डॉ. विजयानंद शर्मा Dr.V.N.Sharma

2011-12-19T06:49:00.003+05:30

Once upon a time water used to be available for free in open wells, ponds……

Dr.V.N.Sharma

Water is called the elixir of life on this Planet. But this resource is dwindling very fast because of variety of reasons which include accelerated pace of industrialisation causing immense damages to the Ecology and Environment leading to Climate Change etc., and over population causing ever increasing load on water resources and agriculture. But a closer look at the water issue indicates in addition to the above causes mismanagement of this resource, rather lack of intention for its harvesting where it drops, conservation and control on its misuse etc.

Until recently ‘water water everywhere, not a drop to drink’ remained only as a forecast for the coming times. Many never believed that this would ever happen. But the water crisis world over is to the fore and has come sooner than later. Many reasons are being assigned to the causes of water scarcity. The most important impact of non-availability of this resource is increasing food insecurity. A review of the happenings of the last century is expected to provide better understanding of the scarcity of water and food insecurity.

Genesis

With the onset of the 20^th century variety of changes the world over began - entry of communism, growing tension between powerful European Nations, entry of the US and USSR as Big Global Players. By mid-century the two world wars were fought and European Nations esp. the British were forced to withdraw from their never-sunsetting empire and allow new powers to share the booty. The US and the USSR got to play the major role with world bodies like the UN and its subordinate organisations. For the spread of capitalism and subjugating the newly freed countries various UN agencies, the World Bank, the IMF etc. were given physical shape to play greater role in shaping the future world based on over exploitation of Natural Resources and converting the then existing monarchies and empires to Corporate monarchies via a defective democracy route. All this led to the accetance of ‘Development through Industrialisation mode’ world over. Though there were basic differences between Capitalist and Communist systems of governance yet the development was accepted and retained by both as panaceea for all the ills of their people. The same became true of those who were known as non-aligned nations. However, by the turn of the last century even the Communism lost its grip in many countries and the world got definite tilt to capitalism. The field was left open for the only world Power, the US to make the Rules of the game unilaterally and play as per its wishes.

Development through Industrialisation resulted in setting up of high capital and high energy intensive industries all around. However, this gave desired output - mass production of consumer and non-consumer goods, availability of more jobs in industry, growth of towns and cities, good roads, population transfer from rural to newly created urban and industrial centers and improved quality of life for a small part of the population. As expected this also created more destitutes, have-nots and downtroddens all around. Burning of fossil fuel and felling of trees coupled with dam building activities gave way to thermal and hydro power generation respectively. As an effect industrialisation created a side show of Environmental issues-damages to all aspects of life on this planet through massive air, water and noise pollution, increased consumerism causing enormous domestic and industrial waste generation. Various reports talked about in different fora indicate that water bankruptcy is going to be worse than the financial meltdown now destabilising the global economy, and there will be no way of bailing the earth out of water scarcity.

Studies revealed that the world has not been as warm as it is now for a millennium or more. The three warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998; 19 of the warmest 20 since 1980. And Earth has probably never warmed as fast as in the past 30 years - a period when natural influences on global temperatures, such as solar cycles and volcanoes should have cooled us down. By mid - eighties Global Warming followed by Climate Change took the front seat and IPCC got created to suggest ways and means to counter the fear of these two evils. Like the otherworld bodies, IPCC also had the same objective –transfer of ‘Clean technologies’ from developed to developing nations and money flow in the reverse direction. This enriched the already rich ones-domestic as well as the foreign variety.

Increased population, on the other hand, caused increase in the input of chemical dose in agriculture sector increasing, in turn, water pollution. By 1970 the US came up with National Environment Protection Act and the UN created a body under its arm known as United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). This was followed by most of the countries making laws for protection of the Environment. But many including the protestors in the on-going worldwide Occupy movement have identified the 1% as the real source of environmental destruction which includes water also in the ultimate analysis, not the 7 billion.

Water scenario in India

Many academic and field studies attempted to develop alternative routes of development to counter industrialisation as the only mode to better the life of the people. They simply got rebuffed by the money power of the money makers. India already had its Nature worshipping scriptures with low consumption of resources and less waste generation themes. Mahatma Gandhi added to the same. But none of this could influence the Indian political leaders sufficiently to follow the traditional route of living without massive industrialisation.

Looking at the seriousness of the issue water was chosen as the first major resource for protection. India had its first water Act in 1974 which was revised and improved with passage of time. But none of these showed a turn around. Water issue took global shape and rich people took the first step to make money out of the crisis through bottled water schemes, and energy and chemical intensive water treatment and recycling route. All the sources of water including municipal supplies for domestic uses were declared unsafe. To provide better impetus to this business the members of the elite group who were responsible for making drinking water available to the populace were shown in TV shows and print media with bottled water in front of them on the dais. Such pictures spoke more than millions of words - that water was a scare resource and it would be available to a limited few , that too for a payment. Water distribution in India has the pattern: Irrigation- 69 %, Industry- 23 %, Domestic/Municipal- 8 %. Govt. has failed to provide drinking water to about 20 % urban and about 50% rural population. Attitude of high profit making by money makers through increased consumerist culture leads to overexploitation, pollution of water and depletion of other resources. Polluted water from industries, automobiles, chemical uses in agriculture and 80 per cent of urban waste water discharged daily into the country’s rivers leads to disability of large part of the population due to health reasons ending in loss of man/women-days in work place, loss of life of more than 2.2 million people per year which is more than the number of people killed from all forms of violence, including wars, making most water bodies unfit for human use. All this culminating into an additional expenditure in Health care which is helping in wealth generation for very few.

It is claimed that population has gone up also because of improved Health delivery system leading to increase in longevity and decrease in infant mortality rate. Whatever be the reason the population increase in last 60 years is reported to be 850 million whereas the figure for 150 years from 1801 AD was 150 million only. Change in irrigation pattern needing 500 km³water in 1900 AD to 2000 km³in 2000 AD - an increase of 4 times in a hundred years. Quite natural that it led to exponential increase in food and water demand. On the other hand system administrators could not match their planning and execution steps with these demands of times.

Conversion of traditional water sources - ponds, lakes etc in the urban areas for raising multi – storied buildings and concreting the open space in the cities are causing low rate of ground water recharging. Overexploitation of water leads to further lowering of ground water tables and salinisation in both urban and rural areas. Silting of Natural and artificial lakes, dams and reservoirs are causing less water availability esp. in lean season.

Water is considered a Govt responsibility but lack of will and planning, financial allocation and engineering intervention reveal

Ø Lack of interest / awareness - towards conservation and retention of rain water where it falls, Govt. inaction and negative attitude

Ø Govt at the Centre and most of the States/UTs failed to take wake calls provided by low rainfalls in recent years and initiate corrective steps/ action

Ø Lack of vision for utilizing collective wisdom of all sections of the stakeholders and mobilizing them.

It is wrongly assumed that more investments in water treatment, ignoring the existing traditional water sources and creation of dams etc or newer schemes with profit motives will solve the problem. Interlinking of rivers in India is wrongly proposed as a solution to water problem. In fact it is a proposal for privatisation of Water resources ending with money making for a few.

Suggestion for problem solving

In addition to the improvement in Surface Water Management like desilting and periodical maintenance of rivers, dams, ponds, lakes etc. and building new reservoirs and check dams extensive awareness programme like Communicating the water agenda in the right perspective to the people added by community driven or community owned / people’s participation approach has better chance to succeed. Using more local wisdom (succeeds) than technology oriented programmes (invariably fails) has already been established as better result giving approach to solve the problem..

Post-Gandhi Indian political leaders must be reminded of Nature worshipping scriptures & tradition of low consumption of resources, less waste generation themes and Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings of low cost, more distributed employment generating village industries with better wealth distribution strategies.

“Catch where it (rain) falls” strategy is expected to increase in extensive Rain water harvesting in both rural and urban areas by extensive Ground Water Recharging. A simple calculation says that half of Av. annual Rainfall of 1170 mm – captured on 1.12 ha of land in each of 5,87,226 villages, 6.57 million litres of rain water in each village will meet the cooking & drinking needs of 1200 people. So far no approach has been made to tap 135 million ha meter (mham) of available precipitation

Watershed Management schemes must include Social Economic Development, Economic benefits of local population as well as people /life downstream, Crop Planning /Rotation, Livestock & Animal Husbandry, Weather Modification, Coastal water Management and aggressive but positive to all round Water Management

Conclusion

Water has been considered thus far a free and unlimited resource - this is not true anymore. The situation is tending towards ‘water water everywhere, not a drop to drink’. Therefore, if policy makers, administrators and social activists do not honour the wake-up call provided by Nature in last few years and take immediate steps to rectify the situation it may lead to disastrous consequences for humanity and other lives on the planet. By the turn of the century academic curricula and Granny’s fiction stories may include “once upon a time water used to be available for free in open wells, tanks, ponds and rivers flowing near each and every village and city with no private ownership, no control by the governments or their appointed private agents, no water bottling plants and no price to be paid for its use in whatever manner”.

Published in JANATA Vol.66 No.43, Nov. 27, 2011, pp11-13

The Article can also be read Online in

http://www.scribd.com/doc/75858833/Water-Availability-in-India-A-Crisis-Situation

Dr.V.N.Sharma, the author, is Environment & Water Management Consultant & Chairman, Jharkhand Vigyan Manch. He can be contacted at e-mail: vnsh44@gmail.com & Cell: +919431102680; Ph: +91651-2441524 and located at A-100, SAIL Satellite Township, Ranchi-834004, Jharkhand, India

*****

2011-03-16T19:35:00.000+05:30

साथियो,

नीरज जैन के लेख और सुझाव तथा डा सदगोपाल की टिपणी का मै पूर्ण समर्थन करता हु और जो भी साथी अपने शहरो/ कस्बो में अणुराक्षस दहन का छोटा से छोटा कार्यक्रम कर सकते हो वह मानवता के पक्ष में, उसके बचाव के लिए बढाया हुआ सही दिशा में एक कदम होगा.

सारी दुनिया जानती है की हिरोशिमा - नागासाकी की घटना और चेर्नोबिल दुर्घटना से मानव को कितनी सीखे मिली. भोपाल त्रासदी एक गैस लिक की दुर्घटना थी उसकी गूंज अगले सैकड़ो सालो तक गूंजती रहेगी. दुर्घटना से ज्यादा हमारे लालची धनासेठो का, हमारी न्यायव्यवस्था का, हमारे राजनेताओ की नाकामियो का, हमारी अदुर्दार्शिता का इतिहास होगा वह सब. सबके ऊपर हमारे परमाणु वैज्ञानिकों और बुधिजियो के विचारो का, जो जापान में हुई इस प्राकृतिक दुर्घटना से कुछ सीखने के बजाय गलत तर्क और तथ्य का इस्तेमाल कर रहे है और टीवी पर बैठकर यह कह रहे है की हमारे भारतीय परमाणु संयंत्र पूरी तरह सुरक्षित है. ये सरकारी कृपा पर टिके हुए सरकारी संवादों की हां में हां मिला रहे है. जब इतनी अच्छी कार्य संस्कृति वाले जापान और रूस परमाणु दुर्घटनाओ से अपने और दुनिया के लोगो को बचाने में सक्षम नहीं है तो भारत या दुनिया की किसी और सरकारों के भरोसे तो मानवता को नहीं छोड़ा सकता है.

अतः सभी सही सोच वाले नागरिको से मेंरा अनुरोध है की कुछ लालची लोगो, मार्केट इकोनोमी और अक्षम सरकारों की नीतियों का विरोध करते हुए विकास के इन खतरनाक तौर तरीको और जीवन जीने के अप्राकृतिक तरीको को बढ़ावा देने वाली तकनीको, प्रचारतंत्रो और नीतियों का खुलकर विरोध करे. यह विरोध भूमंडल के स्तर पर होगा क्योकि अब हर समस्या का भूमंडलिकरण हो रहा है.

डा वी एन शर्मा

१६ मार्च २०११ १२:१३ अपराह्न को, Anil Sadgopal ने लिखा:

- उद्धृत पाठ छिपाएँ -

प्रिय साथियो,

लोकायत, पुणे के नीरज जैन का जापानी सुनामी एवं परमाणु हादसे के संदर्भ में लिखा पत्र फ़ार्वर्ड कर रहा हूं। ध्यान से पढ़ लें। इसमें प्रस्तावित जैतपुर परमाणु बिजली घर (जो फ़ुकूशिमा से बड़ा होगा) के खिलाफ़ दो कार्यक्रमों का जिक्र है। खासकर, मुझे होलिका दहन पर अणुराक्षस का दहन करने का प्रस्ताव भोपाल के लिए भी जंचा। मैं कुछ निजी कारणों से इस मामले में पहलकदमी करने की हालत में नहीं हूं। यदि आप लोगों में से कोई पहलकदमी करें तो यह देश की बड़ी सेवा होगी। हमें भारत को परमाणु हादसे से बचाना है तो महाराष्ट्र के जैतपुर और मध्य प्रदेश के चुटका (मंडला जिला) को रुकवाने के लिए जनता को जगाना होगा। होली पर अणुराक्षस जलाना इस दिशा में एक कदम होगा।

इटारसी के राजेश व्यास (अध्यक्ष, शिक्षा अधिकार मंच, जिला होशंगाबाद) का कल फोन आया था कि इटारसी से 15-20 लोग 19 मार्च को भोपाल आएंगे और बोर्ड आफिस से रोशनपुरा चौराहे तक मैराथन दौड़ लगाएंगे और वहां लकड़ी-रहित होली जलाएंगे। उनका मकसद पर्यावरण की चेतना जगाना है। लेकिन उन्हें भी समझाया जा सकता है कि आज के संदर्भ में अणुराक्षस जलाने से बेहतर कोई और मुद्दा नहीं हो सकता। राजेश व्यास का नंबर – 8109347968.

