Singapore’s former president S R Nathan has been conferred with t
he prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, the highest honour accorded to people of Indian-origin oversees. Mr. Nathan was presented with the award by Union Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs, Vayalar Ravi.
The award honours individuals who have made outstanding contributions in their chosen field. Mr. Nathan, 87, is a Singaporean of Tamil descent. He was the sixth president of Singapore from 1999 to 2011.
A Rs 100 crore Science City project, to be jointly set up by the Centre and Kerala governments, would come up in Kottayam district of Kerala. The project would have state-of-the-art science,technology, knowledge, research and entertainment facilities available in developed countries,.
The project would be implemented in two phases. The first phase includes setting up of a regional science centre incorporating biotechnology gallery, nanotechnology gallery and popular science gallery by making use of latest technologies in animation, graphics, multimedia and interactivity. It will also have a planetarium.A central team from the National Council for Science Museum, led by its director K G Kumar visited two sites at Kozha and Kaduthuruthy.
The project, fourth of its kind in the country, after Kolkata, Jalandhar and Ahmedabad, is expected to attract two million visitors a year, he said.
India's nominee to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Justice Dalveer Bhandari, won handsomely on April 2012, with 122 votes in the UN General Assembly, defeating his nearest rival, Filipino Justice Feliciano C Florentino, by 5
8 votes.
Justice Bhandari will be India's fourth judge to occupy the position. The last judge sent there was Justice R S Pathak between 1989 and 1991. India had lobbied hard for the position with foreign minister S M Krishna pushing for the seat.
The first Indian in the ICJ was B N Rau, who was a judge from 1952 to November 30, 1953. India's most significant representative in ICJ came through Nagendra Singh, who was a judge from 1973 to 1988.
Lake Vostok is the largest of more than 140 sub-glacial lakes and was recently drilled into by Russian scientists. The overlying ice provides a continuous paleoclimatic record of 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for 15 to 25 million years.
Lake Vostok is located at the southern Pole of Cold, beneath Russia's Vostok Station under the surface of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is at 3,488 metres (11,444 ft) above mean sea level. The surface of this fresh water lake is approximately 4,000 m (13,100 ft) under the surface of the ice, which places it at approximately 500 m (1,600 ft) below sea level. Measuring 250 km (160 mi) long by 50 km (30 mi) wide at its widest point, and covering an area of 15,690 km2 (6,060 sq mi), it is similar in area to Lake Ontario, but with over three times the volume. The average depth is 344 m (1,129 ft). It has an estimated volume of 5,400 km3 (1,300 cu mi). The lake is divided into two deep basins by a ridge. The liquid water over the ridge is about 200 m (700 ft), compared to roughly 400 m (1,300 ft) deep in the northern basin and 800 m (2,600 ft) deep in the southern.
The lake is named after Vostok Station, which in turn is named after the Vostok (Восток), the 900 ton sloop-of-war sailed by one of the discoverers of Antarctica, Russian explorer Admiral Fabian von Bellingshausen. The word Bосток means "East" in Russian and the name of the station and the lake also reflects the fact that they are located in East Antarctica.
On 5 February 2012, a team of Russian scientists claimed to have completed the longest ever ice core of 3,768 m (12,400 ft) and pierced the ice shield to the surface of the lake. Samples of the freshly frozen water in the ice well are expected to be collected at the end of 2012 when the new Antarctic summer starts.
The Vostok project is one of several similar ventures being undertaken in the world's last wilderness. In West Antarctica, the British Antarctic Survey (Bas) is hoping to begin its effort to drill into Lake Ellsworth, while the American Wissard project is targeting Lake Whillans.
The PSLV-C19, the newest in the series of polar satellite launch vehicles of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), burst off the launch-pads of Sriharikota on 26 April 2012 in its space mission of placing indigenously developed Radar Imaging Satellite the RISAT-1 in a polar circular orbit.
The launch vehicle’s core stage igniters and set of six strap-on motors ignited within seconds of each to signal the successful lift-off of the PSLV-C19 with the RISAT -1 firmly docked inside its metal frames.
