Junior Digest

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the country’s longest bridge over the Lohit river in Assam on the third anniversary of his government and said the NDA dispensation was working to make the northeast region a trade hub for southeast Asia.

Dedicating to the nation the 9.15 km-long bridge, named after Dadasaheb Phalke awardee and legendary lyricist-singer Bhupen Hazarika who hailed from Sadiya, he said it will serve as the foundation for a new economic revolution and help India in its efforts to become a superpower.

Speaking on the Act East Policy, the prime minister said he wanted the northeast region to become a trade hub for southeast Asia by connecting the area for economic activity.

“For this, we are laying stress on development of infrastructure and making the northeast a tourism centre.

Lakhs of tourists would also come to Kamakhya temple and improve the economy,” he said.

“Stress in now being laid on what was never done earlier… Electricity, roads, rail infrastructure and optical fibre network in the northeast will connect every corner of the region with the country,” Modi said.

“The bridge will not only save money, reduce travel time but comes as a foundation for the beginning of a new economic revolution. That is why the whole nation has its eyes on this bridge,” he said.

“The reduction of distance by 165 km and cutting travel time by seven to eight hours will open new doors for economic development… The bridge will bring development to Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

“For fulfilling India’s dream of becoming a top economically developed nation, a superpower, the northeast region is the place to begin with,” Modi said.

“If development is to be made permanent, then infrastructure is the first requirement. It is on the two tracks of physical infrastructure and social infrastructure that complete development is achieved,” he said.

The prime minister said the government has been striving for long-lasting development by creating permanent infrastructure for fulfilling the nation’s dreams.

Modi said the bridge would open new road for the high- quality ginger grown by farmers of the region and improve their economic condition.

If the farmers take up organic ginger farming, a global market would open up for them, he said.

Greeting the people here in Assamese, Modi asked them to switch on the torches of their mobiles to “show to the nation that you are celebrating the occasion”.

Amidst cheers by the gathering, Modi said he considered himself fortunate to be here as Gujarat, where Dwarikanath is from, is his birthplace, and Sadiya, which was known as Kundil Nagar, was where Lord Krishna had come.

He recalled the role played by the former MLA Jagadish Bhuyan in the construction of the bridge as it was he who wrote to then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on May 29, 2003.

“The government changed in the middle and your dreams got paused. If work had continued then you would have had the bridge 10 years ago. In the last three years efforts started to complete Vajpayee’s work,” Modi said.

He said Assam Chief Minister Sarbanada Sonowal in the first one year of his government is trying to bring the state out of the condition it was in when he took over the reins.

Before the bridge was constructed people had to depend on ferry boats to cross the Lohit river.

“Now, the bridge will be open 365 days 24X7 for movement of traffic. We are giving stress on development of roads, bridges, rails, air and waterways which are environment- friendly and economical. New waterways will start from here,” the prime minister said.

The bridge built at a cost of Rs 2,056 crore is 3.55 km longer than the Bandra-Worli Sea link. The length of the bridge, including viaducts, is 9.15 km with 7.3 km approach road from the Dhola side and 12.5 km from Sadia side.

The carriageway width is three lanes (10.5 metre).

With importance accorded to quick movement of military troops and artillery, the bridge has been designed to allow movement of tanks, official sources said.

The bridge is an engineering marvel and is capable of withstanding the weight of a 60 tonne battle tank, a release by Dalmia Cement, which supplied the construction material, said in Guwahati.

The company supplied 17,000 tonnes of cement for the bridge which connects Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, said a release from the cement company.

Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) was the largest and main supplier of steel for constructing the bridge. It supplied around 90 per cent or around 30,000 tonnes of steel, including TMT bars for it, an official release said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the demonetization drive was a “tough decision” to take in view of the opposition parties’ constant efforts to turn people against it.

In the end, however, the people stood by the decision of his government, he told a rally here on the occasion of the BJP-led NDA government’s completion of three years in office.