अब कमान आपके हाथ में है। यदि ऐसा कोई भी काम हुआ तो अणुराक्षस (या उससे भी बेहतर कोई और प्रतीक) को जलाने में मैं आपके साथ हाजिर रहूंगा। इससे अधिक कुछ और नहीं कर पाऊंगा।

आप सबको झकझोरने के लिए मार्टिन नीमोलर (1945) की ऐतिहासिक कविता नीचे पेश कर रहा हूं। याद रखें कि जो फ़ुकुशीमा में हुआ है, वह कल जैतपुर और चुटका में भी हो सकता है। फ़ुकुशीमा से निकली रेडियोधर्मी विकिरण टोक्यो और पड़ोसी मुल्क रूस के व्लादीवास्तोक नामक शहर में भी पहुंच चुका है। कल जैतपुर, महाराष्ट्र और मध्य प्रदेश के चुटका (मंडला जिला) से निकला रेडियोधर्मी विकिरण क्रमशः मुंबई-पुणे और जबलपुर-भोपाल भी पहुंच सकता है। इस नजरिए से मार्टिन नीमोलर की निम्नलिखित कविता एकदम सटीक है। यदि इस खौफ़नाक मौके पर सोते रहे तो इतिहास हमें कभी माफ़ नहीं करेगा।

अब युवा शक्ति की पहलकदमी की इंतजार में,

ज़िंदाबाद।

- अनिल सद्गोपाल

The ‘Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009’ is a sell out Act

2010-04-29T08:25:00.002+05:30

Dr.V.N.Sharma

vnsh44@gmail.com

Member, Secretariat, All India Forum for Right To Education

The so called ‘Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009’ will be in force w.e.f. 1st April 2010. It is a sell out Act, with an intention of keeping 90% of the children away from getting education by privatising, profit making and fulfilling the requirements of neo-liberal agenda of the Developed world and the World Bank. All attempts are being made to keep India healthy, wealthy and wise only for 10% of the population.

The All India Forum for Right to Education (AIF-RTE) organized a massive Rally to Parliament on 24th Feb 2010 against this Act and the Agenda, in order to give a clear message to the people that the neo-liberal assault on education from “KG to PG” is not acceptable. We are talking about Common School System (CSS) and Neighbourhood Schools (NS), replacing the present Act with a new Act based on CSS-NS. In view of this we are also calling for halting all forms of privatization and commercialization in education, including voucher schools and Public –Private Partnership (PPP).

In the meantime the Union Cabinet has approved the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill and if it is not stopped at this stage it will become a law in due course. Therefore, added action is required to expose the irrelevance of foreign universities and FDI in India and ask for withdrawing the offer of higher education at GATS.

The implementation of the Act is being publicized as a revolutionary step. Government claims that due to this Act all the children of this country will be educated. But there is no truth in this. The facts given below expose the fallacy of the claims by the Government.

Ø This Act has taken away the Fundamental Rights of balanced diet, healthy childhood and pre-primary education (Nursery, KG), of the children below six years of age which was guaranteed by the Constitution. What is this Act claiming to give in future if the foundation itself is so weak? We will expose, in the following paragraphs, the deceitful character of the Act which claims to give Right of Education for 8 years (Class 1-8). This Act has closed all the doors of higher education and career building opportunities after 8 years of schooling by not extending the Right for Secondary Education from Class 9 to 12.

Ø There is nothing in the Act to say that handicapped children will be educated in the regular schools. The provision for the namesake has been made only in the standards for those handicapped who can not move independently. The blind, deaf and mentally retarded children have been totally ignored. The intention of the Government is to keep such children indoors and to wash off their hands by handing over the responsibilities to NGOs.

Ø There is no mention in the Act that all the children will get free education (Ref Clause 3). In fact there is no mention that fees other than tuition fees will not be charged. Even such strange Rights of Free Education will not be available to those who are forced to study in private schools due to bad or unworthy conditions of the government schools (Ref Clause 8a). If the children in private schools will have to continue to pay the fees as before then is this Act not cutting an ugly joke on the children?

Ø To fulfill the conditions of the Act Government will surely appoint teachers but they will be temporary, untrained and ‘para teachers’ on contract appointment. There is no provision to bar appointment of ‘para teachers’ (e.g. contract teachers, guest teachers, shiksha mitra, shiksha upasak etc.). This leads to a conclusion that the teachings in government schools and low economy private schools will be left to invisible forces. The question arises whether education of children in this country can be carried out satisfactorily without creating a cadre of permanent, trained teachers with a respectable salary.

Ø The Act has not intentionally defined the qualification, salaries and other terms and conditions of the teachers. The Government can take whimsical decisions on these and related issues as per their own convenience. This will lead to creating chaos in Education. This year’s budget has clearly indicated that appointment of ‘para teachers and low paid teachers in private schools’ and their exploitation –financial and otherwise - will continue.

Ø The standards of student –teacher ratio and room sizes have been fixed in such a way that it is clear from the data circulated by NUEAP (National University of Educational Administration and Planning) that around 40 percent primary schools (with less than 60 enrolments) will continue to have two teachers and two rooms. What it means is that the existing practice of one teacher-one room with several classes will continue. The same conditions will be applicable to about 30 percent of the schools (with less than 90 or 120 enrolments). That is to say that in future also the practice of educating poor children of two or three classes in the same room will be continued in a shameful way.

Ø The Act permits the engagement of Government school teachers in non-academic activities like Panchayat to Parliamentary elections, census, relief works during disaster management etc. This means that the children in private schools will be taught everyday whereas the classes for poor children will get interrupted and disturbed due to the involvement of the government school teachers in non-teaching activities. This way the students of the Government school will continue to be unfavorably discriminated against and made to suffer.

Ø The Act does not prohibit enhancement in school fees by private schools. This allows them to enhance the fees in uncontrolled and arbitrary manner. The Act does not require the private schools to follow government guidelines or to allow participation of parents, social workers etc in managing the affairs of the school. In fact the HRD Minister Kapil Sibbal has already announced that after the Act is implemented the laws prevailing in different States with respect to monitoring the management and the fee structure of private schools will automatically become redundant. In such a situation the education will become dearer.

Ø The Act talks nowhere about measures required to check ever increasing inequality and discrimination in education. Just as a follow up the Government is encouraging further widening of the gap. In such a situation only poor children will be left out in the Government schools with more and more discrimination and miseries. As a result of the implementation of the Act every child will have a formal right to education but poor ones out of them will be destined to have an extremely low quality education and level of dissatisfaction to ultimately drop out from the school education. (Government, by this Act, has ensured a freedom for itself from all responsibilities of ensuring a minimum amount of learning to children by the time they reach 5^th or 8^th class).

Ø The Act providing free education to 25 percent poor children in private schools is being publicized as a big achievement (The tuition fees, for such children, will be paid by the Government). But it is cunningly silent on how the poor children will pay the fees other than the tuition fees which are charged by the private schools. The Act is also silent on the modalities, guidelines or criteria for selecting poor students under this provision. It means that it has been left out entirely to the whims and fancies of the private schools to devise ways and means of selection in arbitrary manner. Bigger question than that is whether quality education will be provided to the poor children admitted under this provision. No such possibility exists simply because a majority of private schools are themselves below standard. Added to this is a question about what will happen to those (~75 %) who will be left out. They will be forced to continue with low quality ‘namesake’ education only. In any case such children will be dumped on the street after 8^th class because there is no responsibility of the private schools under the Act for educating them any further.

Ø The Act provides for education up to class 8 without appropriate formal evaluation of the students. This means that children in Government and low economy private schools will be pushed upwards up to class 8 with half education or no education at all. Class 8 certificate earned in this manner, for sure, will not help them in admission to higher classes.

Ø The Act provides for mother tongue as medium of teaching only if it is ‘practicable’ for the government. For selected few, English has been left anyway as medium of teaching. Therefore, the education with double standards has been allowed to continue.

Ø There is neither the intention nor a will in this Act to control profit making and commercialization of education. Opposed to this the Government, under the guise of public-private–partnership (PPP), is inviting capitalists, NGOs, religious organizations and helping them by allotting government land, money, and other direct and indirect concessions to allow them higher profit making by charging arbitrary fees, employing low paid teachers and paying taxes under concessional rates.

Ø The Act is silent on the quality of teachers with the B.Ed and D.Ed. Degrees earned from an ever flourishing high-cost private colleges which are infamous for awarding degrees without conducting proper teaching/ training programmes.

Ø The privatization, commercialization of higher education and ever rising coaching business is continuously on the rise. HRD Minister Kapil Sibbal has already announced that syllabus for Science and Mathematics for Class 11-12 and the entrance test for different technical courses (Engineering, Medical, Management etc) will be the same for the whole country. It is clear that this will add class 9-10 students also to the increased coaching business for some, whereas the number of poor children will be diminishing in the higher classes in the same order. This Act legitimizes the multi-layered discriminatory system of education as a permanent arrangement and has no scope for common syllabus or common entrance examination.

Ø Government will have a moral right to introduce common syllabus or common entrance examination if and only if it replaces the present Act by an appropriate law to establish common school system in which every school - government or private-will be a neighborhood school (CSS-NS) and every child-rich or poor-will receive education under the same roof without discrimination. The world history is replete with evidences that the countries which educated their whole population followed common school system one way or the other. But this Act takes the country in reverse direction.

Ø A new Bill is being brought to Parliament for permitting foreign universities to enhance commercialization of education, profit making and exploitation of resources which will result in continued mismanagement of and misrule in higher education.

Ø One more danger. The Union Government has tabled a proposal to GATS (General Agreement on Trade and Services) under WTO (World Trade Organization) with the intention of converting higher and professional education as a saleable item. If this is not withdrawn immediately the foreign universities/ institutions will claim to have the same or higher level of facilities in comparison to the Indian Universities / Institutions in India. In addition the Government will be under compulsion to provide legal protection to the foreign universities.

From the aforesaid facts it is clear that the Right To Education Act 2009, being implemented w.e.f. 1^st April 2010, is nothing but cheating and deception of Indian public. Under the guise of this the Government is making fool of the Indian public by expanding commerce, trade and profit making in Education. This, in turn, will lead to deprivation of education to the children of common people and accelerate number of suicides by them. Further still, the Indian youths will be compelled to move further towards increased unemployment, inequality, violence and extremism. Do we desire to make this type of India?

In view of this All India Forum for Right To Education oppose both the so-called Right To Education Act and the Foreign Universities Bill and ask people to raise their voice against trade and commerce in Education and work for the right of equal opportunity in education to all the children of this country. The call given by AIF-RTE is to agitate and fight to make the Government to repeal the present Act and fulfil its constitutional responsibilities by formulating a new law for equitable quality free and compulsory education for all under CSS-NS system.

The Article is also available in

http://www.countercurrents.org/vnsharma240310.htm

Climate Change and Cars: A letter to PM

2009-11-19T10:14:00.001+05:30

Dear Dr. Manmohan Singh,
In my considered opinion Cars are the biggest consumer of energy sources and cause of CIimate Change. If you pause and think over the issue you will find, as I have found, that Cars are the most unwanted item on the planet and is used recklessly without any consideration of Energy uses, Ecology, Environment, Climate Change and Global rise in Temperature. They take much more and return the least. Imagine the benefits accrued by utilising the saved resources better somewhere else in some other economic activity in raising the living standard of the people to a decent level with no harm to rich. Though economists and money makers find this, for various reasons, a great product it is really working fully against the interest of ‘Life’ on the planet. Just ask yourself whether everybody really needs a car and are they not being run most of the time for non-essential purposes. If the country adopts better discipline by keeping the residence and work places, education and day to day marketing areas in the same vicinity so many cars will not be needed and huge consumption of energy sources and jams on the roads will be reduced. With the present rate of car production it will become impossible to drive cars on the roads. In fact a simple calculation shows that 15-20 years later the roads in the Indian cities will be used only for parking. Cities after cities are already facing reduced efficiency due to such congestion. Then what benefit the car is meant for if it cannot make movement of humans smooth and relatively fast in reaching their destination. For the same reasons the car making industries also should not be encouraged in the name of tackling recession which is a phenomenon born out of high profit motive, corruption and consumerism. Cars in so many numbers serve little purpose. So they can be easily replaced by Mass Transport system. No congestion on the roads, no meaningless burning of fuels. I hope you will agree with me on this.
In view of the facts stated above I request you to please propose to the World leaders in Copenhagen to reduce the number of Cars and production of Cars in next 20 years to 10 percent of the present level of Cars on the road and car under production.
With regards,

--
Dr.V.N.Sharma
http://tinyurl.com/drvnsharma

2009-04-05T06:45:00.001+05:30

Indian Democracy and Section 49-O
Democracy is not simply voting or making Head or hand counts. It is much more than that. It is spirit, it is culture, it is a way of life, it includes tolerance, balanced thinking and approach to every issue that a society faces during its existence. A good number of people especially the educated ones assume that the elections are throwing up very nice, efficient, competent leadership for governance of the State. And further that Rule 49-O will hamper that process and throw up incompetent ones. It is not so. Rule 49-O was not there originally in the Election laws of १९५० (http://sharmavn.blogspot.com/2008/12/summary-of-i-vote-nobody-rule-49-o.html). Though leadership of then India was born out of struggle and dedication and devotion towards the Motherland yet with some experience of 1st & 2nd general elections they introduced Section 49-O in 1961 Amendment. By this, people who neither wanted a नागनाथ nor a सांपनाथ had an opportunity to say so in stead of sitting at home. This required much more of a democratic strength than needed to go to the booth, vote or cancel your ballot by innumerable no. of methods described in the Rules. This is neither anti - democracy nor non-constitutional. Just make a difference between those who profess that Elections are farce and those who go to say that none of the candidates is genuine or not worth my vote as in Section 49-O.

Presently what is happening? A nice, knowledgeable, well meaning person cannot be a candidate as he knows his fate if he is not heading a goons brigade, he is not backed up by Moneywallahs. I know of a few candidates who tried their hands at the elections and left a message for us. One example was late Shiv Verma, a comrade of Sardar Bhagat Singh and overtly a much respected person living in Kanpur and was working with the Trade Unions for protecting the workers from exploitation and for defending their rights. He took part in 1971 Elections from Kanpur constituency He had only 3000+ votes in the count. Elections today need money and muscle power and both are interrelated. Section 49-O is a safety valve for those who are frustrated with the present election system. It would be more meaningful if larger votes under Section 49-O leads to cancellation and a Re-election in that constituency. That will keep the candidates under some control.

