Countdown begins for Commonwealth Games

New Delhi is under pressure to deliver in time for next year's Commonwealth Games amid doubts about its readiness.

A year-long countdown began Saturday for the 19th Commonwealth Games India is hosting, the country’s biggest sporting extravaganza that the government says will showcase its abilities even as critics say the preparations are not up to the mark and may fall short of international expectations.

The 12-day event will open Oct 3, 2010 at the 75,000-capacity Jawaharal Nehru Stadium in the heart of New Delhi.

Over 5,000 athletes from 53 countries that were once part of the British empire will compete in 17 disciplines. The event is the biggest India will host since the Asian Games in 1982 that saw 4,595 athletes from 33 nations take part in 21 events.

Amid hiccups and criticism, the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee of India is confident that the grand show will go like clockwork.

“Let me tell you that 80 percent of the work at all the venues will be completed before December 31, except cycling and rugby venues where work started a bit late. But those two will also be completed in time for the competition,” Committee Secretary General Lalit Bhanot said.

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, for whom the games are a matter of personal prestige, admits to spending sleepless nights but is equally sure that the event will go off without a hitch. “We will be ready on time,” she has declared.

But the going hasn’t been exactly smooth.

Last month, Commonwealth Games Federation president Michael Fennel shot off an angry letter to Indian Olympic Association (IOA) chief Suresh Kalmadi demanding a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that work on various projects was expedited.

“With only a year to run until the games, I feel I must personally brief the prime minister on the lack of preparations and to seek his input in developing an appropriate recovery plan,” Fennel said.

Fennel’s outburst has spurred the Indian authorities to pledge that all the

facilities will be ready on time.

Security is a major issue but the home ministry has ruled out any threat to the Games. “To the best of our knowledge, there is no specific threat to the Commonwealth Games,” Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said.

India has briefed security professionals and representatives from 26 Commonwealth countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Kenya, Nigeria and Singapore about security and traffic related arrangements to be put in place during the games. The delegations were also shown around the venues of the games.

Pillai said the delegates were impressed with the professional nature of presentations. But some did make suggestions.

“There were 10 major issues. The most important was the management of public perception of threat to the games. Others included appointment of nodal officers for co-ordination. It was decided that all countries would share their threat perceptions with each other,” he said.

Delhi’s chaotic traffic, with some 900-1,000 vehicles being added every day, could prove to be a bugbear. But the police say a solution is at hand with an Intelligent Traffic System (ITS) being installed to cover 302 intersections and 87 corridors covering 204 km.

What is also causing concern is the multiplicity of agencies involved in putting the games infrastructure into place. Then, it took an outburst from IOA secretary general Randhir Singh, vice chair of the Commonwealth Games Organising committee, to get it to activate its sub-committees.

“Time is running out and there is all round scrambling, leading to grave doubts about the successful conduct of the games. Do you think the promise of organising the games will be fulfilled?” Randhir Singh, who took part in the shooting event at the 1982 Asiad, wondered while speaking to IANS.

“Criticism should be ... welcomed because sometimes you may think things are moving in the right direction, whereas it might not be so,” he added.

Thanks to him, the 23-odd sub-committees are up and running. This, however, cannot be said of the venues across the city where the games will be staged.

Be it the showcase Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the venue of the opening and closing ceremonies and the athletics competition, the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, the Yamuna Velodrome, the S.P. Mukherjee Aquatic Complex or the K.D. Singh Babu National Stadium, work is at best 40 percent complete.

In all this, the only bright spark seems to be the Commonwealth Games Village - largely because the athletes’ housing complex is being executed by a private builder.

The homes are sleek seven, eight and nine storied luxury apartment blocks laid out amid green landscaped parks, a mini golf course, a swimming pool and a club house that will have a food court and swanky shopping mall.

Shakib wins Wisden award

Shakib Al Hasan

 

Bangladeshi all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan has outshone Indian opener Gautam Gambhir and South African captain Graeme Smith to become Wisden Cricketer’s World Test Player of the Year.

The 22-year-old Shakib topped the performance table of all Test match players based on marks awarded by Wisden Cricketer correspondents, who reported on every Test played during the period.

Shakib averaged 7.94 out of 10 for each of the eight Tests he played between the beginning of September 2008 and the end of August 2009.

Shakib took 45 wickets at 23 with his left-arm spin, in addition to scoring 498 runs at an average of 35.57.

This performance placed him ahead of more-established Gambhir, Smith, Sachin Tendulkar, Jaques Kallis, Andrew Flintoff, Dale Steyn and Andrew Strauss.

“I guess I owe my performance to keeping things simple. I don’t lose sleep over disappointments and rather look ahead to seize the next opportunity. I have been a performer and I work hard at my game to become the best cricketer I can be. Getting recognised by the Wisden Cricketer is the pinnacle of individual recognition as far as I am concerned,” Shakib said.

Wisden editor John Stern said though a surprise choice, Shakib deserves for his consistency in the past 12 months.

“I’m sure this achievement will be a surprise to many followers of the game but it represents an outstanding 12-months for Shakib, especially in the context of him playing for an international side that is still finding its feet,” he said.

Shakib is bullish about Bangladesh’s future prospects and hopes to see it become a top side.