“Demonetization was a tough decision. Political leaders tried to create anger and provoke people,” Modi said.

He said, “Demonetization has brought 90 lakh people into the tax net. People stood by me shoulder to shoulder in this big decision”.

Modi thanked the 1.25 crore people of the country for standing by him on every decision his government took.

On black money, the prime minister said, “We decided to take strong steps against black money. I know that for this I will face problems, but I won’t hesitate as I have promised this to the people”.

Indirectly criticising the previous governments at the Centre, Modi said that an Act was passed against “benami properties” in 1988, but it was never notified.

“What kind of governance was this? For the first time in India, honesty is getting a chance. An honest person is thinking of living peacefully for the first time,” he observed.

The prime minister said that because of his honest decisions, he had faced huge problems, but he would always stand by it as promised to the people.

“Once black money was everywhere, now it became ‘Jan Dhan’ everywhere. From now on, it should be ‘Digi Dhan’ everywhere,” he said referring to his government’s drive for a cashless economy.

Highlighting some of his government’s achievements, Modi referred to the setting up of OBC Commission, Swachch Bharat campaign, surrender of LPG subsidy by people, spread of Internet to villages, transforming post offices into banks, irrigation system and providing LED bulbs to common people.

He took a dig at previous governments for slow speed of work, saying there was a big mismatch between people’s expectations and implementation of schemes or projects.

He took credit for trying out new things, saying, “Everyday there is a new initiative. There is a change in the work culture. The country is feeling the change. In the last three years, there was not a single day when we did not take a step”.

Talking of a new India he wants to see, Modi said, “We have to build a new, developed India. There should be respect for all work and workers. Women will travel equally. There will be no discrimination to anyone and all will be equal”.

During his day-long tour of Assam, Modi said projects worth Rs 3,500 crore had been either conceived or commissioned in the state in a single day.

With floods and landslides causing widespread devastation in Sri Lanka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India stands by the people of the island nation and that ships are being rushed with relief material. He condoled the death of 90 people due to rain-triggered floods and landslides in Sri Lanka. “We stand with our Sri Lankan brothers and sisters in their hour of need,” he said in a tweet.

PM Modi said Indian ships are being dispatched with relief material. “The first ship will reach Colombo tomorrow morning. The second will reach on Sunday. Further assistance on its way,” he said in a series of tweets.

Heavy floods and landslides triggered by the worst rainfall since 1970s have killed over 90 people and left 110 missing in Sri Lanka, officials said today, warning the situation could get worse. Floods and landslides in Sri Lanka have killed at least 91 people while more than 100 are missing after torrential rain, officials said on Friday, as soldiers fanned out in boats and in helicopters to help with rescue operations.

The early rainy season downpours have forced hundreds of people from their homes across the Indian Ocean island.

“There are at least five landslides reported in several places in Kalutara,” said police spokesman Priyantha Jayakody, referring to the worst-hit district on the island’s west coast. “Rescue operations are still taking place.”

The disaster management center said 91 people had been killed and 110 were missing. The center said 38 deaths were reported from Kalutara while 46 were reported from the central southern district of Ratnapura.

Military Spokesman Roshan Senevirathne said about 400 military personnel had been deployed with boats and helicopters to help the police and civilian agencies.

The wettest time of the year in Sri Lanka’s south is usually during the southern monsoon, from May to September. The island nation also receives heavy rains in the North West monsoonal season from November to February.

Sri Lankan meteorology officials said Thursday’s rains are the worst since 2003 and they expected more rain in the coming days as the South-west monsoon condition had established over the country.

Srinagar, May 29 : Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah on Sunday called for the immediate imposition of Governor’s rule in the state, stressing that it was the only way to arrest the growing unrest in the Valley, fast slipping into anarchy.

“We have never been promoters of Governor’s rule; we have always opposed it. But there is no other way,” Abdullah, the newly elected MP from Srinagar, told PTI here.