As said earlier much better would be the inclusion of Voters' Right to Recall their incompetent representatives from Parliament and State Assemblies and all other public offices.

Rule 49-O: Clarification by Election Commission

2009-02-14T10:24:00.006+05:30

Recently we had a lot of discussion on Rule 49-O of Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. I obtained the information from Election Commission of India under RTI Act
2005. The reply and clarification are as follows.

1. This Rule has not been amended . It is as it was in 1961.

2. ECI issued a press Note on 5th Dec 2008 stating that Elections will not be cancelled even if " I vote Nobody" is more than the winner's votes. Read the Press Note in the following link
http://eci.nic.in/press/current/pn051208.pdf

3. ECI has proposed to the Govt to provide for "None of the Above " provision in the ballot paper. A petition is pending in the Supreme Court but no details have been given.

I hope and believe that this clarifies the issue and discussion may
continue as to what to do now.

Dr.V.N.Sharma

A summary of "I Vote Nobody"- Rule 49-O

2008-12-08T20:48:00.011+05:30

Section 49-O of Election Rules was tried by some of us and members of Samta Sangathan in 1979 elections (Nitish Kumar and Shivanand Tiwari etc.were members of SS then) when I had freshly arrived in Ranchi from IIT Kanpur. On the advice of legal luminaries and Late Kishan Patnaik, ex-MP that the votes will get cancelled if such "No votes" are there in majority this work was taken up. As was the practice I did not read that myself as the people were to be relied upon for their words. Also Internets and e-mails were not there for getting confirmation. As activists we were happy with the outcome-some refusal to Vote in this manner- but this had no impact on the election Results. I narrated this to say that it is no Hoax as some people are making it to be. Just search Section 49-O. You get 100 sites.

Somebody reminded me of this story recently and I tried to check the facts from different websites।Pl. read Page 93 and page 172 (3,5 and 6) in the following link. it is Official.

http://www.eci.gov.in/ElectoralLaws/HandBooks/Handbook_for_Presiding_Officers.pdf

Page Nos. 187 & 299 in the website http://www.eci.gov.in/ElectoralLaws/HandBooks/Handbook_for_Candidates.pdf
also discusses the same issue.

What should happen if 3-2 is negative. I concluded from here combined with what we were told in 1979. But the interpretation remains implicit.

After all the search and review I have come to a conclusion that Rule 49-O has not been amended in 1969 as it is being spread. It is, as it was in 1961.

Different people are making different interpretation. The link below has a Para- Implications of this Rule-where it concludes that cancellation of election result is not there in the Rule.

http://theseekar.blogspot.com/2008/12/rule-49-o-right-to-reject-every.html

The link below says otherwise

http://www.cplash.com/post/I-VOTE-NOBODY--is-VALID----Section-49-O----395.html

My own conclusion, though surprising, is that cancellation of election even if 'I vote Nobody' is higher than Votes polled is not explicit. Since it has not been tried seriously the Rule has not been tested in appropriate forums-courts etc. It means that so far "I Vote Nobody" is not deducted from the total polled votes। Nothing has happened anyway.

That, Election Commission has already written to the GOI (PM) in 2004 to amend the Rule to make it a Negative or Neutral voting so that voting in Secrecy is preserved because 'I Vote Nobody' is some kind of a Vote.

The link below
http://www.eci.gov.in/ElectoralLaws/HandBooks/Handbook_for_Presiding_Officers.pdf

gives a method where "I vote Nobody" can be hypothetically in majority. How in that case result can be declared for a winning candidate? It is big question

PUCL has filed a case in Supreme Court but not to this effect। Anyway no Ruling so far.

Point To debate:

In my view we should do something to press for Cancellation of the election where "I Vote Nobody" are in majority.
+
Right to Recall of elected reps if they are not working to the satisfaction of their electors.

बिहार और बिहारियों की दुर्दशा

2008-12-01T21:12:00.001+05:30

Dear All,
Agast Anand started the discussion "Plight of Bihar & Biharis".

To view this discussion, go to:
http://bihar-network.ning.com/forum/topics/plight-of-bihar-biharis

My response is given below:

प्रिये अगस्त आनंद,
आप का बिहार और बिहारियों पर लिखा गया यह विश्लेषण और समीक्षा हाला की लघु रूप में है फिर भी समझने के लिए तथा अगली कारर्वाई के लिए काफी है. इसमें एक बात जो छुट गयी है वो है गैर बिहारियों को पार्लियामेन्ट में लोक सभा तथा राज्य सभा दोनों के माध्यम से भेजने का. आज़ादी के तुरत बाद से यह सिलसिला चल रहा है. मुजफ्फरपुर से आचर्य कृपलानी तथा अशोक मेहता को राष्ट्रीय नेता होने की वजह से भेजा गया था. लेकिन बाद में जॉर्ज फेर्नान्देस और शरद यादव कों. ये कब के बिहारी हुए. मुंबई और मध्य प्रदेश में हजारों के नेता नहीं बन पाए, बिहार से चुनाओ जीतते हैं. रांची से रविन्द्र वर्मा थे जो चुनाओ के बाद दिखे नहीं. बहुतों को तो उनके बारे में पता नहीं है वे केरलियन थे. राज्य सभा के लिए तो सीधा डील होता है और बदनाम वकील आनंद जैसों को भी हम भेजते रही. अभी झारखंड से नाथवानी जी को भी पैसा ले दे कर भेज दिया गया. एस एस अहलुवालिया कब के बिहारी हैं. पर अपने लालों के पास पैसे की कमी रही उन्हें किसी ने भाव नहीं दिया. बाहरी लोग आप के इस गुण पर फ़िदा होकर आप का शोषण नहीं करे तो क्या करें.इस बात को भी ध्यान में रखना है की हम जिन बिहारियों की नेतागिरी पर आह्लादित होते रहते हैं वे कैसे हैं कितने छोटे लोग हैं. ये अपने कुकर्मो कों छिपाने के लिए ब्लैक मेल होते हैं और ऐसे बाहरी लोगों कों टिकेट देते हैं. ये हमारा आप का प्रतिनिधित्व नहीं करते ये सिर्फ अपने स्वार्थ के लिए जीते मरते हैं. अपने परिवार के बाहर कुछ अच्छा नहीं दीखता है.
अब प्रश्न है की हम क्या करें. उत्तर है इन नेताओं कों कंट्रोल करे और कुछ नए नेता पैदा करे जो बिहार के १९७४ के आन्दोलन से उपजे नेताओं जिन्हें हम अच्छी तरह देख और समझ रहे है से अलग हो. जो मुंबई की मार से और कोसी की बाढ़ से उपजे हों.
मैं एक बात कहना चाहूँगा की इ-संबाद की अपनी सीमाएं हैं और हमें कहीं एक निश्चित समय और स्थान पर इकठा होकर बातचीत और चर्चाओं के जरिये ही आगे बढ़ने का, कुछ नए कदम उठाने का प्रयास करना है . चूँकि जनता का सहयोग अति आवश्यक है अतः इस तरह की बातचीत और बैठकों का मेसेज लोगो तक पहुचना जरुरी है. दुर्भाग्य है की इस प्रस्ताव पर कोई कोमेंट नहीं होता. इसके लिए हजारों की बात मैं नहीं कह रहा अगर १०,२०, ३० .....जो भी आ जाये उन्ही का स्वागत होना चाहिए. क्या कोई पटना में बैठा व्यक्ति यह सुन रहा है और क्या वह इसे मुदा मानते हुए एक दो-तिन दिन की बैठक का दिसम्बर के अंत या जनवरी के मकर संक्रांति के आसपास आयोजन कर सकता है. जो भी इसमें शामिल होंगे वे अपने खर्चे पर होंगे यह स्पष्ट है. आगे की रणनीति वहीँ पर तय की जाय.

Lessons of Mumbai Terror Attack

2008-11-29T13:10:00.005+05:30

As per the news being circulated the Mumbai Terror Attack problem is over with a few dozens dead and over 350 injured. We must congratulate our NSG, Marine Commandos, Army personnel who all had to operate in the danger zone around the Action areas for over 65 hours with a few of them losing their lives in action. We salute all of them who took part in the operation and flushed out the terrorists dead or alive. We also salute those of the finest IPS Officers of ATS and Police men who lost their lives in the starting phase of the battle between the law and order keeping forces and the Terrorists.

What are the lessons of the event?

That, the country was one, is one and will remain one against all such external or internal attacks, disturbances and disorders being created by vested interest groups outside the country and also inside it.

That, Maratha warriors like Bal Thakrey and his Shiv Sainiks and Raj Thakrey and his MNS Sainiks were seen nowhere in action of saving their very own Marathi Manush Mumbai. A shameful act on part of these Maratha warriors. Mumbaikars and the Marathis must have now more faith in the United India with brotherhood between the people of different linguistic, cultural and religious background and not in so called sainiks and their leaders.

That , major part of Police administration in Mumbai, except for ATS, seemed to be paralysed and fainted. This was the same force which flashed their bravery in killing Raj, a Bihari boy from a short distance a month ago.

That, neither CM Deshmukh nor his loud mouth Home Minister RR Patil who was shouting at the top of his voice about a month ago that guns will be met with guns (against the same Bihari boy Raj ) was not visible this time with his boys and the guns when the terrorist guns were spitting fire. There were many other brave Marathas like Praful Patel who matched his frequency with Raj Thakrey and challenged just a month ago whoever challenged the Marathas and their ego which in his opinion was not the rights or property of Northies, Hindi speaking population and last but not the least Biharis and Jharkhandis. All this Maratha talk was a shameful act then and now. Otherwise they should have been in the forefront of the Save Mumbai campaign from Terrorists. Is it possible that the Terrorists fixed the exact dates for action after making sure that Mumbai in particular had become weak due to the recent MNS action against the Biharis and Northies in Mumbai and Maharashtra? This may be a major probable cause.

This also has a lesson for us and our rulers in Delhi as to why we have a non-political PM and a weak Home Minister who seemed to be totally unaware of his job, that is, the situation prevailing in the country. They are certainly not pro-active. They are reactive. Therefore, we, over 100 crore people are not safe in these hands. It is not to say that BJP or their NDA will do anything better.

What we, the citizens of this country need to do is to reject all such defective people whose total perspective is to look at the Unity and existence of this country through the eyes of BSE and NSE indices, or divide the populace for votes on linguistic , caste and communal lines and are not interested in a sensible governance and development of a United and strong India.

Approaching the US for Raj Thakrey- Wrong Action

2008-11-02T21:28:00.002+05:30

The msg "NRI group asks US to put MNS on terror watch list posted in Bihar-Network Group" can be read in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bihar-Network/message/342

My Response:

In my considered opinion this action of requesting the US Govt to declare Raj Thakrey a Terrorist by the NRIs/ NRBs is completely wrong and a misplaced priority. The issue has to be settled by us and within our framework. It is only to be deplored. I am also afraid that in the Indian Legal Framework it can be an Anti- National Act.

Pl. remember that the US has not settled the issues anywhere. It only acted like a Monkey and the Two fighting cats story and returned from everywhere with a bloody face. Just look where it is today.
My humble suggestion is to raise the economic, social and cultural level of Bihar to a level which surpasses every other Unit/ State in India. For this we have to put our heads together, think in a positive way how to create wealth and Job opportunities in the State.
Pl. remember that Biharis are mostly employment oriented not entrepreneurship type. The elites in the Bihar Groups must work on an honest strategy to set up (a) small industries,(b) soil testing labs in each district, (c) Food processing industries, (d) set up or Transfer Head or Branch offices in Patna and elsewhere, (e) Institutions for Professional and Vocational courses.
Academic sessions in Existing Educational Systems (Univesities) must be corrected to make it July -May. This will be an indicator of our sensitivity towards a disciplined behaviour. Pl. note that once the sessions got derailed in 1966-67 nothing could be done to correct the sessions.
Fix a five year Plan to achieve these objectives and you will see a reverse journey of Marathis from Maharashtra to Bihar seeking Jobs.
I also suggest that some resourceful person must work out how to stop Money flow from States to Mumbai.

---Dr.V.N.Sharma

U.S. and Soviet spooks studied paranormal powers to find a Cold War advantage

2008-10-30T15:51:00.005+05:30

by

Larry Greenemeier in S ciam.com

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is well known for pushing the boundaries of science and technology in search of ways to give the U.S. military an edge—robotic pack animals, self-navigating vehicles and plant-based jet fuel, to name a few. Less well known is the agency's Cold War-era investigation into how paranormal phenomena likeextrasensory perception might be used by the U.S. to get a leg up on the former Soviet Union and, perhaps more importantly, by the USSR against the United States.

Working with Washington, D.C., think tank RAND Corporation, DARPA determined that paranormal research by the Soviets focused on physical science, engineering and quantifiable results, whereas their U.S. counterparts tended to be psychologists looking instead to explore the human mind. The bottom line, according to a 1973 DARPA-commissioned study entitled "Paranormal Phenomena": "the U.S. has failed to significantly advance our understanding of paranormal phenomena."

As Halloween approaches, the report serves as a reminder of our fascination with paranormal forces (for more on this, visit Sciam.com's "Science of the Occult" in-depth report). The authors were worried that the Soviets might win the race to use the supernatural to its advantage much as they had threatened to win the space race decades earlier when they launchedSputnik. "If paranormal phenomena exist," RAND analysts P. T. Van Dyke and Mario L. Juncosa concluded, "the thrust of Soviet research appears more likely to lead to explanation, control and application than [does] U.S. research."

The authors acknowledge that the study was limited, because it was based on but a sampling of works available at the time. Among them: a decade of abstracts from the parapsychology section of Psychological Abstracts, a print version of the PsycINFO abstract database of psychological literature. They knew even less about Soviet efforts, they admitted, noting that their conclusions on that front were based on a "somewhat impressionistic" sample and "some not always reliable and frequently imprecise reports of Western visitors to the Soviet Union."