“One day we will be right up there at the top and it is a realistic prospect. Just look at the players we have. Tamim Iqbal, Ashraful, Mortaza can be match-winners and now we have Rubel (Hossain) who can bowl at 90mph. Give us a few years to grow together. Teams who face us in the coming months will be taking on a victorious unit and not the Bangladesh of old. There is a difference you will notice,” he said.

 

Wisden Cricketer World Test Player of the Year: 1. Shakib Al Hasan (7.94), 2. Gautam Gambhir (7.63), 3. Graeme Smith (7.21), 4. Sachin Tendulkar (7.00), Jacques Kallis (7.00), 6. Ben Hilfenhaus (6.94), 7. Andrew Flintoff (6.88), Dale Steyn (6.88), 9. Fidel Edwards (6.81), 10. Andrew Strauss (6.77).

Australia lifts Champions Trophy

Australia hold the Champions Trophy after defeating New Zealand at Centurion, South Africa on Monday, October 5, 2009.

No clear winner in India-Australia ODI series: Waugh

PTI Former Australian cricketer Steve Waugh giving tips to youngsters during a promotional event in New Delhi on Friday. 

 

Cricketer-turned-philanthropist Steve Waugh is so convinced of the evenness of India and Australia’s might that he has predicted a 4-3 scoreline for the winners in the forthcoming ODI series.

The former Australia captain had no doubts whatsoever that despite India’s recent poor show in the Champions Trophy, the team under Mahendra Singh Dhoni would match Ricky Ponting and his men blow for blow and both stood equal chance of winning the seven-match series.

“It will be a tough series,” Waugh told reporters on Friday.

“I saw the Australian squad and they have recruited some new faces. It’s going to be exciting. Australia is really in great form and though India disappointed in the Champions Trophy, I guess the result would be 4-3 in favour of, well, I don’t know which team,” he quipped.

The Australian is here in connection with the Steve Waugh Foundation, which is raising money, in association with 6UP, to help kids with rare diseases.

The Indian team under Dhoni has drawn flak after setbacks in the Twenty20 World Cup and the Champions Trophy but Waugh has not lost his trust in the side.

“The Indians are harsh judge. You cannot win every match.

India doesn’t become best when they win and don’t become worst when they lose. It’s probably somewhere in between (the extremes).

“The team is in good shape and a lot of youngsters have come up. IPL threw up a host of new players and they should remain among the top three teams,” Waugh said.

Waugh also threw his weight behind out-of-form Ishant Sharma, saying the beanpole pacer would serve Indian cricket for long.

“Ishant is a top class bowler who even though he is going through a bit down now. Any team would love to have him in their side.

“He reminds me a bit of both (Glenn) McGrath and (Jason) Gillespie. He will be there for a long time,” Waugh said.

Asked to comment on Matthew Hayden’s observation that Dhoni’s captaincy reminded him of Waugh’s leadership, the former skipped quipped, “Dhoni must be a great captain then.”

On a more serious note, Waugh said, “I have seen him from a far; have not played against his captaincy. But he is a good captain, has got a good temperament and looks in control of the team. He enjoys the respect of his teammates and has got a positive attitude.”

Waugh was the proponent of the ‘mental disintegration’ theory that saw the Australians bullies their opponents before crushing them to defeat.

In contrast, the current team seemed more relaxed in the Champions Trophy, smiling more and sledging less.

Asked if Australia had finally become the popular champions they never were before, Waugh did not sound amused.

My earlier exposure to Physics certainly helped me: Nobel laureate Ramakrishnan

Joint winner of the 2009 chemistry Nobel Prize Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, sits in his lab at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England.

For the last few years, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been given for research related to Biology. This year was no exception. The Prize, shared by Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, was for mapping ribosomes at the atomic level.

Dr. Ramakrishnan, who trained as a physicist, made a successful transition to Biology, which has now earned him global recognition for Chemistry. This academic switchover was triggered by what he described to the Nobel Prize website as the “wonderful discoveries happening in Biology” and the number of physicists who had successfully moved over to Biology.

In an email interview to The Hindu Dr. Ramakrishnan says that studying 

biological phenomena is an exciting area of Chemistry. 

Excerpts:

The Hindu: Your work was to understand the precision of the pairing mechanism. How did you develop the crystal structure of the small subunits of the ribosome? Is it any different from the crystal structure developed by others?

Dr. Ramakrishnan: There were crystals that diffracted to low resolution that were reported originally by a Russian group headed by Marina Garber in which Marat Yusupov and Sergei Trakhanov played major roles. These crystals did not diffract much better for over a decade. We decided to try and improve those crystals.

Was the structure of small subunits attempted before? If yes, how different was yours?

Yes [the Russian group had attempted it earlier]. We made sure that the ribosomes were biochemically pure (homogeneous) and this was key to improving the crystals.

Was the choice of the bacterium (Thermus thermophilus) the secret behind your success, or the process of developing the subunit itself?

I think both are important. The choice of Thermus thermophilus was originally made by the Russian group, and we decided to try that first. When things worked we just stuck to that organism.

Is developing the structure of small subunits different/difficult compared with large subunits?