The RISAT-1 with a payload of 1858 kg, the heaviest satellite being launched yet by the PSLV, is a state-of-the-art Active Microwave Remote Sensing Satellite carrying a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload that will operate in the C-band. In simpler terms, the RISAT-1 can beam back imaging of the earth surface features during day and night and under all imagined weather conditions. The SAR which gives the RISAT-1 its magic lens also makes it superior to the generation of optical remote sensing satellites in terms of clearer imaging at all times and under any condition.
PSLV-C19 had injected into polar orbit India's first Radar Imaging Satellite.
According to ISRO scientists, once the satellite onboard propulsion system will raise the orbital altitude to 536 km with orbital inclination of approximately 97 degrees to place the RISAT-1 into a polar sun-synchronous orbit, the satellite will begin its daily routine of 14 orbits with a of 25 days. During its mission life of five years, RISAT-1 will use its active microwave remote sensing capability for cloud penetration and day-night imaging of the earth surface and provide critical data inputs for a range of applications.
The satellite’s applications will range across agriculture — paddy monitoring in the kharif season — and management of natural disasters like flood and cyclone and could greatly assist food security planning in India.
The PSLV C-19 is the 21st flight in the PSLV series of satellite launches and the third to involve the high-end version (PSLV-XL) equipped with six extended strap-on motors, each carrying 12 tonnes of solid propellant. The two earlier flights of PSLV-XL were used to launch Chandrayaan-1 and GSAT-12 communication satellite
Continuing with its series of major combat exercises on the western front, the Army has launched another massive wargame called 'Shoor Veer' in the Rajasthan deserts.
Under the exercise being conducted the South Western Army Command, over 50,000 troops with hundreds of tanks, artillery guns and infantry combat vehicles have already amassed in the region.
"At present, the formations are practising their battle drills in the designated training areas. A number of field firings are being carried out to check the accuracy and lethality of the weapon systems,
The exercise will culminate with the Army and Indian Air Force carrying out swift battle manoeuvres and joint operations in the first week of May.
With international piracy extending its tentacles to Indian Ocean, Coast Guards of India, Sri Lanka and Maldives are taking part in a joint exercise off the coast of Male, aimed at achieving inter-operablity.
Six warships are taking part in the five-day exercises code named 'Dosti XI'. Indian Coast Guard ships 'Sankalp' and 'Subhadra' are participating in the war games, while 'Huravee', 'Ghazee' and 'Shaheed Ali' of the Maldivian National Defence Force represent the Maldivian Coast Guard.
A Sri Lankan Naval statement said that due to its geo-strategic significance, it is important for the Coast Guards of the three friendly countries to ensure the safety and security of the Indian Ocean for all sea-farers.
Sri Lankan Navy's offshore patrol vessel SLNS Sagara has set sailed to take part in the war games. This is the first time that Lankan coast guards are taking part in such a joint exercise.
"The exercise will focus on Maritime Search and Rescue, Marine Pollution Response and Boarding Operations
India all set to develop resusable rockets: DRDO chief
After the successful launch of Agni-5 Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), India is all set to develop reusable rockets which will combine the technologies of both ballistic and cruise missiles.
As part of plans to develop reusable ballistic missiles, Defence Research and Development Organisation will test indigenously developed scram jet engine next year.
"We have propulsion technology, we have re-entry technologies, we have the technology which can take a re-entry system which will deliver a payload and have yet another re-entry system which will bring the missile back when it re-enters the atmosphere on its return journey," he said.
"We have demonstrated the performance of a scram jet engine operating at Mach six speed (six times the speed of sound)," he said.
On technological capability available with the agency, he said, "DRDO has built the necessary technologies, production infrastructure and design capability for developing a booster or a sustainer... We have the capability to develop a re-entry nose cone which can withstand higher temperature and velocity."
