reason or the other. All subsidies should be transferred as income support, leaving the market for power functional.

4) Deploy information technology in the grid. Smart grids can them be programmed to maintain grid discipline - cut off states drawing excess power and generators supplying excess power. Shift discipline from compliance by humans to algorithms determined by policy.

5) Invest massively in generation, transmission and distribution, so as to meet latent demand in rural areas. This will trigger structural diversification in the rural economy, create new incomes and boost overall economic growth

Largest Solar Telescope in the World

The sun’s atmosphere is an ideal place to study and test many magneto-hydro-dynamic (MHD) processes controlling turbulent plasma. Some of the finest solar features can be resolved with state-of-the-art telescope. Ladakh, the cold desert in the country, will have the world’s largest state-of-the-art solar telescope on the earth soon for this purpose. This National Largest Solar Telescope (NLST) will be set up at high altitude Pongong Tso Lake Merak near Line of Actual Control on the Sino-Indian divide. It will be unique globally because the largest solar telescope, the Mc-Math-Pierce Solar Telescope, in the world at present is 1.6 meters. It is situated in Kitt Peak national Observatory at Arizona in the United States. The NLST will have the reputation of being the world’s largest telescope till 2020. It is expected that a larger telescope may become operational in the US by 2020-2021.

NLST is a Gregorian multi-purpose open telescope. It will be on-axis with the provision of carrying out night time stellar observations using a spectrograph. It will be able to study particles spread across 50 kilometers of the sun. It is expected to resolve features on the sun of the size  of about 0.1 arcsec. The focal plane instruments are to include a high resolution polarimetric package to measure polarization with an accuracy of 0.01 %, a high spectral resolution spectrograph to obtain spectra in 5 widely separated absorption lines simultaneously and high spatial resolution narrow band image in various lines.

Modalities

The telescope will be fitted with a 2 meter reflector which will enable scientists to carry out cutting edge research to understand the fundamental processes taking place on the earth. The design is by an international company which also designed the 1.5 meter telescope located at Tenarife Island in Spain. All the telescope’s instruments will be developed by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and will be remotely operated through the master control facility at Bangalore. The link will be through a satellite which will be provided by the Indian Satellite Research Organisation (ISRO). Night-time observations will be made using an instrument which will be built in collaboration with the University of Hamburg, Germany.

Scientific Objectives

Scientists will study the sun’s microscopic structure, and long term changes in the earth’s climate and environment. This will provide useful data to carry out research in order to minimize or remove disruptions to communication network and satellite due to periodic solar-winds.

The telescope will address the fundamental question about the nature of solar magnetism. It will aim to resolve flux tubes and measure their strength; address the development of magnetic fields on the sun which are responsible for almost all the observation phenomena on the sun. They include solar dynamo, solar cycle and solar variability that determine and control space weather.

Other scientific observations are: –

Magnetohydrodynamics(MHD) waves by resolving small structures and determining periods of oscillations which may be responsible to transport the energy to upper atmosphere of the sun:

·         Dynamic evolution of small scale structures by making high cadence observations;

·         Evolution of active regions and their role in triggering solar flare, prominences filament eruptions, CMEs, etc;

·         Thermodynamics of the chromospheres by making the observations in the infrared wavelengths; and

·         Weak and turbulent magnetic field measurements using Hanle effect which are as important as strong magnetic fields.

All these data will be gathered by making observations with high spatial resolution using adaptive optics, high spectral resolution, high temporal resolutions, multi-wave length capability of imaging and spectroscopy focal plane instruments, high photon flux and sensitivity of the detectors and using the infrared part of the spectrum for observations.

The telescope will utilize an innovative design with a low number of reflections to obtain a high throughput and low instrumental polarization. High order adaptive optics is integrated into the design that works with a modest Fried’s parameter of 7 cm to give diffraction limited performance. The telescope will be equipped with a suit of post focus instruments including a high resolution spectrograph and a polarimeter.

Selection of the Site

To install the telescope, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics studied two other sites-Hanle, Leh and Devasthal near Nainital in Uttarakhand but eventually opted for Merak in Ladakh.The cloudless skies and low atmospheric water vapour have made it one of the best sites in the world  for optical, submilimeter and millimeter wavelengths.

The site has been selected after carefully studying various scientific and environmental aspects. The site characterization has been done using the sun photometer, S-DIMM and SHABAR techniques to determine the seeing condition. SHABAR or Shadow Band Radiometer is a simple yet elegant way to probe the turbulence profile of the lower atmosphere. It observes scintillation of an extended object such as the sun or the Moon with an array of photo detectors. S-DIMM is Solar Differential Image Motion Monitor.

The Himalayan regions provide certain atmospheric conditions required for such telescope functioning. It provides a large number of clear hours for making observations with very good visibility. The water vapour in the field is also low which helps making observations in infrared wavelength for high accuracy of magnetic field and velocity measurements. The lake side provides better seeing condition. Because of lake water, there is extremely low water vapor content and this is unaffected by the monsoon.

The NLST project is a major multi-party initiative involving IIA, ISRO, Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and Inter University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA). The project will involve an investment of over Rs 250 crore, most of which will go in procuring equipment.