Well, it's hard to say. The small subunit is much more flexible and dynamic, and our crystals never diffracted quite as well as the large subunits used by the Yale group [Dr. Thomas Steitz’s group].

Could you, in simple terms, explain the molecular ruler that you identified?

What the ribosome does is to recognize the shape of the base pairs formed between the codon on messenger RNA (i.e. the genetic code specifying an amino acid) and the anticodon on the tRNA that brings the appropriate amino acid. So if the wrong tRNA binds, the base pairs won't be the normal base pairs and won't have the right shape.

If the pairing is according to the molecular ruler, then how is that errors do happen? What are implications of such errors?

Errors happen at a low rate because the free energy difference between the correct and incorrect base pairs is not infinite, so there is a finite probability that the wrong combination will be accepted.

How is your contribution helpful in developing better antibiotics?

Many antibiotics bind to ribosomes. Using these high resolution structures, we and the other laureates have been able to see how they bind to ribosomes precisely, and this in turn allows chemists to design new molecules that would bind to that site but perhaps more specifically or with fewer side effects.

If the atomic structure of ribosome was known only recently, on what basis were antibiotics developed earlier? Were they, unknown to us, targeting the ribosomes?

The antibiotics were discovered in a general screen. Only then was it determined that they bind to ribosomes, but only after the structures was it known exactly how.

How different has it become now? Will the understanding of the atomic structure lead to developing more effective antibiotics that attack only the bacteria and not cause any side effects to humans?

Yes, that is the hope.

Is the atomic structure of all bacteria that cause disease in humans 

mapped? And have any antibiotics developed based on this knowledge?

You cannot have atomic structures for "bacteria". If you mean ribosomes, then the point is that the important functional sites of bacterial ribosomes are highly conserved, which is why most ribosomal antibiotics are "broad spectrum", i.e. they will work against a large range of bacteria.

What made you shift your specialisation from Physics to Biology? Did your earlier exposure to physics, in any way, help your work now?

My earlier exposure to physics certainly helped me in the use of biophysical techniques like crystallography, the use of computing, calculations, etc.

The Nobel Prize for Chemistry is increasingly being given for work related to Biology. Your comments.

Ultimately biological phenomena involve molecules, and understanding them involves understanding the underlying Chemistry. In my opinion, this is a particularly exciting area of Chemistry.

Unlike the Prize for Physics given this year, where the industry was equally involved, the Prize for Chemistry has been for work with no contribution by the industry. Your comments.

Well, I think the industry aspect is usually an exception. More often, the prize in all of the sciences goes for basic research, generally conducted in academia. It's not Chemistry Vs. Physics difference.

Counting the costs of a vaunted deal

The Hindu Then U.S. President George W. Bush shakes hands with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after a round of talks related to the 'N' deal at Hyderabad house in New Delhi. 

 

On the first anniversary of its coming to fruition, the much-trumpeted Indo-U.S. nuclear deal stands out as an overrated initiative whose conclusion through patent political partisanship holds sobering lessons for India.

For United States President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the nuclear deal was a prized legacy-building issue. Mr. Bush ensured the deal wasn’t a divisive subject at home by forging an impressive bipartisan consensus. By contrast, Dr. Singh’s polarising single-mindedness on the ballyhooed deal and refusal to permit parliamentary scrutiny injected intense partisan rancour into the debate. Given that India may have to assume new international legal obligations on other fronts too — from climate change to the Doha Round of world-trade talks — the noxious precedent set by the deal must be corrected in national interest.

The deal indeed was a milestone, symbolising the deepening ties between the world’s oldest democracy and largest democracy. But on the first anniversary of its coming to fruition, the deal stands out as an overvalued venture whose larger benefits remain distant for India, including an end to dual-use technology controls and greater U.S. support in regional and global matters. The deal offers more tangible benefits to the U.S. While significantly advancing U.S. non-proliferation interests, the deal — embedded in a larger strategic framework — fashions an instrumentality to help co-opt India in a “soft alliance.” It also carries attractive commercial benefits for the U.S. in sectors extending from commercial nuclear power to arms trade.

To be sure, the deal-making was a tortuous, three-year process, involving multiple stages and difficult-to-achieve compromises. At its core, the deal-making centred on India’s resolve to safeguard its nuclear military autonomy and America’s insistence on imposing stringent non-proliferation conditions, including a quantifiable cap on Indian weapons-related capabilities. Eventually, a deal was sealed that gave India the semblance of autonomy and America some Indian commitments to flaunt, best epitomised by the decision to shut down Cirus — one of India’s two research reactors producing weapons-grade plutonium. No sooner had Congress ratified the deal package than the White House made clear the deal was predicated on India not testing again, with “serious consequences” to follow a breach of that understanding.

The more recent G-8 action barring the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) equipment or technology to non-NPT signatories even under safeguards is a fresh reminder that while New Delhi is taking on legally irrevocable obligations that tie the hands of future Indian generations, America’s own obligations under the deal are unequivocally anchored in the primacy of its domestic law and thus mutable. If there were any doubts on that score, they were set at rest by the American ratification legislation that gave effect to the deal, the U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Non-Proliferation Enhancement Act of 2008, or NCANEA. This Hyde Act-plus legislation unabashedly declares that the bilateral 123 Agreement is subservient to existing U.S. law and “ any other applicable United States law” enacted henceforth.