The National Conference chief, who was recently called to New Delhi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a discussion on Kashmir, said Modi wanted a “peaceful end” to the situation in the state, reeling under unrest for months.

“I can’t tell you what I discussed with the Prime Minister. All I can say is that he is concerned about the situation in the state and wants to an end to it. A peaceful end to it,” he said.

The former chief minister, accusing the Mehbooba Mufti government of “failing on all fronts”, said not just south Kashmir, the entire Valley was in the grip of “tragedies”.

“These tragedies are adding to communal tension in the rest of the nation. So the quicker we settle this problem, (the quicker) would we be able to control the fire which is coming to a boiling stage,” Abdullah said, adding that “the continued lawlessness is leading the Kashmir Valley into a state of anarchy”.

He also appealed to fringe elements in the BJP to not make “any provocative statements” on Kashmir.

NASA has discovered a new long pulse of ice loss in Greenland resulting from a warming climate, with implications for the future rate of sea level rise. The study found that during Greenland’s hottest summers on record, 2010 and 2012, the ice in Rink Glacier on the island’s west coast did not just melt faster than usual, it slid through the glacier’s interior in a gigantic wave, like a warmed freezer pop sliding out of its plastic casing.

The wave persisted for four months, with ice from upstream continuing to move down to replace the missing mass for at least four more months, NASA said. This long pulse of mass loss, called a solitary wave, may increase the potential for sustained ice loss in Greenland as the climate continues to warm, with implications for the future rate of sea level rise.

The study by scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was the first to precisely track a glacier’s loss of mass from melting ice using the horizontal motion of a Global Positioning System (GPS) sensor. They used data from a single sensor in the Greenland GPS Network (GNET), sited on bedrock next to Rink Glacier.

Rink is one of Greenland’s major outlets to the ocean, draining about 11 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) of ice per year in the early 2000s. In the intensely hot summer of 2012, however, it lost an additional 6.7 gigatonnes of mass in the form of a solitary wave. Previously observed melting processes can not explain that much mass loss.

The wave moved through the flowing glacier during the months of June through September at a speed of about four kilometres a month for the first three months, increasing to 12 kilometres during September. The amount of mass in motion was 1.7 gigatonnes. Rink Glacier typically flows at a speed of a few kilometres a year.

“We know for sure that the triggering mechanism was the surface melting of snow and ice, but we do not fully understand the complex array of processes that generate solitary waves,” said JPL scientist Surendra Adhikari, who led the study. During the two summers when solitary waves occurred, the surface snowpack and ice of the huge basin in Greenland’s interior behind Rink Glacier held more water than ever before.

In 2012, more than 95 per cent of the surface snow and ice was melting. Meltwater may create temporary lakes and rivers that quickly drain through the ice and flow to the ocean. “The water upstream probably had to carve new channels to drain. It was likely to be slow-moving and inefficient,” said Erik Ivins from JPL. Once the water had formed pathways to the base of the glacier, the wave of intense loss began. The research was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

31 May 2017 : Scientists have identified a new ‘GPS’ neuron, a discovery that may open up new treatment strategies for people with impaired sense of navigation such as Alzheimer’s patients. “This seems to be a new type of neuron, which we have informally dubbed the ‘neighbourhood cell’. This neuron seems to enable the brain to specifically differentiate between distinct segments (neighbourhoods) of the environment,” said Jeroen Bos, researcher at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in the Netherlands.

Researchers investigated how large scale navigational knowledge is coded within the brain and whether this process indeed occurs in different structures within the temporal lobe. They trained rats to perform a visually guided task in a figure-8 maze consisting of two loops that overlap in the middle lane. During the experiment, researchers measured electrical activity in the brain by using a novel instrument which allowed them to simultaneously record groups of neurons from four different areas.

They recorded from the perirhinal cortex, hippocampus and two sensory areas. Recordings from the perirhinal cortex revealed sustained activity patterns. The level of electrical activity clearly rose and fell depending on the segment the rats were in and persisted throughout that entire segment, researchers said. They found a pronounced difference between the responses in the perirhinal cortex and responses in other areas of the brain.