Soviet research on telepathy dates from the early 1920s when a program was established at the Institute for Brain Research at Leningrad State University. The Soviets appear to have been fascinated with telepathy, which they called "biological communication," as a ship-to-shore way of communicating with submarines without using electronic equipment. They also considered training their cosmonauts to develop and use precognitive abilities to "foresee and to avoid accidents in space."

It seems the Soviets also were quite taken with the possibility of psychokinesis (using mental imagery to move objects) as a way of "disrupting the electrical systems associated with an ICBM's [intercontinental ballistic missile] guidance program."

The Soviets were more inclined than American scientists to believe that paranormal phenomena might be the result of "bioenergetics," or the energy given off by the metabolic processes of living things. This theory stated that people exuded "bioplasma," (a theoretical energy field) that, under certain conditions, was capable of emitting charged coherent radiation beyond the body surface in the form of electrons and possibly protons.

Although the Soviets did not reach a consensus on the existence of bioplasma, RAND concluded, "the very pursuit of this theory indicates that Soviet parapsychologists were attempting to explain alleged paranormal phenomena with a greater degree of specificity than their Western counterparts."

(Images courtesy of iStockphoto; Copyright: Duncan Walker and RAND Corp.)

Note: The Article is very interesting as it provides some information on how the THINK TANK of the two countries, scared of each other, were working during cold war days.

कैग ने गृह मंत्रालय की खिंचाई की

2008-10-26T16:19:00.001+05:30

Oct 26, 02:27 pm

नई दिल्ली। भारत के नियंत्रक एवं महालेखा परीक्षक [कैग] ने राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा पर मंत्री समूह [जीओएम] के आदेशों का उल्लंघन कर बड़ी संख्या में सुरक्षाकर्मियों को मंत्रालयों एवं दूसरे सरकारी कार्यालयों में तैनात करने को लेकर गृह मंत्रालय की खिंचाई की है।

संसद में अपनी रिपोर्ट पेश करते हुए कैग ने कहा कि गृह मंत्रालय ने जीओएम के आदेशों को लागू करने के बजाए बीएसएफ और सीआरपीएफ को मंत्रालय के कामों में लगाया। इसने कहा कि सुरक्षाकर्मियों की तैनाती का विश्लेषण करने पर पाया गया कि विभिन्न रैंकों के सुरक्षाकर्मियों को बड़ी संख्या में मंत्रालयों एवं अन्य सरकारी कार्यालयों में गृह मंत्रालय की अनुशंसा पर तैनात किया गया। कैग की रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है कि बीएसएफ और सीआरपीएफ के मुख्यालयों और इसके महानिदेशक के दिल्ली कार्यालयों में सुरक्षाकर्मियों की संख्या स्वीकृत संख्या की तुलना में बहुत ज्यादा है। ऐसा इसलिए है कि बड़ी संख्या में सुरक्षाकर्मियों को उनके सामान्य कार्यस्थल से हटाकर मुख्यालयों में कई सालों तक उनकी तैनाती कर दी जाती है।

रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है कि बीएसएफ के मामले में अनधिकृत अतिरिक्त सुरक्षाबलों की तैनाती 168 फीसदी है, जबकि सीआरपीएफ के मामले में यह 32 फीसदी है। कैग की रिपोर्ट में बताया गया है कि सुरक्षाकर्मियों को कार्यस्थलों से हटाकर दिल्ली स्थित उनके महानिदेशकों के कार्यालयों में तैनात करने से राजकोष को जबरदस्त हानि हुई। कैग की रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है कि सार्वजनिक क्षेत्र की ईकाईयों को सुरक्षा उपलब्ध कराने वाली सीआईएसएफ को लंबे समय से उसकी सेवा के बदले आठ करोड़ 12 लाख रुपये का बिल भुगतान नहीं किया गया। बिल का भुगतान नहीं करने वालों में एयरपोर्ट अथारिटी आफ इंडिया, हिंदुस्तान आर्गेनिक केमिकल्स और हिंदुस्तान एयरोनोटिक्स लिमिटेड शामिल हैं। कैग ने आईटीबीपी के महानिरीक्षक की भी खिंचाई की है। इसने कहा कि उसके कार्यस्थलों से 30 से 40 गाडि़यों को अवैध तरीके से हटाकर मुख्यालय में तैनात किया गया है। इससे 2002-03 से 2006-07 के बीच पेट्रोल, डीजल और रखरखाव पर एक करोड़ 39 लाख रुपये बर्बाद किए गए।

जलवायु परिवर्तन संस्थान कायम करने की सिफारिश

2008-10-26T16:11:00.001+05:30

Oct 26, 02:28 pm

नई दिल्ली। संसद की एक समिति ने जलवायु परिवर्तन के प्रभावों से निपटने के मकसद से पृथ्वी विज्ञान मंत्रालय या विज्ञान एवं प्रौद्योगिकी मंत्रालय के तहत एक राष्ट्रीय संस्थान कायम करने की सिफारिश की है।

संसद में हाल में पेश की गई विज्ञान एवं प्रौद्योगिकी और पर्यावरण संबंधी संसदीय स्थायी समिति ने अपनी रिपोर्ट में यह सिफारिश की है। रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है कि जलवायु परिवर्तन के प्रभावों को कम करने और विभिन्न उपाय अपनाने के लिए व्यापक अध्ययन एवं शोध तथा उच्च स्तरीय तकनीकी विशेषज्ञता की जरूरत है।

अन्नाद्रमुक नेता की अध्यक्षता वाली इस समिति ने कहा कि मौसम बदलाव और इसके प्रभावों से निपटने के लिए राष्ट्रीय अनुसंधान एजेंडा की पहल करने की जरूरत है। इसके लिए पृथ्वी विज्ञान मंत्रालय या विज्ञान एवं प्रौद्योगिकी मंत्रालय के तहत अलग से एक राष्ट्रीय जलवायु परिवर्तन संस्थान कायम किया जा सकता है।

दुनिया के तापमान में हो रही वृद्धि और भारत पर इसके प्रभाव के बारे में समिति की रिपोर्ट में कहा गया कि जलवायु परिवर्तन के बारे में इस बात को लेकर चिंताएं हैं कि इससे हिमालयी ग्लेशियर पर विपरीत असर पड़ सकता है और यह पिघल सकते हैं। कुछ अनुमानों के अनुसार हमारे ग्लेशियर पिछले 40 सालों में 21 प्रतिशत पिघले हैं। समिति ने कहा कि पिछले पचास सालों में हालांकि कई राष्ट्रीय संस्थानों और विश्वविद्यालयों ने विभिन्न प्रयास किए हैं, लेकिन फिर भी भारतीय ग्लेशियरों पर दुनिया में सबसे कम अध्ययन हुआ है।

संसदीय समिति ने कहा कि हिमालयी ग्लेशियरों के बारे में अनुसंधान प्रयासों को मजबूती देने की आवश्यकता है। रिपोर्ट में कहा गया कि मध्य दक्षिण पूर्व एवं दक्षिण पूर्व एशिया में विशेषकर इनकी बड़ी नदियों की घाटियों में ताजे जल की उपलब्धता 2050 तक कम होने का पूर्वानुमान व्यक्त किया गया है। यह सीधे तौर पर हमारे लिए चिंता की बात है। इसमें कहा गया कि एशिया के तटवर्ती क्षेत्र विशेषकर दक्षिण पूर्व एवं दक्षिण पूर्व एशिया के विशाल डेल्टा क्षेत्र में बाढ़ के रूप में समुद्री जल घुस आने की आशंका अधिक है और कई मामलों में नदियों में भी भीषण बाढ़ आने का खतरा है। इन खतरों से हमारे विशाल डेल्टा क्षेत्र विशेषकर सुंदरवन अछूते नहीं रहेंगे।

समिति के अनुसार अनुमान व्यक्त किया जा रहा है कि जलवायु परिवर्तन से तेजी गति से हो रहे शहरीकरण, औद्योगिकीकरण और आर्थिक विकास से जुड़े प्राकृतिक संसाधनों और पर्यावरण पर दबाव बढ़ जाएगा। इसने कहा कि दक्षिण पूर्व एवं दक्षिण पूर्व एशिया में जलवायु परिवर्तन के कारण बाढ़ एवं सूखे की वजह से होने वाली बीमारियों एवं मृत्यु का खतरा भी बढ़ सकता है।

रिपोर्ट में कहा गया कि जलवायु परिवर्तन के मामले में भारत की अधिक मजबूत स्थिति नहीं होने के कारण यह जरूरी है कि इसके प्रभावों को कम करने के उपाय अपनाने के अलावा गरीबी कम करने के प्रयासों को तेज किया जाए।

परमाणु अनुसंधान के कोष पर केंद्र की खिंचाई

2008-10-26T16:03:00.001+05:30

AJagran-Yahoo Report

Oct 26, 01:20 pm

नई दिल्ली। संसद की एक स्थायी समिति ने भाभा परमाणु अनुसंधान केंद्र [बीएआरसी] सहित देश के प्रमुख संस्थानों की अनुसंधान एवं विकास परियोजनाओं के लिए कोष में कमी किए जाने पर सरकार की जमकर खिंचाई की है।

विज्ञान प्रौद्योगिकी पर्यावरण एवं वन मामलों की संसदीय समिति ने परमाणु ऊर्जा विभाग से कहा है कि वह अपने कार्यक्रमों को आगे बढ़ाने के लिए पर्याप्त कोष आवंटन का मामला आगे बढ़ाए। समिति ने पाया कि बीएआरसी इंदिरा गांधी सेंटर फार एटामिक रिसर्च, वेरिएबल एनर्जी साइक्लोट्रोन सेंटर, राजा रमन्ना सेंटर फार एडवांस्ड टेक्नोलॉजी, टाटा इंस्टीट्यूट आफ फंडामेंटल रिसर्च सहित विभिन्न संस्थानों में अनुसंधान एवं विकास की योजनाओं के लिए कोष में कटौती कर दी गई।

समिति ने अपनी रिपोर्ट में कहा है कि प्रमुख प्रौद्योगिकियों के व्यापक अनुसंधान एवं विकास में जुटे अग्रणी संस्थानों के कोष में कटौती की गई है। निश्चित रूप से इससे परमाणु ऊर्जा के लिए किए जा रहे अनुसंधान एवं विकास पर असर पड़ेगा। रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है कि समिति यह नहीं समझ पा रही है कि कोष आवंटन में कटौती के बाद विभाग परमाणु ऊर्जा के क्षेत्र में अपने लक्ष्य हासिल कैसे करेगा।

समिति ने उम्मीद जताई है कि भविष्य में योजना आयोग और वित्त मंत्रालय विभाग के आवंटन को अंतिम रूप देते समय पूरी सावधानी बरतेंगे। सरकार ने समिति को बताया कि उसने वित्त मंत्रालय और योजना आयोग का ध्यान इस ओर आकर्षित किया है और भविष्य में विभाग के आवंटन को अंतिम रूप देते समय पूरी सावधानी बरती जाएगी। समिति ने कहा कि परमाणु ऊर्जा विभाग को अपने महत्वपूर्ण कार्यक्रमों एवं परियोजनाओं के लिए व्यापक आवंटन की मांग को जोरदार तरीके से आगे बढ़ाना चाहिए ताकि बजट अनुमान में इसके लिए पर्याप्त आवंटन सुनिश्चित हो सके। समिति ने यह भी कहा कि विभाग ने बजट आवंटन का प्रस्ताव रखने या उसे अंतिम रूप देने से पहले चल रही परियोजनाओं एवं कार्यक्रमों की प्रगति की निगरानी एवं समीक्षा के लिए जो निगरानी प्रणाली विकसित की है उसे भी यह सुनिश्चित करना चाहिए कि कोष में कटौती की कोई संभावना न रहे। सरकार ने समिति को बताया कि वर्तमान निगरानी प्रणाली कारगर तरीके से काम कर रही है।

PSLV-C11 Successfully Launches Chandrayaan-1

2008-10-23T06:59:00.002+05:30

From Spaceref.com

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Source: Indian Space Research Organisation - Comments

In its fourteenth flight conducted from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota this morning (October 22, 2008), the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO's) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C11, successfully launched the 1380 kg Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft into a transfer orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 255 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 22,860 km, inclined at an angle of 17.9 deg to the equator.

After a 52 hour count down, PSLV-C11 lifted off from the Second Launch Pad at SDSC SHAR at 06:22 Hrs Indian Standard Time (IST) with the ignition of the core first stage. The important flight events included the separation of the first stage, ignition of the second stage, separation of the payload fairing at about 116 km altitude after the vehicle had cleared the dense atmosphere, second stage separation, third stage ignition, third stage separation, fourth stage ignition and fourth stage cut-off.

PSLV-C11 is the uprated version of ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in its standard configuration. Weighing 320 tonnes at lift-off, the vehicle uses larger strap-on motors (PSOM-XL) to achieve higher payload capability. PSOM-XL uses 12 tonnes of solid propellants instead of 9 tonnes used in the earlier configuration of PSLV. PSLV is a four stage launch vehicle employing both solid and liquid propulsion stages. PSLV is the trusted workhorse launch Vehicle of ISRO. During 1993-2008 period, PSLV had fourteen launches of which thirteen (including today's launch) are consecutively successful. PSLV has repeatedly proved its reliability and versatility by launching 30 spacecraft (14 Indian and 16 for international customers) into a variety of orbits so far.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram, designed and developed PSLV. ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU) at Thiruvananthapuram developed the inertial systems. The Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), also at Thiruvananthapuram, developed the liquid propulsion stages for the second and fourth stages of PSLV as well as reaction control systems. SDSC SHAR processed the solid propellant motors and carried out launch operations. ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) provided telemetry, tracking and command support.

Chandrayaan-1 is India's first spacecraft mission beyond Earth's orbit. It aims to further expand our knowledge about Earth's only natural satellite - the moon. With well-defined objectives, Chandrayaan-1 mission intends to put an unmanned spacecraft into an orbit around the moon and to perform remote sensing of our nearest celestial neighbour for about two years using eleven scientific instruments built in India and five other countries.