That the U.S. has used the G-8 mechanism to deny India the “full” cooperation it bilaterally pledged shouldn’t come as a surprise because the NCANEA obligates Washington to spearhead a Nuclear Suppliers Group ban on ENR transfers. Having formally proposed such a ban in the NSG, Washington got the G-8 to act first — a move that puts pressure on the NSG to follow suit and, more importantly, brings on board in advance all potential ENR-technology suppliers to India. Even on the unrelated and unresolved issue of granting India an operational right to reprocess U.S.-origin spent fuel, the U.S. government has notified Congress that such permission, while subject to congressional approval, would be revocable.

For years to come, the deal will generate eclectic controversies because it is rife with unsettled issues, ambiguities and the avowed supremacy of one party’s variable domestic law. To help the beleaguered Indian government save face, some issues — ranging from a test prohibition to the political nature of fuel-supply assurances — were spelled out not in the bilateral 123 Agreement but in the subsequent U.S. presidential statements and NCANEA. As a result, the final deal gives America specific rights while saddling India with onerous obligations.

Politically, the deal was oversold as the centrepiece, if not the touchstone, of the new Indo-U.S. partnership to the extent that, a year later, New Delhi seems genuinely concerned about India’s declining profile in American policy. Clearly, New Delhi had over-expectations about what the deal would deliver.

Still, there are some key lessons New Delhi must draw from the way it handled the deal. The first is the importance of building political bipartisanship on critical national matters. Had the Prime Minister done what he repeatedly promised — “build a broad national consensus” — India would have strengthened its negotiating leverage and forestalled political acrimony. Dr. Singh’s approach was to play his cards close to his chest and rely on a few chosen bureaucrats. Not a single all-party meeting was called. Consequently, the government presented itself as deal-desperate on whom additional conditions could be thrust.

A second lesson relates to Parliament’s role. Even if there is a lacuna in the Indian Constitution that allows the executive branch to sign and ratify an international agreement without any legislative scrutiny, a forward-looking course would be to plug that gap by introducing a constitutional amendment in Parliament, rather than seek to exploit that weakness.

Sadly, the government chose not to place the final deal before Parliament even for a no-vote debate before it rushed to sign the 123 Agreement on September 10, 2008, just two days after Mr. Bush signed NCANEA into law. This extraordinary haste occurred despite Dr. Singh’s July 22, 2008 assurance in the Lok Sabha that after the entire process was complete, he would bring the final deal to Parliament and “abide” by its decision. But no sooner had the process been over than the government proceeded to sign the 123 Agreement without involving Parliament, although the deal imposes external inspections in perpetuity and leaves no leeway for succeeding governments. A year later, Dr. Singh has yet to make a single statement in Parliament on the terms of the concluded deal, lest he face questions on the promises he couldn’t keep, including the elaborate benchmarks he had defined on August 17, 2006.

In the future, Parliament must not be reduced to being a mere spectator on India’s accession to another international agreement, even as the same pact is subject to rigorous legislative examination elsewhere. In fact, when the government tables the nuclear-accident liability bill, Parliament ought to seize that opportunity to examine the nuclear deal and its subsidiary arrangements. The bill — intended to provide cover mainly to American firms, which, unlike France’s Areva and Russia’s Atomstroyexport, are in the private sector — seeks to cap foreign vendors’ maximum accident liability to a mere $62 million, although each nuclear power station is to cost several billion dollars.

Yet another lesson is to stem the creeping politicisation of top scientists. This trend has drawn encouragement from two successive governments’ short-sighted use of topmost scientists for political purpose. Such politicisation was on full display during the nuclear deal process. The top atomic leadership made scripted political statements in support of deal-related moves, only to be rewarded with special post-superannuation extensions beyond established norms. The current unsavoury controversy among scientists over India’s sole thermonuclear test in 1998 — and the atomic establishment’s frustration over the attention dissenting views are receiving — is a reflection of the damage to official scientific credibility wrought by the deal politics. All this only underscores the need to bring the cosseted nuclear programme under oversight.

If truth be told, national institutions have been the main losers from the partisan approach and divisive politics that the deal came to embody. The deal divided the country like no other strategic issue since Indian independence, with the deteriorating national discourse reaching a new low. Such divisiveness, in turn, seriously weakened India’s hand in the deal-related diplomacy. A new brand of post-partisan politics must define India’s approach

in Copenhagen and the Doha Round.

 

A final sobering lesson: Key national decisions must flow from professional inputs and institutional deliberations, not from gut opinions in which near-term considerations or personal feelings and predilections of those in office prevail over the long view of national interest. The lodestar to avoid disconnect between perception and reality is to ensure that any agreement bears the imprint of institutional thinking, not personal fancy.

Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

US President Barack Obama during a press conference. 

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

U.S. President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

The stunning choice made Mr. Obama the third sitting U.S. President to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Mr. Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Mr. Obama’s name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

The committee said it attached special importance to Obama’s vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.

“Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play,” the committee said.

Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson won in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, while former Vice President Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the U.N. panel on climate change.

The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year’s prize.

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel’s death.

The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel’s guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.