Units from the perirhinal cortex had sustained responses throughout the whole loop. By contrast, responses from hippocampal place cells were scattered across the maze and their fields were much smaller than the loops of the maze, researchers said. “We were surprised to see the perirhinal cortex’s responses align so closely with the layout of the maze, primarily because the region is commonly associated with object recognition,” Bos said.

The discovery is an important step towards understanding how the brain codes navigation behaviour at larger scales and could potentially open up new treatment strategies for people with impaired topographical orientation like Alzheimer’s patients, researchers said. “It is known that patients with Alzheimer’s disease or with damage to the temporal lobe have great difficulty finding their way, especially to remote goal locations’, said Cyriel Pennartz, professor at UvA.

The results may guide patients with Alzheimer’s or other diseases in using other spatial strategies than the ones most severely affected, researchers said. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

World leaders have pushed Donald Trump to join the rest of the world in combating climate change – but the President has made no promises despite the White House insisting his views are “evolving”.

G7 nations had hoped the US leader, who has previously described climate change as a “hoax”, would publicly back the Paris Agreement and the commitment  to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Rather, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leaders had a “controversial debate” on the subject.

Despite that, and despite repeated criticism that Mr Trump has turned his back on science, the US insisted that the President had gone to listen and learn to the other world leaders.

The meeting in Taormina, Italy, of the heads of the world’s seven major industrialised economies, did secure widespread agreement on other issues, including Syria, Libya, and fighting terrorism.

The group ramped up pressure on internet service providers and social media to increase efforts to purge extremist content, four days after the terror attack in Manchester that killed 22 people, by toughening a final statement to fight terrorism, honing in on the role of companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, sometimes referred to generally in Europe using the acronym Gafa.

“We will combat the misuse of the Internet by terrorists. While being one of the most important technological achievements in the last decades, the Internet has also proven to be a powerful tool for terrorist purposes,” said the joint statement signed by the leaders meeting in Sicily.

However that co-operation did not stretch entirely to the issue of Global warming. “There is one open question, which is the US position on the Paris climate accords. All others have confirmed their total agreement on the accord,” Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said.

“We are sure that after an internal reflection, the United States will also want to commit to it,” he added.

The White House’s decision to go slow on making a decision about his commitment to the 2015 climate change agreement – something Mr Trump said he would withdraw from when he was campaigning – led the other leaders to mount their campaign of persuasion.

During the opening months of this presidency, he has shown he can change his position, especially when confronted by strong and unified global opinion.

For instance, he backed away from tough campaign talk about trade with China after a summit with President Xi Jinping and abandoned his criticism of Saudi Arabia.

 

New Delhi, May 29 :  Manipur Governor and former minority affairs minister Najma Heptulla has been appointed as the chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, first woman to hold the top post in the varsity’s history.

Jamia Vice Chancellor Talat Ahmad confirmed the development, saying she has been appointed for a term of five years.

The 77-year-old Heptulla succeeds Lt Gen (Retd) MA Zaki who completes his five-year term this month. She is the first woman chancellor of the university since its establishment in 1920.

“The university will greatly benefit from her rich experience in both political and public life. It will be our privilege to work with her and to learn from her distinguished career in Parliament and internationally,” Ahmed said.

Heptulla who has been a five time member of the Rajya Sabha and its deputy chairman for sixteen years served as the minister of minority affairs in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet before being appointed as the governor of Manipur.

Heptulla has had the distinction of presiding over the women’s parliamentarians’ group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 1993.

She was elected President of Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), a Geneva-based international organisation from 1999 to 2002, and was nominated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as its human development ambassador.

Gene-editing has been hailed as a cure for cancer and all forms of inherited disease.

But scientists have now discovered that a system for editing the genes of living creatures can have a potentially dangerous side-effect – causing unintended mutations.