Agni V can carry a one-ton payload (meaning a nuclear warhead) and is configured for carrying multiple warheads which can be guided to separate targets independently — thereby giving the missile a MIRV (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle) capability. This is a major technological achievement combining as it does guidance and control with miniaturisation of the warhead.
1. The Agni-V is India’s first Inter Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), and will give the country the capability to strike every country in the world apart from the United States. If successful, India will join an elite club. Only the US, Russia, France, Britain and China currently possess the capability to operate an ICBM.
2. Once launched the missile cannot be stopped, and can only be launched on the direct orders of the Prime Minister. Agni V can also be launched from the road side in a special silo.
3. The Agni-V was built at a reported cost of Rs 25 billion ($486 million).
4. The Agni-V will be a three-stage, all solid fuel powered, 17-metre tall missile with a range of 5,000 kilometers.
5. It is 17.5m-tall, solid-fuelled, has three stages and a launch weight of 50 tons
'Innovative'
Missiles available to other nuclear weapons states employ relatively older technology.
Agni-V's innovative technologies include composite rocket motors, guidance ring-laser gyro-based inertial navigation systems, micro-navigation systems and accelerometers to measure the ICBM's acceleration and detect any change in its vehicular motion.
Composites have been extensively used to reduce the ICBM's weight. A third, miniaturised stage has been added to the Agni-III to boost its range from 3,500km to 5,000km.
The missiles are being built at Bharat Dynamics Limited in Hyderabad under the DRDO's supervision and operated by the Strategic Forces Command
Numaligarh (Assam): With a view to providing a proper home to butterflies in the unique Butterfly Valley in Assam’s Golaghat district, especially the endangered varieties, the North East Institute of Science and Technology is trying to locate and nurture plants there on which they breed. The valley is situated inside the Numaligarh Refinery township, spread over an area of 30 acres amidst a backdrop of verdant green and surrounded by hillocks.
It is adjacent to the misty Deopahar hills and the Kaliani river, and is not far away from the world-famous Kaziranga National Park either.
An ecological hotspot, the Northeast is home to a dozen of endangered butterfly species and also has a variety of plants on which the butterflies breed, a research scholar attached to the North East Institute of Science and Technology (NEIST),
At least 75 species of butterflies belonging to the five broad butterfly families have been listed in the valley, which also hosts an approximately 60,000 plants endemic to the Northeast.
A pinch of soil and blood-stained blades of grass from the place where Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 was sold on Tuesday for £10,000 at an auction here.
In all, the Gandhiji-related items fetched over £100,000 pounds in the auction by the Shropshire-based auctioneer, Mullock’s.
The memorabilia included a pair of Gandhiji’s round-rimmed glasses, charkha, a 10 inch 78 rpm Columbia disc of Gandhiji giving his spiritual message signed by him, and original photographs of Gandhiji visiting London in 1931.
Kevin Bland, financial controller at Mullock’s, said the unnamed telephone bidder who bought the spectacles also spent £26,500 on a wooden charkha. The same bidder bought his prayer book for £10,500 pounds.
The soil and blades of grass were reported to have been collected by one P.P. Nambiar.
The description of the item says: “The casket comes with a letter of provenance by P.P. Nambiar dated September 24th 1996, saying that the recipient: ...has today received the most sacred of all relics a fraction of the pinch of soil I collected on 30 January 1948 from the spot where the Father of our nation M.K. Gandhi fell to the bullets of his assassin...”
Gandhiji’s glasses were bought in London around 1890 when he studied Law. The item is described as “corroded with age”, and comes with the original felt bearing the name of H Cannam Optician 23 St Aldate Street Gloucester.
Jim Yong Kim was named the next president of the World Bank, and will replace Robert B. Zoellick at the end of June.2012
The World Bank on Monday named Jim Yong Kim, a global health expert and the president of Dartmouth College, as its next president in a widely expected appointment that continues the longstanding tradition of an American leading the Washington-based development institution.
Dr. Kim, 52, will take over at the beginning of July, after the current president, Robert B. Zoellick, steps down at the end of his five-year term.