Anti-swine flu drug FLUVIR available in India

Mumbai: FLUVIR, the first anti- swine flu drug, was on Tuesday launched in the retail markets across the country.

An Indian drug manufacturer, Hetero Healthcare Limited, announced the launch of FLUVIR, Oseltamivir drug similar to Tamiflu in the retail market.

The launch of the drug came at a time when the deadly virus has claimed 257 lives and affected 8,153 people in the country.

Before the government notification allowing retail sale of anti-viral drug Oseltamivir, the Centre procured 19 million FLUVIR capsules from Hetero to check the recent outbreak of deadly H1N1 flu in India, Marketing Director, Hetero Srinivas Reddy claimed.

FLUVIR, which was available only through government hospitals, will now be available in around 480 designated medical shops having Schedule X licence across the country, he said.

Swine flu death toll reaches 351

New Delhi: Seven people, including four from Maharashtra, died of swine flu on Monday taking the toll in the country to 351. The number of H1N1 cases in India also crossed the 11,000 mark, union health ministry said.

Apart from the four deaths in Maharashtra, one swine flu death each was reported from Haryana, Delhi and Karnataka. With these the casualty figure has jumped to 143 in Maharashtra, 15 in Delhi and four in Haryana.

12-year-old girl first swine flu victim in Chandigarh

Chandigarh: A 12-year-old girl died from influenza A (H1N1) virus on Monday, becoming the first swine flu casualty here, a health official said.

The victim, a native of Meerut in Uttar pradesh, was staying in the hostel of Chaman Vatika school on the Chandigarh-Ambala highway, 35 km from here.

`Harshita was brought to Chandigarh on Friday in a very serious condition and she was admitted at Chaitanya Hospital. When the hospital authorities informed us, she was already on ventilator support,` H.C. Gera, nodal officer for swine flu, Chandigarh, said.

`We took the throat and nasal swab samples and she tested positive. She had problems in breathing. Some doctors of this private hospital are on the panel of Chaman Vatika school, so they directly referred the patient there,` added Gera.

Following the swine flu case, the management on Sunday announced the closure of the school till Diwali later this month.

Health officials visited the school Sunday to examine students and staff members who were in close contact with the victim.

So far, over 230 suspected cases of swine flu have been reported in Chandigarh hospitals, out of which 40 have tested positive.

Global swine flu toll rises to over 3,900: WHO

  

Geneva: A total of 3,917 people have died of swine flu worldwide since the outbreak of the viral disease in April, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a latest update on Friday.

Of all the deaths, 2,948 occurred in the Americas, followed by the West Pacific region, with 362 deaths. The other four WHO regional offices, South-East Asia, Europe, East Mediterranean and Africa reported 340, 154, 72 and 41 deaths respectively.

The WHO, which declared a swine flu pandemic in June, said the total number of laboratory confirmed cases worldwide is now over 318,925, but this estimate is significantly lower than the actual number of cases that have occurred, as many countries have stopped testing and reporting individual cases, particularly the milder ones.

In the northern hemisphere, where winter is approaching, influenza cases continue to increase in many areas. But in the southern hemisphere, influenza transmission has largely returned to baseline or is continuing to decline, the global health agency said. 

US announces $100,000 aid for India's flood victims

2009-10-08 14:20:00

The US Thursday announced $100,000 aid for the victims of recent floods in parts of southern and western India. 'The heart-breaking personal loss, the destruction of homes and property, and the loss of cattle and crops have been devastating,' US ambassador to India Timothy J. Roemer said while announcing the aid. 'Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families during this time of great loss and tragedy,' he said. Heavy rain and floods have inundated many parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra killing over 200 people and leaving millions homeless. Over the past seven years, the US has given over $16 million for various disaster management activities in India. The US agencies have worked in partnership with Indian disaster experts to share knowledge and expertise, improve disaster preparedness, and protect most vulnerable citizens.

Abjure violence for dialogue, Chidambaram tells Maoists

MUMBAI: Maoist guerrillas should give up their "armed liberation struggle" to pave the way

and the development of violence-hit states, home minister P Chidambaram said here on Wednesday, a day after the decapitated body of a Jharkhand police officer who had been abducted by guerrillas was found.

Addressing a press conference here, Chidambaram refused to term actions against the guerrillas as "war" and said: "It is Naxalites who believe in violence, who use words like war and war preparation. We do not treat it as war. 

"We are a civilised country... we do not wage war against our own people. Maoists must abjure violence and take the path of democracy and dialogue."

The home minister said the governments of states affected by Maoist violence had been asked to discuss the issues of development, neglect, deprivation and government structure in case they give up arms.

"Unless violence stops, no development is possible... Violence is simply unacceptable in a democracy and republic. No government which has taken oath under constitution can accept an armed liberation struggle.

"We have no option but to ask the security forces to engage them (Maoists), apprehend them. It (Maoist violence) has grown over last 10-12 years... As long as Naxalites do not abjure violence the security forces will confront them, engage them," the home minister added.

Chidambaram said surrendering arms was a must as the government and the Maoists could claim to represent the same group of people. The issues, he stressed, should be dealt with in democratic ways.

The minister said no foreign aid was being given to the Maoists to wage their movement.