The primary objectives of Chandrayaan-1 are:

* To place an unmanned spacecraft in an orbit around the moon
* To conduct mineralogical and chemical mapping of the lunar surface
* To upgrade the technological base in the country

Chandrayaan-1 aims to achieve these well-defined objectives through high-resolution remote sensing of moon in the visible, near infrared, microwave and X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. With this, preparation of a 3-dimensional atlas of the lunar surface and chemical and mineralogical mapping of entire lunar surface is envisaged.

PSLV placed the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft into a highly elliptical Transfer Orbit (TO) around the earth. Later, through a series of highly complex manoeuvres, the desired trajectories will be achieved. After circling the Earth in its Transfer Orbit, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft will be taken into more elliptical 'Extended Transfer Orbits' by repeatedly firing its Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) in a pr-determined sequence. Subsequently, the LAM is again fired to make the spacecraft to travel to the vicinity of the moon.

When it reaches the vicinity of the Moon and passes at a few hundred kilometers from it, its LAM is fired again so that the spacecraft slows down sufficiently to enable the gravity of the moon to capture it into an elliptical orbit.

Following this, the height of the spacecraft's orbit around the moon is reduced in steps. After a careful and detailed observation of the orbit perturbations there, the orbital height of Chandrayaan-1 will be finally lowered to its intended 100 km height from the lunar surface. Moon Impact Probe will be ejected from Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft at the earliest opportunity to hit the lunar surface in a chosen area.

Later, cameras and other scientific instruments are turned ON and thoroughly tested. This leads to the operational phase of the mission. This phase lasts for about two years during which Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft explores the lunar surface with its array of instruments that includes cameras, spectrometers and SAR.

The Payloads: There are 11 payloads (scientific instruments) through which Chandrayaan-1 intends to achieve its scientific objectives.

They include five instruments designed and developed in India, three instruments from European Space Agency (one of which is developed jointly with India and the other with Indian contribution), one from Bulgaria and two from the United States.

The Indian payloads of Chandrayaan-1 are:

Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), a CCD camera that maps the topography of the moon, which helps in better understanding of the lunar evolution process.

Hyperspectral Imager (HySI), another CCD camera, is designed for mapping of the minerals on the lunar surface as well as for understanding the mineralogical composition of Moon's interior.

Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) provides necessary data for accurately determining the height of lunar surface features.

High Energy X-ray Spectrometer (HEX) is designed to help explore the possibility of identifying Polar Regions covered by thick water-ice deposits as well as in identifying regions of high Uranium and Thorium concentrations.

Moon Impact Probe (MIP) demonstrates the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon. It is also intended to qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions.

The six international payloads of Chandrayaan-1 are:

Chandrayaan-1 Imaging X ray Spectrometer (C1XS), an ESA payload and jointly developed by Rutherford Appleton Laboratory of England and ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, intends is to carry out high quality mapping of the moon using X-ray fluorescence technique for finding the presnce of Magnesium, Aluminium, Silicon, Iron and Titanium distributed over the surface of the Moon.

Smart Near Infrared Spectrometer (SIR-2), another ESA payload, developed by Max Plank Institute of Germany, aims to study the lunar surface to explore the mineral resources and the formation of its surface features.

Sub kiloelectronvolt Atom Reflecting Analyser (SAR), the third payload from ESA, is built by Swedish Institute of Space Physics and Space Physics Laboratory of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Tiruvananthapuram. The aim of this instrument is to study the surface composition of the moon and the magnetic anomalies associated with the surface of the moon.

Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM), a payload developed by Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, aims to characterise the radiation environment in a region of space surrounding the moon.

Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar (MiniSAR) is one of the two scientific instruments from the USA and is from Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory and Naval Air Warfare Centre, USA through NASA. MiniSAR is mainly intended for detecting water ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar poles up to a depth of a few meters.

Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) is an imaging spectrometer from Brown University and Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the US through NASA, is intended to assess and map lunar mineral resources at high spatial and spectral resolution.

The Spacecraft: Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft weighed about 1380 kg at the time of its launch and is a 1.5 m cuboid with a solar panel projecting from one of its sides. The spacecraft is powered by a single solar panel generating electrical power of 700 W. A Lithium ion battery supplies power when the solar panel is not illuminated by the sun. To make Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to travel towards the Moon, its Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) is used. Liquid propellants needed for LAM as well as thrusters are stored onboard the spacecraft. Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft's Dual Gimballed Antenna transmits the scientific data gathered by its eleven scientific instruments to Earth.

Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was built at ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore with contributions from Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) and ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU) at Tiruvananthapuram, Space Applications Centre (SAC) and Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad and Laboratory for Electro-optic Systems (LEOS), Bangalore.

The Ground Segment: The Ground facilities of Chandrayaan-1 perform the important task of receiving the health information as well as the scientific data from the spacecraft. It also transmits the radio commands to be sent to the spacecraft during all the phases of its mission. Besides, it processes and stores the scientific data sent by Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.

ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) had a lead role in establishing the Ground Segment of Chandrayaan-1 with contributions from ISAC and SAC. The Ground Segment of Chandrayaan-1 consists of:

1. Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN)
2. Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC)
3. Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC)

The Indian Deep Space Network receives the data sent by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Besides, it sends commands to the spacecraft at a power level of upto 20 kilowatts. IDSN consists of two large parabolic antennas - one with 18 m diameter and the other 32 m diameter - at Byalalu, situated at a distance of about 35 km from Bangalore. Of these the 32 m antenna with its 'seven mirror beam waveguide system', was indigenously designed, developed, built, installed, tested and qualified. The 18 m antenna can support Chandrayaan-1 mission, but the 32m antenna can support spacecraft missions well beyond Moon.

The Spacecraft Control Centre, located near the ISTRAC campus at Peenya, North of Bangalore, is the focal point of all the operational activities of Chandrayaan-1 during all the phases of the mission.

The Indian Space Science Data Centre forms the third element of Chandrayaan-1 ground segment. Also located at Byalalu, ISSDC receives data from IDSN as well as other external stations that support Chandrayaan-1, stores, processes, archives, retrieves and distributes scientific data sent by Chandrayaan-1 payloads to the user agencies.

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NASA Mercury Probe Beams Images of Mile-High Cliffs, Craters

2008-10-22T14:54:00.001+05:30

By Demian McLean

See the Photos of Mercury as seen never before in the link

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- NASA's Messenger probe beamed images of Mercury's cliffs and craters back to Earth, expanding astronomers' understanding of the planet nearest the sun and furthering the U.S. goal of mapping the entire surface.

The car-sized Messenger flew as close as 125 miles (200 kilometers) above Mercury's scarred, rocky surface, NASA said yesterday. It was the probe's second pass since January and revealed about one-third of Mercury, an area never seen by scientists.

``There are some fantastic features, including prominent lines that emanate from crater impacts that run along the entire face of the planet,'' said Jeff McNutt, a mission project scientist at Johns Hopkins University'sApplied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. ``And some cliffs stretch almost a mile high.''

Mercury's surface, pockmarked with craters, is the solar system's oldest and least disturbed since the planets were formed some 4 billion years ago. The images may offer clues about their formation.

Mercury has the most extreme temperature range of any planet in the system, with days as hot as 800 degrees Fahrenheit (426 Celsius) and nights as cold as 300 degrees below zero.

The sun has long since baked off any atmosphere the planet had, which means Mercury lacks the weathering that Earth and other planets have endured, McNutt said. The planet has also had few recent tectonic upheavals.

`Rosetta Stone'

``In one sense, Mercury is the Rosetta Stone of planets in the inner solar system,'' McNutt said, referring to the stone tablet that helped archaeologists unlock the meaning of ancient Egyptian writing.

Messenger, launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration four years ago, is the first probe to visit Mercury since 1975, when Mariner 10 photographed less than half the planet.

About 95 percent of the surface has now been imaged. The final portion will be photographed in 2011, when Messenger returns for an extended orbit.

The spacecraft is more than halfway through a journey of almost 5 billion miles, including 15 trips around the sun. Messenger flew past Venus in 2006 and 2007.

To contact the reporter on this story: Demian McLean in Washington atdmclean8@bloomberg.net.

Using Math to Explain How Life on Earth Began

2008-10-22T14:42:00.001+05:30

October, 2008 in What's Next | 13 comments | Post a comment

How did self-replicating molecules come to dominate the early Earth? Using the mathematics of evolutionary dynamics, Martin A. Nowak can explain the change from no life to life

By Heather Wax

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MARTIN A. NOWAK
A BIG DEAL: Lured to Harvard University in 2003 when he was granted the schools first joint appointment between the math and biology departments.
NUMBERS GAME: Coined the term "evolutionary dynamics," which mathematically models how populations of genes, organisms and other biological entities change over time.
IN THE BEGINNING: Uses dynamical equations to probe whether the evolutionary force of selection preceded replication, a process that could explain how the polymers of life came to be.
Erik Jacobs Jacobs Photographic

Back in March the press went crazy for Martin A. Nowak’s study on the value of punishment. A Harvard University mathematician and biologist, Nowak had signed up some 100 students to play a computer game in which they used dimes to punish and reward one another. The popular belief was that costly punishment would promote cooperation between two equals, but Nowak and his colleagues proved the theory wrong. Instead they found that punishment often triggers a spiral of retaliation, making it detrimental and destructive rather than beneficial. Far from gaining, people who punish tend to escalate conflict, worsen their fortunes and eventually lose out. “Nice guys finish first,” headlines cheered.

It wasn’t the first time Nowak’s computer simulations and mathematics forced a rethinking of a complex phenomenon. In 2002 he worked out equations that can predict the way cancer evolves and spreads, such as when mutations emerge in a metastasis and chromosomes become unstable. And in the early 1990s his model of disease progression demonstrated that HIV develops into AIDS only when the virus replicates fast enough so that the diversity of strains reaches a critical level, one that overwhelms the immune system. Immunologists later found out he had the mechanism right [see “How HIV Defeats the Immune System,” by Martin A. Nowak and Andrew J. McMichael; Scientific American, August 1995]. Now Nowak is out to do it again, this time by modeling the origin of life. Specifically, he is trying to capture “the transition from no life to life,” he says.

Trained as a biochemist, the 43-year-old Nowak believes that mathematics is the “true language of science” and the key to unlocking the secrets of the past. He began exploring the mathematics of evolution as a graduate student at the University of Vienna, working with fellow Austrian Karl Sigmund, a leader in evolutionary game theory. Evolutionary dynamics, as Nowak named the field, involves creating formulas that describe the building blocks of the evolutionary process, such as selection, mutation, random genetic drift and population structure. These formulas track, for example, what happens when individuals with different characteristics reproduce at different rates and how a mutant can produce a lineage that takes over a population.

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At the home of the Program for Evolutionary Dy namics at Harvard, the blackboard is chalked with equations. Nowak has been busy working on how to whittle down the emergence of life into the simplest possible chemical system that he can describe mathematically. He uses zeroes and ones to represent the very first chemical building blocks of life (most likely compounds based on adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine or uracil). Nowak refers to them as monomers, which, in his system, randomly and spontaneously assemble into binary strings of information.

Nowak is now studying the chemical kinetics of this system, which means describing how strings with different sequences will grow. The fundamental principles of this idealized scheme, he says, will hold true for any laboratory-based chemical system in which monomers self-assemble, “in the same way as Newton’s equations describe how any planet goes around the sun, and it doesn’t matter what that planet is made of,” Nowak explains. “Math helps us to see what the most crucial and interesting experiment is. It describes a chemical system that can be built, and once it’s built, you can watch the origin of evolution.”

Could it really be that simple? Right now the system exists only on paper and in the computer. Although it is easy to model mathematically, making the system in the lab is tricky because it starts without any enzymes or templates to help the monomers assemble. “It’s hard to imagine an easy way to make nucleic acids,” says David W. Deamer, a biomolecular engineer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “There had to be a starting material, but we’re very much into a murky area, and we don’t have good ideas about how to re-create it in the laboratory or how to get it to work using just chemistry and physics without the help of enzymes.”

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Big Bang or Big Bounce?: New Theory on the Universe's Birth

2008-10-22T14:31:00.001+05:30

Our universe may have started not with a big bang but with a big bounce—an implosion that triggered an explosion, all driven by exotic quantum-gravitational effects

By Martin Bojowald

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The universe may not have started off with a bang after all.
Pat Rawlings/SAIC

KEY CONCEPTS

Einstein’s general theory of relativity says that the universe began with the big bang singularity, a moment when all the matter we see was concentrated at a single point of infinite density. But the theory does not capture the fine, quantum structure of spacetime, which limits how tightly matter can be concentrated and how strong gravity can become. To figure out what really happened, physicists need a quantum theory of gravity.
According to one candidate for such a theory, loop quantum gravity, space is subdivided into “atoms” of volume and has a finite capacity to store matter and energy, thereby preventing true singularities from existing.
If so, time may have extended before the bang. The prebang universe may have undergone a catastrophic implosion that reached a point of maximum density and then reversed. In short, a big crunch may have led to a big bounce and then to the big bang.

Atoms are now such a commonplace idea that it is hard to remember how radical they used to seem. When scientists first hypothesized atoms centuries ago, they despaired of ever observing anything so small, and many questioned whether the concept of atoms could even be called scientific. Gradually, however, evidence for atoms accumulated and reached a tipping point with Albert Einstein’s 1905 analysis of Brownian motion, the random jittering of dust grains in a fluid. Even then, it took another 20 years for physicists to develop a theory explaining atoms—namely, quantum mechanics—and another 30 for physicist Erwin Müller to make the first microscope images of them. Today entire industries are based on the characteristic properties of atomic matter.

Physicists’ understanding of the composition of space and time is following a similar path, but several steps behind. Just as the behavior of materials indicates that they consist of atoms, the behavior of space and time suggests that they, too, have some fine-scale structure—either a mosaic of spacetime “atoms” or some other filigree work. Material atoms are the smallest indivisible units of chemical compounds; similarly, the putative space atoms are the smallest indivisible units of distance. They are generally thought to be about 10^–35 meter in size, far too tiny to be seen by today’s most powerful instruments, which probe distances as short as 10^–18 meter. Consequently, many scientists question whether the concept of atomic spacetime can even be called scientific. Undeterred, other researchers are coming up with possible ways to detect such atoms indirectly.