Human trials of the Crispr-Cas9 gene-editing technique are already underway in China and are due to start in the US next year.

One of the supposed strengths of the system is that it allows specific sections of the genome to be targeted.

This prompted one expert, Dr Edze Westra, to predict earlier this year that it would be used to “cure all inherited diseases, to cure cancers, to restore sight to people” by adding, deleting or repairing genes.

Writing in the journal Nature Methods, researchers in the US described how they had used Crispr-Cas9 to restore sight to blind mice.

However, when they then sequenced the entire genome of the animals, they found two had more than 1,500 small mutations and more than 100 larger deletions and insertions of genetic material.

One of the researchers, Professor Stephen Tsang, of Columbia University, said: “We feel it’s critical that the scientific community consider the potential hazards of all off-target mutations caused by Crispr.

“Researchers who aren’t using whole genome sequencing to find off-target effects may be missing potentially important mutations.

“We hope our findings will encourage others to use whole-genome sequencing as a method to determine all the off-target effects of their Crispr techniques and study different versions for the safest, most accurate editing.”

He added that even a small change – even affecting a single nucleotide, the basic building block of DNA – could have a “huge impact”.

Previously, scientists have used a computer algorithm to highlight areas of the genome most likely to have been damaged inadvertently and then examine those sections of DNA alone.

The researchers said these algorithms “seem to do a good job” when Crispr was used on tissues in the laboratory, but full genome sequencing was required when dealing with live animals.

The mice used in the study had a gene that causes blindness and Crispr was used to correct this.

While hundreds of mutations were discovered – none of which were predicted by the algorithms – the mice themselves did not appear to be any worse for wear.

And the researchers said they were still confident that gene-editing would be medically useful.

Professor Vinit Mahajan, of Stanford University, who also took part in the research, said: “We’re still upbeat about Crispr.

“We’re physicians, and we know that every new therapy has some potential side effects – but we need to be aware of what they are.”

They are now trying to improve the targeting and cutting techniques used by the Crispr system.

Scientists have identified the genetic mutation that causes dogs such as pugs and bulldogs to have flat shaped faces, a finding that may help understand causes of birth defects that affect head development in human babies.

The research reveals new insights into the genes that underpin skull formation in people and animals. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in the UK analysed DNA samples from 374 pet dogs of various pedigree and mixed breeds. All of the animals underwent body scans producing detailed 3D images of their heads. These high-resolution CT scans enabled the researchers to take precise measurements of the shape of the dog’s skull. “Our results shed light on the molecular nature of this type of skull form that is so common and popular among dogs,” said Jeffrey Schoenebeck, from the University of Edinburgh.

By comparing the dogs’ genetic information with measurements of their skulls, the team were able to pinpoint DNA variations that are associated with different head shapes. One variation – found to disrupt the activity of a gene called SMOC2 – was strongly linked to the length of the dog’s face. Animals with the mutation had significantly flatter faces, a condition called brachycephaly. Babies are sometimes born with brachycephaly too, though little is known about its causes. Scientists said that screening children for changes in the SMOC2 gene could help to diagnose the condition. The study was published in the journal Current Biology.

Severe Cyclone Mora hit Bangladesh today packing winds of up to 117 kilometres per hour after authorities evacuated hundreds of thousands of people from low-lying coastal villages.

The storm made landfall on the coast between Cox’s Bazar and the main port city of Chittagong at 6:00 am (local time), the Bangladesh Meteorological Department said in a special weather bulletin.

31 May 2017 : Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu  expressed confidence that top BJP leaders, charged with criminal conspiracy in the Babri mosque demolition case, will come out “unscathed” even as the Congress demanded resignation of Cabinet minister Uma Bharti.

Bharti, along with BJP veterans L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi among others, was charged by a special CBI court in Lucknow and also granted bail in the case.

The court framed charges under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code against the BJP leaders.

Naidu told reporters the accused BJP leaders are “innocent” and will come out of the case “unscathed”.