Dr. Kim is a lauded global health expert, a physician and anthropologist by training. He is a founder of Partners In Health, a non profit that runs community-focused health programs in poor countries. He also worked at Harvard University and the World Health Organization, where he spearheaded a program to deliver antiretroviral treatments to people living with H.I.V./AIDS. Since 2009, he has been the president of Dartmouth College.
On the occasion of the World Health Day, the Union Health & Family Welfare Minister, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad launched a health magazine programme called “Swasth Bharat “ to be telecast/ broadcast through 30 regional kendras of Doordarshan and 29 stations of All India Radio covering 27 states.
The National Rural Health Mission started by our government aims to provide health care to every corner of rural India. Let us together pledge to look after our health and make full use of the health facilities provided by the government”.
The half an hour “Swasth Bharat “ programme will be telecast for five days a week in regional languages at prime time.
The objective of the programme is to empower citizens with information on health related issues. The programme is expected to help government for developing an efficient and effective health care delivery system through creating demand from public for better health care services.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is the first Ministry to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Prasar Bharati to start such an outreach programme to be able to reach out to a wider spectrum of population through mass media.
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The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), which was passed by the Indian parliament on 4 August 2009, describes the modalities of the provision of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. India became one of 135 countries to make education a fundamental right of every child when the act came into force on 1 April 2010.
History
The present Act has its history in the drafting of the Indian constitution at the time of Independence but are more specifically to the Constitutional Amendment that included the Article 21A in the Indian constitution making Education a fundamental Right. This amendment, however, specified the need for a legislation to describe the mode of implementation of the same which necessitated the drafting of a separate Education Bill. The rough draft of the bill was composed in year 2005. It received much opposition due to its mandatory provision to provide 25% reservation for disadvantaged children in private schools. The sub-committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education which prepared the draft Bill held this provision as a significant prerequisite for creating a democratic and egalitarian society. Indian Law commission had initially proposed 50% reservation for disadvantaged students in private schools
Highlights
The Act makes education a fundamental right of every child between the ages of 6 and 14 and specifies minimum norms in elementary schools. It requires all private schools to reserve 25% of seats to children from poor families (to be reimbursed by the state as part of the public-private partnership plan). It also prohibits all unrecognized schools from practice, and makes provisions for no donation or capitation fees and no interview of the child or parent for admission. The Act also provides that no child shall be held back, expelled, or required to pass a board examination until the completion of elementary education. There is also a provision for special training of school drop-outs to bring them up to par with students of the same age.
Supreme court Judgement as on Apr 2012
The majority judgment said: “We hold that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 is constitutionally valid and shall apply to a school established, owned or controlled by the appropriate Government or a local authority; an aided school including aided minority school(s) receiving aid or grants to meet whole or part of its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority; a school belonging to specified category; and an unaided non-minority school not receiving any kind of aid or grants to meet its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority.”
This will apply from the academic year 2012-13. However, admissions given by unaided minority schools prior to the pronouncement of this judgment shall not be reopened.
“By judicial decisions, right to education has been read into right to life in Article 21. A child who is denied right to access education is not only deprived of his right to live with dignity, he is also deprived of his right to freedom of speech and expression enshrined in Article 19(1) (a). The 2009 Act seeks to remove all those barriers including financial and psychological barriers which a child belonging to the weaker section and disadvantaged group has to face while seeking admission.”
The Bench said: “It is true that, as held in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation as well as the P.A. Inamdar judgments, the right to establish and administer an educational institution is a fundamental right, as long as the activity remains charitable under Article 19(1) (g). However, in the said two decisions the correlation between Articles 21 and 21A, on the one hand, and Article 19(1) (g), on the other, was not under consideration.
Further, the content of Article 21A flows from Article 45 (as it then stood). The 2009 Act has been enacted to give effect to Article 21A. For the above reasons, since the Article 19(1) (g) right is not an absolute right as Article 30(1), the 2009 Act cannot be termed as unreasonable.”