The most promising involve observations of the cosmos. If we imagine rewinding the expansion of the universe back in time, the galaxies we see all seem to converge on a single infinitesimal point: the big bang singularity. At this point, our current theory of gravity—Einstein’s general theory of relativity—predicts that the universe had an infinite density and temperature. This moment is sometimes sold as the beginning of the universe, the birth of matter, space and time. Such an interpretation, however, goes too far, because the infinite values indicate that general relativity itself breaks down. To explain what really happened at the big bang, physicists must transcend relativity. We must develop a theory of quantum gravity, which would capture the fine structure of spacetime to which relativity is blind.

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The details of that structure came into play under the dense conditions of the primordial universe, and traces of it may survive in the present-day arrangement of matter and radiation. In short, if spacetime atoms exist, it will not take centuries to find the evidence, as it did for material atoms. With some luck, we may know within the coming decade.

Pieces of Space
Physicists have devised several candidate theories of quantum gravity, each applying quantum principles to general relativity in a distinct way. My work focuses on the theory of loop quantum gravity (“loop gravity,” for short), which was developed in the 1990s using a two-step procedure. First, theorists mathematically reformulated general relativity to resemble the classical theory of electromagnetism; the eponymous “loops” of the theory are analogues of electric and magnetic field lines. Second, following innovative procedures, some that are akin to the mathematics of knots, they applied quantum principles to the loops. The resulting quantum gravity theory predicts the existence of spacetime atoms [see “Atoms of Space and Time,” by Lee Smolin; Scientific American, January 2004].

Other approaches, such as string theory and so-called causal dynamical triangulations, do not predict spacetime atoms per se but suggest other ways that sufficiently short distances might be indivisible [see “The Great Cosmic Roller-Coaster Ride,” by Cliff Burgess and Fernando Quevedo; Scientific American, November 2007, and “The Self-Organizing Quantum Universe,” by Jan Ambjørn, Jerzy Jurkiewicz and Renate Loll; Scientific American, July]. The differences among these theories have given rise to controversy, but to my mind the theories are not contradictory so much as complementary. String theory, for example, is very useful for a unified view of particle interactions, including gravity when it is weak. For the purpose of disentangling what happens at the singularity, where gravity is strong, the atomic constructions of loop gravity are more useful.

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NASA spacecraft zooms above surface of Mercury

2008-10-22T14:30:00.000+05:30

Mon Oct 06 19:20:50 UTC 2008

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A car-sized NASA spacecraft zoomed above the surface of Mercury on Monday, viewing rocky terrain never before seen up close on our solar system's sun-baked innermost planet, scientists said.

The MESSENGER probe flew as low as 124 miles near the equator of Mercury as part of its ongoing exploration of the planet nearest the sun, said project scientist Ralph McNutt of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Initial images sent back to Earth showed newly discovered cliffs on Mercury's surface, with the bulk of the data to be transmitted on Tuesday, McNutt said.

"This is all covering about 30 percent of the planet that has never been seen by a spacecraft before," McNutt said in a telephone interview. "As far as we can tell, everything executed just as it was supposed to."

This was the second of three scheduled encounters before MESSENGER enters into orbit around Mercury in 2011. It flew past Mercury on January 14 and will return in September 2009.

McNutt said combining the data collected in January with that expected from Monday's encounter should give scientists a nice idea of the planet's topographical features. The spacecraft snapped about 1,200 images on its latest pass.

Data from the January fly-by showed that volcanic activity played a key role in forging Mercury's surface and that the planet has been shrinking more than expected over time.

The only previous occasions Mercury was visited by a spacecraft were in 1974 and 1975 when NASA's Mariner 10 flew past it three times and mapped about 45 percent of its surface. MESSENGER's January encounter covered another 20 percent.

With the latest fly-by, at a speed of 14,800 mph, studying an area about the same size as South America, only about 5 percent of the surface will remain unseen by a spacecraft, McNutt said.

Mercury's surface is a mixture of plains, craters caused by long-ago impacts with space rocks, and long, winding cliffs like the ones seen on Monday.

MESSENGER, which stands for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging, was launched in 2004.

With many scientists now classifying Pluto a dwarf planet, Mercury is considered the solar system's smallest planet, a third the size of Earth and only a bit bigger than the moon.

Separately, NASA said a spacecraft due to study the region where the outer edge of the solar system meets interstellar space launches on October 19 from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific.

(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Eric Walsh)

भारत-नेपाल संयुक्त समिति बैठक के नतीजों से सरकार उत्साहित

2008-10-22T14:27:00.000+05:30

MONDAY, OCTOBER 06, 2008

A Report by Jagran-Yahoo India

Oct 05, 11:14 pm
पटना जल संसाधन पर भारत-नेपाल की संयुक्त समिति की गत 1 अक्टूबर को काठमाण्डू में हुई बैठक के नतीजों से राज्य सरकार उत्साहित है। इससे नेपाल से निकलने वाली नदियों पर परियोजनाओं के निर्माण का रास्ता साफ हो गया है। पहली बार नेपाल की सीमा से सटे राज्यों बिहार, पश्चिम बंगाल, उत्तर प्रदेश व उत्तरांचल को मंत्री स्तर व सचिव स्तर की कमेटी में शामिल किया गया है। जल संसाधन मंत्री विजेन्द्र प्रसाद यादव ने इसका श्रेय मुख्यमंत्री नीतीश कुमार व जदयू के राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष शरद यादव को दिया है। जल संसाधन मंत्री ने कहा कि जेसीडब्लूआर की बैठक में जल संसाधन पर संयुक्त मंत्रिमंडलीय आयोग के गठन का निर्णय किया गया है। इसमें ऐसे राज्यों के मंत्रियों को भी शामिल किया गया जिन के क्षेत्र से होकर नदी गुजरती है। इसी प्रकार का प्रतिनिधित्व विभाग के स्तर पर गठित संयुक्त समिति में मिला है। उन्होंने कहा कि संयुक्त समिति में दोनों देशों के मंत्रियों को ही शामिल रहने से राज्यों की समस्याओं का सही तरीके से समाधान नहीं हो पाता था। इससे प्रस्तावित सप्तकोसी हाई डैम निर्माण के लिए डीपीआर तैयार करने के कार्य में तेजी आयेगी। सप्तकोसी बहुउद्देशीय हाई डैम प्रोजेक्ट व सन कोसी स्टोरेज सह डायरवर्सन स्कीम के लिए जेपीओ की एक साल के लिए अवधि का विस्तार कर दिया गया है। परियोजनाओं का डीपीआर तैयार करने के लिए नेपाल क्षेत्र में कार्यालय भी स्थापित हैं किन्तु विभिन्न प्रकार की बाधाओं के कारण कार्य ठप था। जेपीओ की अवधि इस वर्ष दिसम्बर में समाप्त हो रही थी। नेपाल की नयी सरकार ने परियोजना के लिए स्थल पर होने वाले अनुसंधान कार्य सहित इससे जुड़े कायरें में लगे अभियंताओं व कर्मियों की सुरक्षा का आश्वासन दिया है। इससे नदियों की प्रवृति व धारा पर अध्ययन करने वाले विशेषज्ञ सुदूर जंगलों में पहुंचकर अपने कायरें का निष्पादन कर सकेंगे।। इसको सिंचाई परियोजनाओं की स्थापना की दिशा में सार्थक प्रयास के रूप में माना जा रहा है। दस्तावेज पर दोनों देशों के जल संसाधन विभाग के सचिवों के हस्ताक्षर हैं। इसमें कुसहा के समीप कोसी तटबंध के कटाव को बंद करने व कोसी की धारा को मार्च 2009 तक पुराने स्थान पर लाने पर सहमति हुई है। इस सम्बन्ध में केन्द्र की उच्चस्तरीय तकनीकी टीम नवम्बर के प्रथम सप्ताह में विचार- विमर्श के लिए नेपाल जाएगी।

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Arcelor ttal Jharkhand project face obstacles - Report

2008-10-22T14:19:00.002+05:30

Report by:

Aid-awareness@lists.aidindia.org

जानकारी छिपाएँ अक्तूबर 7

उत्तर दें

PTI reported that ArcelorMittal's Jharkhand project may hit a roadblock with local villagers deciding not to give away an inch of land to the company for setting up the INR 40,000 crore Greenfield steel project.

Owing allegiance to Adivasi Moolwasi Astitva Raksha Manch(AMARM) the villagers adjoining Torpa-Kamdara blocks, where the company has proposed setting up its 12 million tonne steel plant, have out rightly rejected Jharkhand

Mrs Dayamani Barla AMARM coordinator told PTI that "The recently announced policy of the government is an attempt to grab land from villagers on the pretext of industrialization. We would n0t let it happen. Villagers will not give even an inch of land to ArcelorMittal."

On the other hand, the company said that it was making good progress on the Jharkhand project. Mr Sanak Mishra CEO of ArcelorMittal Jharkhand said that "Things are moving in right direction. We have applied for land and are extensively carrying out corporate social responsibility works in the state."

While struggle for tribal land rights and their identity goes on in Jharkhand, its important that we do our share by sending emails and phone calls to Dayamani Barla

You can reach her on mobile Dayamaniji at

1. 9431104386,

2. 9939587572

and send her emails at "Dayamani Barla" .

दलाल स्ट्रीट पर फिर कहर टूटा -A Jagran-Yahoo! Story

2008-10-22T14:17:00.000+05:30

Oct 06, 05:28 pm

मुंबई। अमेरिका समेत कई विकसित अर्थव्यवस्थाओं को अपने पैरों तले रौंद रहा
वित्ताीय संकट सोमवार को दुनिया के शेयर बाजारों पर कहर बनकर टूट पड़ा। दलाल
स्ट्रीट समेत विश्व के तकरीबन सभी स्टाक एक्सचेंज बिकवाली की आंधी के रूप में
बरपे इस कहर का आसान शिकार बन गए और इनके सूचकांक भरभराकर चारों खाने चित्ता हो
गए।

बंबई स्टाक एक्सचेंज के संवेदी सूचकांक सेंसेक्स और नेशनल स्टाक एक्सचेंज के
निफ्टी का भी यही हाल रहा। कच्चे तेल की गिरती कीमतें भी शेयर बाजारों का सहारा
बनने में नाकामयाब रहीं जिससे एक और सोमवार सेंसेक्स के मुंह पर गिरावट की
कालिख पोतने में सफल रहा। सेंसेक्स की पहले की भी कई बड़ी गिरावटें इसी दिन के
नाम दर्ज हैं।

अमेरिका के लिए मुसीबत बने सब प्राइम संकट के कारण सुरक्षित निवेश विकल्पों की
तलाश में निवेशकों ने बाजार से जमकर धन निकासी की। इससे सेंसेक्स 724.62 अंक
गिरकर दो वर्षो के न्यूनतम स्तर 11801.70 पर पहुंच गया। सेंसेक्स 19 सितंबर
2006 के बाद पहली बार 12 हजार अंक के नीचे आया है। नेशनल स्टाक एक्सचेंज के
निफ्टी की भी यही गति हुई। यह 215.95 अंक अर्थात 5.66 फीसदी का गोता लगाकर
3602.35 अंक पर बंद हुआ। सेंसेक्स शुक्रवार के 12526.32 अंक की तुलना में
12284.49 अंक पर कमजोर खुला। बिकवाली के दबाव के चलते यह उठने की सोच भी नहीं
पाया। नीचे में 11732.97 अंक तक गिरने के बाद कारोबार की समाप्ति पर सेंसेक्स
5.78 प्रतिशत के नुकसान से 11801.70 अंक पर बंद हुआ।

बिकवाली दबाव ने बीएसई के किसी भी वर्ग के सूचकांक को बढ़ने का मौका नहीं दिया।
इसके मिडकैप में 7.13 प्रतिशत की गिरावट रही। इसका सूचकांक 333.57 अंक गिरकर
4344.23 अंक रह गया। स्मालकैप 378.47 अंक अर्थात 6.92 प्रतिशत के नुकसान से
5086.93 अंक पर बंद हुआ। सेंसेक्स में शामिल सभी तीस कंपनियों के शेयरों को
झटका लगा। सेंसेक्स से जुड़ी तीस कंपनियों में बिकवाली का दबाव इतना अधिक था कि
नुकसान वाली पहली बीस कंपनियों के शेयरों में पांच प्रतिशत से ज्यादा की गिरावट
दर्ज की गई। अमेरिकी अर्थव्यवस्था की चिंता में आईटी कंपनियों के शेयर भी टूटे।
सेंसेक्स में शामिल इस वर्ग की चारों बड़ी कंपनियों के शेयर औंधे मुंह नीचे आए।

एशिया के अन्य बाजारों का भी बुरा हाल था। ब्रिटेन के शेयर बाजारों की स्थिति
भी खराब रही। यहां का मुख्य सूचकांक एफटीएसई-100 को 233 अंक का झटका खाना पड़ा।

कच्चे तेल की कीमतें आठ माह के बाद पहली बार 90 डालर प्रति बैरल से नीचे आई
हैं। ग्यारह जुलाई के 147.27 डालर प्रति बैरल के रिकार्ड भावों से तुलना की जाए
तो कच्चा तेल 40 फीसदी तक टूट चुका है। ग्लोबल मंदी की आशंका ने इस सकारात्मक
खबर का भी असर नहीं दिखाया। बाजार विशलेषकों का कहना है कि शेयर बाजारों में यह
दहशत बनी हुई है कि विदेशी संस्थागत तेजी से अपना धन निकाल सकते हैं। यही आशंका
बाजारों पर भारी पड़ रही है।

