Chandigarh : Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today directed the forest department to launch a state-wide drive to plant indigenous tree varieties along the highways, a move aimed at environment conservation.
He also asked the urban development department to go in for intensive greening of residential colonies, with amendment in rules, if necessary, to make it mandatory for builders to allocate a part of the property for green plantation in order to obtain the necessary building clearances, an official release said.
The chief minister’s directives came on the World Environment Day, which the state government celebrated with a renewed commitment to protect the environment from further deterioration and to conserve the precious resources of Punjab.
In a directive to the forest department, he underlined the need to undertake a mega campaign to restore the state’s green belt, especially along the highways, where it had been eroded as a result of four-laning and other development projects.
Amarinder advised the department officials to undertake large-scale plantation of Punjab’s native trees such as Kikkar, Shisham, Mango, Ashoka, Jamun, Imli aomg others the highways.
He also asked the urban development department to launch tree plantation drives in colonies to improve the air quality and the aesthetics of these areas.
He also appealed the people to join hands with the state government in its campaign to protect the state’s ecology to ensure a better future for their children.
At least 22 people were killed an 15 injured after a after a bus collided with a truck near the Bareilly bypass in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday night.
Reports said that the bodies were badly charred as the bus caught fire following the collision.
The injured have been taken to a district hospital. However, authorities are yet to determine how the incident took place.
The bus belongs to the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, was enroute to Gonda district from the national capital.
The accident occurred on an under-construction stretch of the highway between Bareilly and Shahjahanpur. The bus driver was reportedly speeding past a junction leading to the collision, reported Hindustan Times.
Washington : The US recognises India as a major defence partner partly out of respect for New Delhi’s indispensable role in maintaining stability in the Indian Ocean region, Defence Secretary James Mattis has said.
The US is exploring new ways to address new challenges as well from maritime security to the growing threat posed by the spread of terrorism in Southeast Asia, Mattis said in his remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue.
“For example, we recognise India, the most populous democracy in the world, as a major defence partner. We did so in part out of respect for India’s indispensable role in maintaining stability in the Indian Ocean region,” he said according to a Defense Department transcripts.
Mattis called upon all countries to contribute sufficiently to their own security.
“At the same time, we encourage them to actively seek out opportunities and partnerships with other like-minded nations as we do the same to sustain and maintain the peace. We will continue to engage closely with our partners, building on recent progress,” he said.
Mattis said one of the top priorities of the Defense Department is to empower countries in the region so they can be even stronger contributors to their own peace and stability.
“The Pacific region countries represented here are obviously critical to strengthening and transforming the underlying security structure that has enabled tremendous regional prosperity. For we don’t take that peace or prosperity for granted,” he said.
The CBSE Class X results today threw up more than one surprise with the pass percentage dropping by over 5 per cent since last year and boys outperforming girls, a marked shift from previous batches. The number of boys scoring the perfect 10 Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) was also more than the number of girls this year, officials said.
The pass percentage in the Central Board of Secondary Education’s Class X result fell to 90.95 per cent from 96.21 per cent last year, registering a dip of 5.26 per cent.
However, the pass percentage of boys improved by a significant margin, jumping from last year’s 78.9 per cent to 93.4 per cent; that of girls improved from 88.6 to 92.5 per cent. Unlike recent years, boys have done better than girls by 0.9 per cent.
While 1,05,188 boys have scored a CGPA of 10, 1,00,950 girls have scored the perfect number.
Trivandrum region has the highest pass percentage at 99.85, followed by Madras at 99.62 and Allahabad at 98.23 per cent. Delhi fared badly, recording a pass percentage of 78.09 per cent against last year’s 91.06 per cent, a fall of 13.67 per cent.
CBSE announced the results of five regions — Delhi, Chennai, Dehradun, Trivandrum and Allahabad — at around noon.
The results of the remaining five regions — Ajmer, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Guwahati and Patna — were announced towards the evening.
Anxious students and parents had to wait as the board’s website crashed half an hour before the result was scheduled to be declared due to heavy traffic.
A total of 16,67,573 candidates from 16,347 schools had appeared for the exam at 3,972 centres across the country this year.
This was the last batch appearing for the optional board examination for Class X with the CBSE restoring the compulsory examination from next year.
On May 28, the board had declared the results for class XII which had seen a dip of over one per cent in the pass percentage.