The Bench said: “To put an obligation on the unaided non-minority school to admit 25 per cent children in class I under Section 12(1) (c) cannot be termed as an unreasonable restriction. Such a law cannot be said to transgress any constitutional limitation. The object of the 2009 Act is to remove the barriers faced by a child who seeks admission to class I and not to restrict the freedom under Article 19(1) (g).
“From the scheme of Article 21A and the 2009 Act, it is clear that the primary obligation is of the State to provide for free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years and, particularly, to children who are likely to be prevented from pursuing and completing the elementary education due to inability to afford fees or charges.”
Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), which was passed by the Indian parliament on 4 August 2009, describes the modalities of the provision of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. India became one of 135 countries to make education a fundamental right of every child when the act came into force on 1 April 2010.
History
The present Act has its history in the drafting of the Indian constitution at the time of Independence but are more specifically to the Constitutional Amendment that included the Article 21A in the Indian constitution making Education a fundamental Right. This amendment, however, specified the need for a legislation to describe the mode of implementation of the same which necessitated the drafting of a separate Education Bill. The rough draft of the bill was composed in year 2005. It received much opposition due to its mandatory provision to provide 25% reservation for disadvantaged children in private schools. The sub-committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education which prepared the draft Bill held this provision as a significant prerequisite for creating a democratic and egalitarian society. Indian Law commission had initially proposed 50% reservation for disadvantaged students in private schools
Highlights
The Act makes education a fundamental right of every child between the ages of 6 and 14 and specifies minimum norms in elementary schools. It requires all private schools to reserve 25% of seats to children from poor families (to be reimbursed by the state as part of the public-private partnership plan). It also prohibits all unrecognized schools from practice, and makes provisions for no donation or capitation fees and no interview of the child or parent for admission. The Act also provides that no child shall be held back, expelled, or required to pass a board examination until the completion of elementary education. There is also a provision for special training of school drop-outs to bring them up to par with students of the same age.
Supreme court Judgement as on Apr 2012
The majority judgment said: “We hold that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 is constitutionally valid and shall apply to a school established, owned or controlled by the appropriate Government or a local authority; an aided school including aided minority school(s) receiving aid or grants to meet whole or part of its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority; a school belonging to specified category; and an unaided non-minority school not receiving any kind of aid or grants to meet its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority.”
This will apply from the academic year 2012-13. However, admissions given by unaided minority schools prior to the pronouncement of this judgment shall not be reopened.
“By judicial decisions, right to education has been read into right to life in Article 21. A child who is denied right to access education is not only deprived of his right to live with dignity, he is also deprived of his right to freedom of speech and expression enshrined in Article 19(1) (a). The 2009 Act seeks to remove all those barriers including financial and psychological barriers which a child belonging to the weaker section and disadvantaged group has to face while seeking admission.”
The Bench said: “It is true that, as held in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation as well as the P.A. Inamdar judgments, the right to establish and administer an educational institution is a fundamental right, as long as the activity remains charitable under Article 19(1) (g). However, in the said two decisions the correlation between Articles 21 and 21A, on the one hand, and Article 19(1) (g), on the other, was not under consideration.
Further, the content of Article 21A flows from Article 45 (as it then stood). The 2009 Act has been enacted to give effect to Article 21A. For the above reasons, since the Article 19(1) (g) right is not an absolute right as Article 30(1), the 2009 Act cannot be termed as unreasonable.”
The Bench said: “To put an obligation on the unaided non-minority school to admit 25 per cent children in class I under Section 12(1) (c) cannot be termed as an unreasonable restriction. Such a law cannot be said to transgress any constitutional limitation. The object of the 2009 Act is to remove the barriers faced by a child who seeks admission to class I and not to restrict the freedom under Article 19(1) (g).
“From the scheme of Article 21A and the 2009 Act, it is clear that the primary obligation is of the State to provide for free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years and, particularly, to children who are likely to be prevented from pursuing and completing the elementary education due to inability to afford fees or charges.”