"There is no evidence of Naxalites getting money from abroad. They are able to raise money inside the country. But they also loot banks, kidnap and extort," he added.

Chidambaram's comments come a day after Jharkhand police inspector Francis Induwar, who had been abducted on Sep 30, was found killed on the Ranchi-Jamshedpur highway.

NASA telescope discovers giant ring around Saturn

AP – This artist's rendering released by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Tuesday Oct. 6, 2009 shows the …

PASADENA, Calif. – The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered the biggest but never-before-seen ring around the planet Saturn, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced late Tuesday.

The thin array of ice and dust particles lies at the far reaches of the Saturnian system and its orbit is tilted 27 degrees from the planet's main ring plane, the laboratory said.

JPL spokeswoman Whitney Clavin said the ring is very diffuse and doesn't reflect much visible light but the infrared Spitzer telescope was able to detect it.

Although the ring dust is very cold — minus 316 degrees Fahrenheit — it shines with thermal radiation.

No one had looked at its location with an infrared instrument until now, Clavin said.

The bulk of the ring material starts about 3.7 million miles from the planet and extends outward about another 7.4 million miles.

The newly found ring is so huge it would take 1 billion Earths to fill it, JPL said.
Before the discovery Saturn was known to have seven main rings named A through E and several faint unnamed rings.

A paper on the discovery was to be published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.

"This is one supersized ring," said one of the authors, Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Her co-authors are Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland, College Park, and Michael Skrutskie, also of the University of Virginia.

Saturn's moon Phoebe orbits within the ring and is believed to be the source of the material.

The ring also may answer the riddle of another moon, Iapetus, which has a bright side and a very dark side.

The ring circles in the same direction as Phoebe, while Iapetus, the other rings and most of Saturn's other moons go the opposite way. Scientists think material from the outer ring moves inward and slams into Iapetus.

"Astronomers have long suspected that there is a connection between Saturn's outer moon Phoebe and the dark material on Iapetus," said Hamilton. "This new ring provides convincing evidence of that relationship."
The Spitzer mission, launched in 2003, is managed by JPL in Pasadena. Spitzer is 66 million miles from Earth in orbit around the sun.

2 Americans, 1 Israeli win Nobel chemistry prize

STOCKHOLM – Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Israeli Ada Yonath won the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for mapping ribosomes, the protein-producing factories within cells, at the atomic level.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work has been fundamental to the scientific understanding of life and has helped researchers develop antibiotic cures for various diseases.

Yonath is the fourth woman to win the Nobel chemistry prize and the first since 1964, when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin of Britain received the prize.

This year's three laureates all generated three-dimensional models that show how different antibiotics bind to ribosomes.

"These models are now used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering," the academy said in its announcement.

"All three have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome," the academy said.

Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, established the Nobel Prizes in his will in 1895. The first awards were handed out six years later.

Each prize comes with a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) purse, a diploma, a gold medal and an invitation to the prize ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10. The Peace Prize is handed out in Oslo.

On Monday, three American scientists shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.

The physics prize on Tuesday was split between a Hong Kong-based scientist who helped develop fiber-optic cable and two Canadian and American researchers who invented the "eye" in digital cameras — technology that has revolutionized communications and science.

The literature and peace prize winners will be announced later this week and the economics announcement is set for Monday.

AP Poll: Health care overhaul has a pulse

WASHINGTON – The fever has broken. The patient is out of intensive care. But if you're President Barack Obama, you can't stop pacing the waiting room. Health care overhaul is still in guarded condition.

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll has found that opposition to Obama's health care remake dropped dramatically in just a matter of weeks. Still, Americans remain divided over complex legislation that Democrats are advancing in Congress.

The public is split 40-40 on supporting or opposing the health care legislation, the poll found. An even split is welcome news for Democrats, a sharp improvement from September, when 49 percent of Americans said they opposed the congressional proposals and just 34 percent supported them.

Anger about health care boiled over during August. Lawmakers returning home for town hall meetings faced outcries that the government was trying to take over the system, ushering in higher costs, lower quality — even rationing and euthanasia.

"It's very significant that there's an upturn in support for the plans because after August there was a sense that the whole effort was beginning to decline and would not come back in terms of public support," said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor who tracks public opinion on health care.

"Even with this," added Blendon, "the country is still divided over whether or not moving ahead is the right thing to do."

Behind the shift seems to be a growing determination among Democrats that going forward would be better. Meanwhile, political independents don't appear as alarmed about the congressional proposals as they were just a few weeks ago. Still, opponents remain more passionate in their convictions than do supporters.

In a significant change, opposition among older Americans dropped 16 percentage points. Seniors have been concerned that Congress would stick them with the bill by cutting Medicare to pay for covering the uninsured. Among the most reliable voters, they were much more wary of the changes than the public as a whole. The gap has narrowed.

The poll found that 68 percent of Democrats support the congressional plans, up from 57 percent in early September. Opposition among independents plunged from 51 percent to 36 percent. However, only 29 percent of independents currently support the plans in Congress.

Among seniors, opposition fell from 59 percent in September to 43 percent now. Almost four in 10, 38 percent, now support it, compared with 31 percent in September.