The CBSE, earlier this month, decided to not to move the Supreme Court to challenge the Delhi High Court instructions stating that evaluation for the class 10 exams this year should be done as per the grace marks policy.
Aiming to check high cut-offs in colleges, the CBSE had scrapped the moderation policy under which grace marks are given to the students in exams for difficult questions.
In a reply to plea filed by parents and some students, the Delhi High Court earlier instructed the board to follow its ‘moderation policy’.
Under the moderation policy, students are awarded up to 15 percent extra marks in certain papers if the questions are deemed to be difficult.
Edgbaston: New Zealand were 291 all out against Australia in their opening match of the Champions Trophy here today.
Brief scores: New Zealand 291 all out in 45 overs (Williamson 100; Hazlewood 5/52).
Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence system that can predict how long a person will live simply by looking at the images of their organs.
The system, developed by researchers from University of Adelaide in Australia, analysed the medical imaging of 48 patients’ chests and was able to predict which of them would die within five years, with 69 per cent accuracy.
This is comparable to ‘manual’ predictions by clinicians, researchers said.
The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, has implications for the early diagnosis of serious illness and medical intervention.
“Predicting the future of a patient is useful because it may enable doctors to tailor treatments to the individual,” said Luke Oakden-Rayner, PhD student at the University of Adelaide.
“The accurate assessment of biological age and the prediction of a patient’s longevity has so far been limited by doctors’ inability to look inside the body and measure the health of each organ,” said Oakden-Rayner.
“Our research has investigated the use of ‘deep learning’, a technique where computer systems can learn how to understand and analyse images,” he said.
“Although for this study only a small sample of patients was used, our research suggests that the computer has learnt to recognise the complex imaging appearances of diseases, something that requires extensive training for human experts,” he said.
While the researchers could not identify exactly what the computer system was seeing in the images to make its predictions, the most confident predictions were made for patients with severe chronic diseases such as emphysema and congestive heart failure.
“Instead of focusing on diagnosing diseases, the automated systems can predict medical outcomes in a way that doctors are not trained to do, by incorporating large volumes of data and detecting subtle patterns,” Oakden-Rayner said.
“Our research opens new avenues for the application of artificial intelligence technology in medical image analysis, and could offer new hope for the early detection of serious illness, requiring specific medical interventions,” he said.
The researchers hope to apply the same techniques to predict other important medical conditions, such as the onset of heart attacks.
New Delhi, Jun 2 : A moderate intensity earthquake measuring 5.0 on Richter Scale today hit Haryana, tremors of which were felt in Delhi and other parts of northern India.
The epicentre of the quake was Rohtak district in Haryana, according to the Meteorological department.
The depth of the quake was 22 km and it occurred at 4:25 AM, a Met report said.
There were no immediate reports of any loss of life or damage to property.
The United Nations has made clear that climate action “is unstoppable”, as Donald Trump weighs whether the US should remain in the Paris climate deal.
According to White House sources cited by the press, the President is expected to withdraw from the agreement sometime this week, but Mr Trump did not confirm this during a spray in the Oval Office with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
When asked by a reporter if he was leaning toward exiting the accord, Mr Trump responded, “You’re going to find out very soon”.
Despite reports that the US is poised to withdraw from the deal, other countries, including India, China and the EU have reaffirmed their commitment to combatting global warming.
In a morning tweet, the UN wrote that “Climate change is undeniable. Climate action is unstoppable. Climate solutions provide opportunities that unmatchable.”
The tweet linked to a video of UN Secretary-General António Guterres calling on world leaders, including those in business and civil society, to take ambitious action on climate change.
“It is absolutely essential that the world implements the Paris agreement,” Mr Guterres said, adding that he would use the convening power of the UN to work with governments and all major actors to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy.
In a speech on Tuesday at an event in New York, Mr Guterres said, “It’s very clear that governments are not everything.”
“On the other hand, we are doing our best, in dialogue with the administration and with Congress, to make the US understand that funding the development aid, funding foreign policy in general, funding organizations like the UN, is also in the interest of the American people.“
A US withdrawal from the Paris accord would be a huge blow to the deal that aims to reduce carbon emissions and avert the worst effects of climate change.
The US is currently one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the world. Scientists say that Earth is likely to to be affected by more dangerous levels of warming even sooner if the US pulls back from its pledge to cut carbon dioxide pollution.