नौनिहालों के विकास को बदलाव की तैयारी

2008-10-22T14:15:00.000+05:30

Oct 06, 12:10 am

जमशेदपुर। झारखण्ड शैक्षिक अनुसंधान एवं प्रशिक्षण परिषद की नई पहल यदि रंग लाई तो जल्द ही शैक्षिक विकास की जादूई छड़ी नौनिहालों के हाथ में होगी। गुणवत्ता के मापदंड पर प्राथमिक शिक्षा की लगातार हो रही आलोचनाओं से सबक लेते हुए जेसीईआरटी ने जड़ से सुधार की कवायद शुरू की है। संस्था ने विभिन्न कार्यशालाओं से प्राप्त अनुभवों के आधार पर प्रथम कक्षा के लिए नई पांडुलिपि तैयार की है। इसका संपादन कर नये पाठ्य पुस्तक का रूप दिया जाएगा। खास बात यह है कि इसे तैयार करने से पूर्व व्यापक अध्ययन किया गया है और बच्चों की शैक्षिक अभिरूचि को ध्यान में रखते हुए पांडुलिपि तैयार करायी गयी है। अगर सब कुछ ठीक ठाक रहा तो आगामी वर्ष से नये कान्सेप्ट की पुस्तकों को पाठ्यक्रम में लागू भी कर दिया जायेगा। संस्था ने इसके लिए 12 शिक्षकों का पैनल तैयार किया गया है। जिनके सम्यक मंथन के बाद पांडुलिपि को पुस्तक का रूप प्रदान कर दिया जायेगा। जेसीईआरटी द्वारा गठित इस पैनल में प्रदेश के तीन जिलों रांची, पूर्वी सिंहभूम तथा खूंटी के शिक्षकों को शामिल किया गया है। पैनल में रांची से कृष्ण कुमार झा, ज्योतिष प्रसाद साहू, दिलीप कुमार दास, अशोक कुमार, प्रमोद कुमार शर्मा, भूषण प्रसाद, रामाशंकर प्रसाद, सुचन्द्रा रूद्रा, वेशराज मिश्र, पूर्वी सिंहभूम से रणधीर कुमार तथा खूंटी से सलिल वरण कुण्डू का मनोनयन किया गया है। सूत्रों से प्राप्त जानकारी के अनुसार विभाग अपने लक्ष्य की प्राप्ति के लिए तेजी से आगे बढ़ रहा है, इसके लिए शुक्रवार से एक विशेष कार्यशाला रांची में प्रारंभ हुई है जो रविवार तक चलेगी। इस बीच पैनल अपने काम को अंतिम जामा पहनाने का काम शुरू कर देगा।

or Read

http://in.jagran.yahoo.com/news/local/jharkhand/4_8_4882852.html

A Worried Civil Society!

2008-10-22T14:10:00.001+05:30

For a large majority of us it is difficult to understand the intricacies of the American Capitalism, bankruptcy and phenomenal rise in heavy financing based Real Estate development in spite of the fact that large no. of authors are trying to educate us through different websites by presenting their analysis of the causes and the anticipated result (of failure) of bail out plan. What it has for us or where is a lesson to learn for us because our Finance Managers are using the carbon copy of the same philosophy and the same system. Read the msg by Ashok Sharma. It might help.

A Worried Civil Society!

Posted by: "~Ashok" lama1126in@yahoo.co.in lama1126in

Fri Oct 3, 2008 7:49 pm (PDT)

A Worried Civil Society!

Imagine a living being from planet Mars watching the affairs on earth!

A scene may open when one may find human race on planet earth in grip of appalling fear and uncertainty turning sides on the bed in the dead of the night while it is time to sleep. Such a plight today that has almost reached us, is of our own making and we must first blame solely ourselves and none else for our gross neglect for we trusted our government and our leaders too much and always allowed them to follow whatever path they adopted.

The breakdown of our structures is a result of following a wrong thinking, tamely following the devilish greed ridden capitalism and a system that was never adequate to ensure that we would be able to sustain it long.

True that we never wished such a day to knock us down but we have always allowed those of our leaders with mischievous plans to take over all that belongs to us. Our good Future ! Our dreams and hopes for a better kind of life for we all Indians stand shattered today. Looking at the demise of American Economy, we in fact are witnessing the crop that we have sown ourselves by allowing our corrupt leaders to take entire control of our lives.

Have we awakened now from sleepwalk? Do we realize in what harrowing times we are entering? Our Government would still keep saying that India is a Tiger Economy on rise ready to take place vacated by the Richest of the World Superpower America! True to their habit, they would keep strutting before the Media and on the TV cameras saying that we are just a whisker behind the Dragon Economy of China and this Economic slowdown…Global recession will not much impact on Indian Economy…. And a dozen new crap stories would follow.

Question is: Shall we still continue to believe our leaders and further allow them to do whatever they wish to do in matters that concern us all?

Is not now the time to Rise Up and confront our controllers? Now is the time to break-away from the shackles and remove the veil that we never could remove in the past.

Those who can recall my concerns the writing was long since on the wall. Events are changing so fast that we have difficulty in seeing the total picture. These changes are changing the very foundations of our society. For me it is a welcome change because at the core of this Chaos lies a solution to many of our problems. It is an opportunity we should not miss. The Great changes are around. We must now move forward and also inform all others who have little or no knowledge of what all is happening with our Global Society! Even now the scoundrels in our Government may come up with more dubious plans but we need to remain aware of the dirty game plans they have and we must collectively resolve to tear their plans and crush all their bad moves that are self-centered and have no regard to the problems they cause to over a billions of us.

If Indian businesses have not yet felt the heat of the flames from the burning Effigy of American Capitalism, it may just be a matter of days and not weeks. Industrial productivity, cuts in imports, more excise and import tax duties, confrontations with WTO, liquidity crunch, Government's drama of lowering of taxes and borrowing interest rates, incentives on deposits, hollow claims of easy lending to Industry and business, heavy burden of mounting daily debt of billions of dollars oil payments and due repayable debts and accured interests on repayable debts would make the things difficult for many in India. Unfortunately, the troubled most would be our daily wage earners and lowest income group who are already feeling the scorching heat of buying tomatoes at 40 rupees a kg which middle income or the rich would just don't care to bother. Strange like US our government has no control over the prices of daily use simple items as if the Government is
sold out even to street vegetable sellers!

We have a chance today to correct our basics and create sustainable communities if we do not wish to follow the fate of America, which in my view, is all staged to achieve more controls by staging fall of dollar, go on to merge Canada, Mexico and US with one Currency in pipeline AMERO that is bound to pick up as future scenes are enacted.

We in India must understand the importance of this great opportunity that has opened before us as the Statue of Corruption is melting before our very own eyes and those who have been plundering our wealth and playing with public money are facing a showdown in every structure that they erected around them to stay in power. What they would fear most is the power of common man ! Let us lead our country on correct path now..!

Where did the Universe come from?

2008-10-22T14:04:00.001+05:30

I am posting a 5-Part msg on the subject sent to me by Perry Marshall, the Author of the Series. I found the contents interesting, not necessarily agreeing to his assumptions or inferences. But it provides food for thought for those who have interest in Physics, particulary in the Big Bang Theory. Since this subject has come to light recently during LHC Expt I thought I should share this with you. 
Group Co-ordinators may not find it in accordance with their terms of objectives but I suggest that they approve this in the best interest of their members , may be one or two only.
Dr.V.N.Sharma
Where did the Universe come from?

Part 1: Einstein's Big Blunder

100 years ago, Albert Einstein published
three papers that rocked the world. These papers
proved the existence of the atom, introduced the
theory of relativity, and described quantum
mechanics.

Pretty good debut for a 26 year old scientist, huh?

His equations for relativity indicated that the universe
was expanding. This bothered him, because if it was
expanding, it must have had a beginning and a beginner.
Since neither of these appealed to him, Einstein introduced
a 'fudge factor' that ensured a 'steady state' universe,
one that had no beginning or end.

But in 1929, Edwin Hubble showed that the furthest
galaxies were fleeing away from each other, just as the 
Big Bang model predicted. So in 1931, Einstein embraced 
what would later be known as the Big Bang theory, saying, 
"This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation 
of creation to which I have ever listened." He referred 
to the 'fudge factor' to achieve a steady-state universe 
as the biggest blunder of his career.

As I'll explain during the next couple of days, 
Einstein's theories have been thoroughly proved and 
verified by experiments and measurements. But there's
an even more important implication of Einstein's discovery.
Not only does the universe have a beginning, but time
itself, our own dimension of cause and effect, began
with the Big Bang.

That's right -- time itself does not exist before
then. The very line of time begins with that creation
event. Matter, energy, time and space were created
in an instant by an intelligence outside of space
and time.

About this intelligence, Albert Einstein wrote
in his book "The World As I See It" that the harmony 
of natural law "Reveals an intelligence of such 
superiority that, compared with it, all the
systematic thinking and acting of human beings is
an utterly insignificant reflection."

He went on to write, "Everyone who is seriously 
involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced 
that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe--
a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in 
the face of which we with our modest powers must feel 
humble."

Pretty significant statement, wouldn't you say?

Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment: "Bird Droppings 
on my Telescope."

Respectfully Submitted,

Perry Marshall


Part 2: "Bird Droppings on my Telescope"

V,

The Big Bang theory was totally rejected at first.
But those who supported it had predicted that the ignition
of the Big Bang would have left behind a sort of 
'hot flash' of radiation.

If a big black wood stove produces heat that you
can feel, then in a similar manner, the Big Bang should 
produce its own kind of heat that would echo throughout 
the universe.

In 1965, without looking for it, two physicists at
Bell Labs in New Jersey found it. At first, Arno Penzias 
and Robert Wilson were bothered because, while
trying to refine the world's most sensitive radio antenna,
they couldn't eliminate a bothersome source of noise.
They picked up this noise everywhere they pointed the
antenna.

At first they thought it was bird droppings. The
antenna was so sensitive it could pick up the heat
of bird droppings (which certainly are warm when
they're brand new) but even after cleaning it off,
they still picked up this noise.

This noise had actually been predicted in detail 
by other astronomers, and after a year of checking 
and re-checking the data, they arrived at a conclusion: 
This crazy Big Bang theory really was correct.

In an interview, Penzias was asked why there was so much 
resistance to the Big Bang theory.

He said, "Most physicists would rather attempt to
describe the universe in ways which require no explanation.
And since science can't *explain* anything - it can only
*describe* things - that's perfectly sensible. If you
have a universe which has always been there, you don't
explain it, right? 

"Somebody asks you, 'How come all the secretaries 
in your company are women?' You can say, 'Well, it's 
always been that way.' That's a way of not having 
to explain it. So in the same way, theories which 
don't require explanation tend to be the ones
accepted by science, which is perfectly acceptable 
and the best way to make science work."

But on the older theory that the universe was eternal, 
he explains: "It turned out to be so ugly that people
dismissed it. What we find - the simplest theory - is
a creation out of nothing, the appearance out of nothing 
of the universe."

Penzias and his partner, Robert Wilson, won the Nobel
Prize for their discovery of this radiation. The Big
Bang theory is now one of the most thoroughly 
validated theories in all of science.

Robert Wilson was asked by journalist Fred Heeren if 
the Big Bang indicated a creator.

Wilson said, "Certainly there was something that
set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can't
think of a better theory of the origin of the universe
to match with Genesis."

Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment: "Why the
Big Bang was the most precisely planned event in
all of history."

Sincerely,

Perry Marshall

For further reading: 
"A Day Without Yesterday" - Albert Einstein, Georges Lemaitre 
and the Big Bang

http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=O.rT7&m=pUv034T8wTjn&b=u8j4uIOt8a4Gqa3imVYn_w--


Part 3: Why the Big Bang was the most precisely planned 
event in all of history

V,

In your kitchen cabinet, you've probably got a spray
bottle with an adjustable nozzle. If you twist the nozzle
one way, it sprays a fine mist into the air. You twist 
the nozzle the other way, it squirts a jet of water
in a straight line. You turn that nozzle to the exact
position you want so you can wash a mirror, clean up
a spill, or whatever.

If the universe had expanded a little faster, the 
matter would have sprayed out into space like fine
mist from a water bottle - so fast that a gazillion
particles of dust would speed into infinity and never even 
form a single star.

If the universe had expanded just a little slower, the 
material would have dribbled out like big drops of water,
then collapsed back where it came from by the force
of gravity.

A little too fast, and you get a meaningless
spray of fine dust. A little too slow, and the whole
universe collapses back into one big black hole.

The surprising thing is just how narrow the difference
is. To strike the perfect balance between too fast and
too slow, the force, something that physicists call 
"the Dark Energy Term" had to be accurate to one part in 
ten with 120 zeros. 

If you wrote this as a decimal, the number would
look like this:

0.000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000001

In their paper "Disturbing Implications of
a Cosmological Constant" two atheist scientists 
from Stanford University stated that the existence of 
this dark energy term would have required a miracle... 
"An unknown agent" intervened in cosmic history 
"for reasons of its own."

Just for comparison, the best human engineering
example is the Gravity Wave Telescope, which was built with
a precision of 23 zeros. The Designer, the 'external
agent' that caused our universe must possess an intellect,
knowledge, creativity and power trillions and trillions
of times greater than we humans have.

Absolutely amazing.

Now a person who doesn't believe in God has to find 
some way to explain this. One of the more common explanations 
seems to be "There was an infinite number of universes, so it
was inevitable that things would have turned out right
in at least one of them."

The "infinite universes" theory is truly an amazing theory. 
Just think about it, if there is an infinite number of 
universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible...
It's actually happened! 

It means that somewhere, in some dimension, there is
a universe where the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last
year. There's a universe where Jimmy Hoffa doesn't get 
cement shoes; instead he marries Joan Rivers and becomes 
President of the United States. There's even a 
universe where Elvis kicks his drug habit and still
resides at Graceland and sings at concerts. Imagine
the possibilities! 

I might sound like I'm joking, but actually I'm dead
serious. To believe an infinite number of universes
made life possible by random chance is to believe everything
else I just said, too. 

Some people believe in God with a capital G.

And some folks believe in Chance with a Capital C.

Tomorrow's installment: "If you can read this email,
I can prove to you that God exists." Sound a little bold?
Tune in tomorrow - same time, same station.

Respectfully Submitted,

Perry Marshall

Part 4: "If you can read this sentence, 
I can prove to you that God exists"

V,

See this email I just sent you, that you're reading
right now? This email is proof of the existence of God.

Yeah, I know, that sounds crazy. But I'm not asking you 
to believe anything just yet, until you see the evidence for 
yourself. All I ask is that you refrain from disbelieving 
while I show you my proof. It only takes a minute to convey, 
but it speaks to one of the most important questions of all 
time.