Retiree Sandi Murray, 65, of Hesperia, Mich., said she doesn't have any concerns her Medicare coverage will suffer. "I think it will be A-OK," she said.

Murray said she thinks it's time to address the problems of nearly 50 million people without coverage. "We need to do something so that everybody has some amount of coverage for some reasonable amount of money," she said.

Republicans remain solidly against the congressional health care plans, with four out of five opposed.

Americans overwhelmingly say it's important that health care legislation have the support of both parties.

Blendon credits Obama's speech to Congress in early September and his blitz of media interviews and appearances since then for moving public opinion toward the positive column. What some have criticized as presidential hyperactivity, many Americans took as a sign that the president was taking ownership of the issue, Blendon said.

Before his prime-time speech to Congress, 52 percent disapproved of Obama's handling of health care. Now the public is split, with 48 percent approving and 47 percent disapproving.

"Getting more directly involved in the outcome is what people expect a president to be doing," said Blendon.

There's still deep skepticism that the government can fix the health care system to expand coverage and tamp down rising costs.

Andrew Newcomb, 28, who works in sales and lives near Destin, Fla., said he doesn't think taxpayers should have to take on the costs of covering the uninsured.

"I don't want my tax money to pay for some pill-popper to fake some injury and go to the hospital when I don't ever go to the hospital," said Newcomb, adding he can afford to go to the doctor and pay $60 for a checkup.

The congressional bills would require all Americans to get health insurance, either through an employer, through a government program or on their own. Tax credits would be offered for many of those who buy their own coverage but failure to comply could result in a fine.

"I don't think that the government should supply health care to the people," said Newcomb.

The AP-GfK poll was conducted Oct. 1-5, based on a nationally representative sample of 1,003 adults age 18 or older, contacted by telephone on land lines and cell phones. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for results based on the entire sample.

Locked, tortured by father for 7 years

In a horrifying story from Vasai, 60-year-old Francis Gomes locked up his three daughters and his wife for over seven years, allegedly worried that his daughters would get corrupted or raped if they stepped out of the house. Karan Johar apologises for 'Bombay' Raj Thackeray's party workers stopped the screening of Wake Up Sid because Mumbai is referred to as Bombay in the film. Producer Karan Johar met Thackeray and apologised to him. Rakhi, Elesh kiss on camera Item-girl-turned-actress Rakhi Sawant, who is currently doing a reality show Pati Patni Aur Woh on NDTV Imagine, was caught lip locking with her fiance Elesh Parujanwala on camera.

Karnataka, Andhra floods: Is the worst over?

Monday October 5, 2009, Hyderabad, Bangalore

Four days after what are being described as the worst floods in history, many parts of Andhra Pradesh remain water-logged and cut off. The only access to many areas is through Indian Air Force choppers carrying out relief and rescue operations.

In Karnataka the situation is better, with water receding and none of the affected areas cut off.

Over 250 people are dead and close to 1 million have been displaced due to the massive floods in the south. The death toll stands at 206 and 63 in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh respectively.

Andhra Pradesh still flooded

One of India's most prosperous cities Vijayawada is today virtually cut off with highways connecting it to Hyderabad and Chennai under water. Army and private boats are being used extensively in Vijayawada and other villages in Krishna district to evacuate people and shift them to relief camps. The levels at the Prakasam barrage have been steadily rising, with the swollen Krishna virtually swallowing the areas on both sides of the river.

The Andhra Pradesh government has asked the Centre for Rs 6,000 crores for relief measures as water has submerged villages, entered homes leaving lakhs homeless, marooned; families have left as water from the Prakkassam barrage entered the city.

About 15,000 people in low-lying areas have been evacuated.

Andhra Pradesh has estimated damages due to heavy rains and floods at Rs 12,225 crore.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi took a closer look at the extent of devastation through an aerial survey of Kurnool and Mahabubnagar. Both districts took the maximum brunt of torrential rains and floods. The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister said he has requested Karnataka not to release water from Almatti and Narayanpur dams upstream unless it is inevitable.

Rehabilitation on in Karnataka

In Karnataka, the focus is now on rehabilitation efforts. With no rains over the last couple of days, floodwaters have receded but lakhs of people are in relief camps.

The Karnataka Chief Minister appealed to the PM to declare the worst floods in the state since 1972 as a 'national calamity' and release Rs 10,000 crore from the National Calamity Contingency Fund to rehabilitate the affected people. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa told NDTV that many corporates are pitching in for the relief efforts and many villages will now be shifted permanently.

Meanwhile, Karnataka's Irrigation Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that the flood damage in Andhra Pradesh could have been lessened if that state had handled its dams properly says. He told NDTV that Karnataka had kept its outflow to the minimum possible.

Coal India May Complete Mine Acquisition This Year (Update1)

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Coal India Ltd., the nation’s monopoly producer of the fuel, said it expects to complete a mine acquisition in the year ending March 31, and has hired Royal Bank of Canada to carry out due diligence on a deposit in Australia.

The state-owned company is seeking mines in the U.S., Australia, South Africa and Indonesia and as many as 52 companies want to be its partners, Chairman Partha S. Bhattacharyya told reporters in New Delhi today.