Naidu also noted that the NDA government did not move to withdraw the case against the top saffron leaders.

Arrival of the BJP veterans for the court appearance prompted the party’s Hindutva faces to raise the pitch for the construction of Ram Temple.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath too met Advani.

BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj said “no power on earth” could stop the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Bharti, the Union minister of water resources, said before appearing in the court that the mosque was pulled down not as part of a “criminal conspiracy” but an “open movement”.

“I was present in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, which is no secret. Crores of BJP workers, lakhs of officials and thousands of political leaders participated.

“It was an open movement like the movement against the Emergency. I don’t see any conspiracy,” she said.

The Congress asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to uphold the law and the Constitution by getting Bharti to quit as minister.

“One of the accused, Uma Bharti is a Union Cabinet minister. Having been charge-sheeted, she must resign. Prime Minister must come forward and uphold the rule of law and the Constitution,” AICC incharge of communications Randeep Surjewala said.

“Time for law of the land to deliver justice expeditiously,” he said as the opposition party voiced hope that the trial will now begin.

“Those who are guilty must be punished in accordance with the law of the land without any fear or favour,” Surjewala said.

Another BJP leader and one of the accused, Vinay Katiyar, insisted that there was no conspiracy as the mosque was razed by a big crowd in the open.

“It is not appropriate to charge a few persons with criminal conspiracy,” the one-time firebrand Hindutva leader and former UP BJP chief said.

Katiyar targeted Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav saying that a case should have been lodged against the former chief minister over the firing by police on ‘kar sewaks’ in Ayodhya in 1990.

He claimed he had not delivered a speech on December 6, 1992, when the 16th-century structure was demolished.

He also claimed that the case had “reached” the judgement stage before the apex court gave its new ruling.

People using smartphones are more likely to make rational and unemotional decisions compared to computer users, when presented with a moral dilemma on their device, according to a new study. Researchers from City, University of London in the UK found that PC users were more likely to favour action based on intuition and following established rules.

The research suggests that moral judgements depend on the digital context in which a dilemma is presented and could have significant implications for how we interact with computers.

The study suggests that even under conditions of time pressure, some digital contexts – such as using a smartphone – could trigger utilitarian decision- making. “When people used a smartphone to view classic moral problems, they were more likely to make more unemotional, rational decisions when presented with a highly emotional dilemma,” said Albert Barque-Duran, from City, University of London and lead author of the study.

“This could be due to the increased time pressures often present with smartphones and also the increased psychological distance which can occur when we use such devices compared to PCs,” said Barque-Duran.

Nandini K R, an officer of the Indian Revenue Service, has topped the prestigious civil services examination, the result of which was declared today by the UPSC.

This is the third year in a row that a woman candidate has topped the test. Nandini, 26, who has got first rank in civil services exam 2016, is at present undergoing training at the National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics in Faridabad. Anmol Sher Singh Bedi is the topper among male candidates securing overall second rank. He is an engineering graduate in computer science from BITS, Pilani.

The top 25 candidates comprise 18 men and 7 women. Nandini, who hails from Karnataka, said being an IAS officer was always her dream. “It is like a dream come true. I always wanted to be an IAS officer,” she told PTI.

This was her fourth attempt. She had cracked the 2014 civil services exam and was alloted the Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise). Nandini belongs to the Other Backward Class (OBC) category.

Holding a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) degree from the M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, her optional subject was Kannada literature.

A total of 1,099 candidates (846 men and 253 women), including 500 in General category, 347 belonging to Other Backward Class, 163 from Scheduled Caste and 89 from Scheduled Tribe, have been recommended for appointment to various central government services, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) said. They include 44 physically handicapped candidates (22 orthopedically handicapped; seven visually challenged and 15 hearing impaired).

There are 220 other candidates in the waiting list. A total of 1,209 vacancies were notified by the government, which were to be filled through the civil services examination 2016.