Coal India said Aug. 27 it may invest as much as $1.5 billion to acquire mines overseas to help overcome a shortage of the fuel as the country plans to almost double its power generation capacity by 2012. The company estimates a shortage of about 228 million tons a year of coal by March 2012.

Bhattacharyya and officials including Sriprakash Jaiswal, India’s junior coal minister, visited Australia in September to assess potential acquisition targets. About 15 companies with coal operations in Australia have signaled that they are interested in possible agreements with an Indian partner, Partha Sen, a business development manager for the Australian Trade Commission, said in Sydney Sept. 3.

Coal India secured two blocks in Mozambique that may hold a combined 1 billion metric tons of thermal coal, along with some coking coal, Bhattacharyya had said in a June 4 interview.

India’s coal demand is estimated to reach 731 million tons a year by March 2012, J. Goel, chief general manager of sales and marketing at Coal India, said Feb. 24. The company wants local mining approvals sped up to boost domestic output.

Companies including NTPC Ltd., Reliance Power Ltd. and Tata Power Co. plan to boost generation to meet demand in the world’s second fastest-growing major economy.

Mittal may pull India steel plant plan: report

 

48 mins ago

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) – The world's largest steel maker ArcelorMittal is threatening to scrap a 20-billion dollar project to build two major steel plants in eastern India because of problems with land acquisition.
 
Chairman Lakshmi Mittal was quoted in Monday's Financial Times as saying that delays in purchasing the land from farmers and others in the states of Orissa and Jharkand were "unacceptable".

"If we cannot make progress in these two sites, we will have to abandon the idea of starting the projects there and look for other places in India for our expansion," Mittal told the newspaper.
The saga has echoes of the problems encountered last year by India's largest vehicle maker Tata Motors which was forced to shift the plant for its new, cheap Nano car from West Bengal to Gujarat amid farmers' protests over land acquisitions.

India's industrial expansion faces a problem in purchasing agricultural land for development, with farmers often unwilling to sell and regional politics fuelling local anger at perceived commercial exploitation.

Mittal told the Financial Times that people in India needed to be "educated" to understand the collective benefits of industrial development.

The two plants envisaged by ArcelorMittal would jointly produce around 24 million tonnes of steel by 2015.

Mahatma Ghandi's Day

Fri, Oct 2, 12:10 PM

India, Oct. 3 -- Forty years ago, illustrator Biman Mullick designed an image that has been branded on India's popular imagination indelibly.

It was the smiling face of an old Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The original work was done for the British Post Office, which issued a stamp commemorating Bapu's birth centennary in 1969.

Then the image made its way to India. Now, decades after Mullick's work, the Father of the Nation, famous for his frugal lifestyle, is also a bestselling 'brand'.

And at the heart of the phenomenon is that image. Versions of Mullick's rendition are to be found everywhere today - from t-shirts and coffee mugs to keychains and pens.

Take a stroll around the city and you will find Gandhi paraphernalia all around. From roadside stores on Janpath to luxe brand stores in tonier shopping districts, several shelves are filled with the image.

It's perhaps not out of reverence for the Mahatma - but because sporting Gandhi is cool. Sagar Sharma, a 26-year-old software engineer based in Noida, loves to have in his wardrobe t-shirts with leaders' faces emblazoned on them.

"I have one of Che, one of Martin Luther and a couple of Gandhi ones." And entrepreneurs have wisened up to the fad.

Kaushal Saxena of People Tree makes sure they stock up on Gandhi shirts. "They are in demand all round the year, but we are usually overwhelmed around October 2," he says.

Apart from shirts, you can buy hand-painted Gandhi greetings and postcards with quotes by the Mahatma. A short walk away on Janpath, S. Paul and Bros sells a variety of t-shirts with sketched monochrome images printed on the front.

The National Gandhi Museum at Rajghat sells some novelty items such as key-chains and figurines. There is also an intriguing mug that slowly shows up the Mahatma's face as you fill it up with any hot liquid.

"I'm buying a lot of books about Gandhiji," says Lukas Meuller from Berlin, a visitor at the museum. "But I'm taking a few key chains as souvenirs for my two teens back home," he smiles.

"I hope to inspire them by the life and thoughts of the Mahatma." Lukas is not the only German to be inspired by Bapu.

Germany-based pen-maker Mont Blanc has recently launched a set of premium 'Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition 241' pens at a princely price of Rs 11.3 lakh each. The series commemorates Mahatma Gandhi's Dandi march against the British salt tax in 1930.

The '241' marks the miles Bapu covered in the march from Ahmedabad to the Gujarat coast- and also the number of pens to be produced globally. The pen has a gold wire entwined around the middle of each pen that represents the roughly-wound yarn on the spindle that Gandhi spun everyday.

It sports a hand-crafted rhodium-plated 18-carat gold nib depicting Gandhiji holding his trademark lathi. For those not feeling all that extravagant in these tough times, there's also the Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition 3000, a series that will sell 3,000 fountain pens at Rs 1.7 lakh each and 3,000 rollerballs for Rs 1.5 lakh each.

Other international brands, too, are cashing in. Lladro, the Spanish manufacturer of high-quality porcelain figurines, has created an astonishingly life-like one of Gandhiji.

Standing 31 cm tall with his lathi, it will set you back by Rs 40,000.