So how is this email proof of the existence of God?:

This email you're reading contains letters, words and
sentences. It contains a message that means something.
As long as you can read English, you can understand what
I'm saying.

You can do all kinds of things with this email. You
can read it on your computer screen. You can print it out on
your printer. You can read it out loud to a friend who's in 
the same room as you are. You can call your friend and read it 
to her over the telephone. You can save it as a Microsoft 
WORD document. You can forward it to someone via email, or you
can post it on a website.

Regardless of how you copy it or where you send it,
the information remains the same. My email contains a message.
It contains information in the form of language. The message
is independent of the medium it is sent in.

Messages are not matter, even though they can be carried 
by matter (like printing this email on a piece of paper).

Messages are not energy even though they can be carried 
by energy (like the sound of my voice.)

Messages are immaterial. Information is itself a unique 
kind of entity. It can be stored and transmitted and copied 
in many forms, but the meaning still stays the same.

Messages can be in English, French or Chinese.
Or Morse Code. Or mating calls of birds. Or the Internet. 
Or radio or television. Or computer programs or architect
blueprints or stone carvings. Every cell in your body
contains a message encoded in DNA, representing a complete 
plan for you.

OK, so what does this have to do with God?

It's very simple. Messages, languages, and coded
information ONLY come from a mind. A mind that
agrees on an alphabet and a meaning of words and
sentences. A mind that expresses both desire and
intent.

Whether I use the simplest possible explanation,
such as the one I'm giving you here, or if we analyze
language with advanced mathematics and engineering 
communication theory, we can say this with total 
confidence:

"Messages, languages and coded information never,
ever come from anything else besides a mind.
No one has ever produced a single example of a message 
that did not come from a mind."

Nature can create fascinating patterns - snowflakes,
sand dunes, crystals, stalagmites and stalactites. Tornados 
and turbulence and cloud formations.

But non-living things cannot create language. They
*cannot* create codes. Rocks cannot think and they
cannot talk. And they cannot create information.

It is believed by some that life on planet earth arose 
accidentally from the "primordial soup," the early ocean which 
produced enzymes and eventually RNA, DNA, and primitive cells.

But there is still a problem with this theory: It fails to 
answer the question, 'Where did the information come from?'

DNA is not merely a molecule. Nor is it simply a "pattern."
Yes, it contains chemicals and proteins, but those chemicals 
are arranged to form an intricate language, in the exact same way 
that English and Chinese and HTML are languages.

DNA has a four-letter alphabet, and structures very similar 
to words, sentences and paragraphs. With very precise 
instructions and systems that check for errors and correct them.

To the person who says that life arose naturally, 
you need only ask: "Where did the information come from?
Show me just ONE example of a language that didn't come 
from a mind."

As simple as this question is, I've personally presented it 
in public presentations and Internet discussion forums for 
more than two years. I've addressed more than fifty thousand 
people, including hostile, skeptical audiences who insist that 
life arose without the assistance of God. 

But to a person, none of them have ever been able to 
explain where the information came from. This riddle is 
"So simple any child can understand; so complex, no atheist 
can solve."

You can hear or read my full presentation on this topic at 
http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis.htm

Watch it on video:
http://www.perrymarshallspeaks.com/

For a high-school level, layman's version, go here:
http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/information.htm

Matter and energy have to come from somewhere. Everyone
can agree on that. But information has to come from somewhere,
too! Information is separate entity, fully on par with matter and 
energy. And information can only come from a mind. If books 
and poems and TV shows come from human intelligence, then all
living things inevitably came from a superintelligence.

Every word you hear, every sentence you speak, every
dog that barks, every song you sing, every email you read,
every packet of information that zings across the Internet, 
is proof of the existence of God. Because information
and language always originate in a mind.

In the beginning were words and language.

In the Beginning was Information.

When we consider the mystery of life - where it came from 
and how this miracle is possible - do we not at the same time 
ask the question where it is going, and what its purpose is?

Respectfully Submitted,

Perry Marshall

Further reading:

-"If you can read this, I can prove God exists" - listen to
my full presentation or read the Executive Summary here:

http://cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis.htm

-The Atheist's Riddle: Members of Infidels, the world's 
largest atheist discussion board attempt to solve it 
(for well over a year now!), without success:

-http://cosmicfingerprints.com/iidb.htm

-"OK, so then who made God?" and other questions about 
information and origins:

http://cosmicfingerprints.com/infotheoryqa.htm

P.S.: Preview of tomorrow: You get to listen in on one of the most 
fascinating science lectures I've ever had the privilege of hearing.
A presentation in which hard science and faith fuse together in 
a fascinating tour of this magnificently engineered universe
that is our home.

Part 5


V,

Today I introduce to you one of the most powerful 
science presentations I have ever heard.

I listened to Hugh Ross give this presentation on a
tape while I was driving down Interstate 88 in Chicago
one night. As I listened, light bulbs were firing off
in my head all over the place.

So what's the big deal about this? Here's what 
you'll discover as you listen:

-The delicate balance of vast forces in the universe,
necessary for life to exist

-Why planet earth is so extremely special in its ability
to support life

-The very measurement of the entire universe in all its
magnificence, made possible only within the last 15 years

-A fascinating place where science and theology come
together in perfect agreement

Now there's one more thing I want to tell you about
this talk: It was recorded in 1994.

Now why would I give you something called "New Scientific
Evidence" if it's 11 years old?

Here's why: Because unlike most things 11 years old--
with only a couple of exceptions, the information Hugh Ross 
shares here has been shown to be even *more* accurate today 
than it was back then.

One of the hallmarks of a successful scientific model is 
that it holds up for years and even decades, even while 
scholars debate it. I've been following Dr. Ross and 
his work, and virtually every fact he discusses here has been 
further strengthened and validated by all the physics and 
astronomy discoveries in the years since.

On this link you'll find both the audio recording and
the printed transcript. You can read it online, print it out, 
listen on your computer, burn it to a CD, or download this 
to your MP3 player. Go here now:

http://www.CosmicFingerprints.com/audio/newevidence.htm

Enjoy.

Perry Marshall

Debt Is Not An Asset

2008-10-22T13:58:00.002+05:30

Debt Is Not An Asset

by Paul Barrow

All of us should realize right now that this country has some very serious problems. Those problems are the result of greed and the misappropriation of democracy for the pleasure of exercising it. Whether or not the solutions being erected by Congress and the Bush administration will solve them is far from guaranteed, and the most unfortunate part of this gamble is that its your money and mine that's on the table.

Wall Street is supposed to be a stock exchange, not a casino. First and foremost, it's supposed to be a place where individual investors pool capital so that young bright entrepreneurs like Bill Gates can start a small business, hire employees, and create new innovative software products that might possibly even change the world. Wall Street is where individuals provide startup capital for all kinds of research projects in medicine, in biological studies, in the exploration of new forms of energy, and many other things. We need to understand, when we are raging about the evils of capitalism, that Wall Street can be and in fact is a vital place where many good things are happening.

The difficulties of capitalism are found not in these genuinely good purposes but rather in what happens to the title to the investment, whether stocks, bonds or securities, of individual investors and artificial attempts to manipulate its value through the trading of that title. When stock is manipulated, there's some fundamental value underlying it that can be measured by very conventional actuarial standards, that has a strong bearing on that value. Shifts in the value of the company itself, for which a stock underwrites, has a direct ratio to the value of the stock itself.

The problems in the market right now, however, are of a completely different nature, in which the underlying value isn't fixed, isn't material, and cannot be measured by anything more tangible than the predictability of human behavior. The underlying value is a promise to pay a debt, which is detailed in the very fine print of a mortgage contract, and promises are not tangible things at all. Yet promises like this are bought and sold quite regularly, in the context of the mortgage market itself, and those promises themselves become a basis for making further promises called bonds whose value are tied to a whole package of mortgages similar in nature and risk. Although the mortgage itself is tied to a real asset of some tangible value which supports it, its value is not tied to the promise. A property changes value in very slight increments, usually. A promise is either kept or it is not.

The force of moral weight behind a promise to pay a mortgage debt is conditioned by a desire to have something, whether it is the purchase of a new home, a refinance with lower payments, or a new car financed with the equity, or cash value already invested by the owner, in an existing home. There's always an urgency that comes with the promise, a desire that has yet to be fulfilled. The moment it is fulfilled, the moment you have the thing which you needed borrowed money to pay for, the urgency is gone, and a serious obligation now hangs over your head, one that most people would just love to have taken off their hands. Debt is a form of psychological slavery that ties you to a job you may hate, and a whole lifestyle that is propped up by the things for which you are indebted, which you may indeed grow weary of. When problems come up, these are the first things to go.

Slight shifts in the property value of a home can cause a complete failure of the promise to pay the debt on a mortgage, simply because the benefits of paying are no longer the same. If you owe more on the mortgage than your property is worth, an oft-chosen solution is to just walk away from it, especially if it was easy to get into, with no down, with little credit, and nothing but a bad credit report to lose.

A downturn in the real estate market in 2006 began to cause some of these promises to be broken, and when they were broken, the properties involved became empty, vacant houses whose value began to plummet immediately due to a lack of maintenance. This pulled neighboring property values down further, causing a snowball effect on other mortgages, and soon the whole market system began to come crashing down.

The securities market was built, not on the property values themselves, but on the mortgage contracts, and a pyramiding layer of promises on top of the mortgage promise itself that created a bond market -- money loaned back to the banks collateralized upon money loaned by the banks themselves. The banks promised to pay back the sum of the bond in its face value based upon the promise of a homeowner to pay his mortgage. The real value of these bonds was not tied directly to the properties but to the risk inherent in the promises to pay them off.

Diminishing value in real estate was one thing. That might affect the balance sheet of a bank slightly if it holds too many of these bad mortgages. The bank can repossess the property, and there is a loss incurred of income while the property is in bankruptcy proceedings, the cost of cleaning up the property and putting it back on the market, and the cost of brokering a new sale. Banks don't make money doing this, but it's not quite the same as complete default.

Disappearing promises are quite another problem. It's not a matter of incremental loss. It's not profit and loss on the overall book of a bank that is affected. It's the value of the bank's own promise that is tied to a specific fixed number of mortgages very similar in quality that were pooled together. In each pool, called a CDO (Collaterallized Debt Obligation), they were all rated very similar in quality. (See my review of George Soros' book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means .) So then in a bad market, when one mortgage fell into default, many of the others in the group did as well, because they were created on similar credit rules. Based on risky mortgages, these bonds paid a high rate of interest, but when the underlying mortgages went bad, there was nothing to repossess. Bond holders held no title in the properties. The only title they had was to the assets, as a creditor, of a failed bank and it's bankrupt promises.

What happened is that a market was created on debt, on promises to pay, rather than on hard assets and the market value of them. I believe that progressives should oppose the use of debt as an asset in secondary financial markets. Debt is not an asset, merely one's promise to deliver an asset. Such promises are routinely broken.

However, democracy may use capitalism in a constructive way if its root function of pooling capital is not permitted to become a free-for-all. When a group of heads toss 50 bucks apiece into a pool to buy a pound of some decent pot, that's capitalism at it's finest. A little more money buys a lot more pot. That initial investment has a good purpose (presuming you believe that smoking pot has benefits).

That would be comparable to an IPO. When stock is issued the very first time, that's an IPO, or an initial public offering. However, after this initial market, there is an aftermarket in which an investor wants to buy a stock that has already been issued, that has been placed back on the market for sale. His purchase creates a secondary market, where trading in the highs and lows of these stocks is the primary activity of the stock exchange. As long as that stock is backed by real assets a company has acquired or developed in terms of product, physical plants, fixtures and equipment, which exist as the direct result of the original investment, then there's a direct ratio of capital investments to assets. When it is a bond based upon a debt, such as a pool of mortgages providing a stream of income that will pay interest, the asset isn't real, and the only ratio you have is to probabilities rather than real assets. It's merely a promise whose value is entirely subject to the slightest change in fortune for the underlying debtor/mortgagor. Outright prohibition of this kind of trading needs to be enacted into law.

Companies ought also to be barred from purchasing debt from other companies or institutions, because it permits the purchase of that debt at a discount, thereby leveraging small amounts of capital into disproportionate degrees of power. From an investor's point of view, that's ideal. But from the standpoint of democracy, that's capitalism at its worst.

The U.S. government was stolen from the people by our Most Holy Founders who had the wealth and capital to buy up all the debt we accumulated to pay for the Revolutionary War. When matters of how we construct a government came up, just as creditors do in a bankruptcy proceeding, they had the power to make the rules, and they had one very focused thing in mind: to collect payment of that debt any way that they could. This story is detailed very extensively in a book recently published called Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, authored by Wood Holton.

The Founding Fathers' original purpose in creating a Constitution was to establish a legal framework to legally tax everyone else and require them to pay face value upon bonds they acquired for as little as 1/8 the original price, and to insulate themselves from the victims of this scam and from democracy itself through the use of a Senate and the power of presidential veto.

The original bond holders sold this debt the government owed them for a price less than the face value on each bond to finance the construction of new homes, plant crops, and create a livelihood after the war. It was a genuine need, but it should never have been financed with the national debt. That should never have been permitted. Giving debt itself a market price made it possible for just a few men with a very small amount of money to control the wealth and strength of an entire nation.

The inevitable outcome is a structure that reflects that original purpose: a government that expresses the will of a narrow group of people who hoard wealth and power, who may dictate who shall be our candidates for office, what information we are allowed to have through the media, and what laws are passed that regulate our lives. Those individuals have erected a corporate structure that ostensibly provides jobs and income but in fact also minimizes the wealth we can accumulate, makes obsolete everything we consume in order to keep the corporate structure on top and capitalized to continue providing us with more of the same useless garbage over and over again. The system is designed so that they hold on to their assets, acquire more, and distribute less. The rich become richer, the poor poorer. That's called "growth." Corporations are growing. People are shrinking.

These represent some of the evils of capitalism, but my suspicion is that communal concepts based upon the power of community have essentially similar origins. We organize to unite individuals who have limited power as individuals but who may dramatically increase our power when uniting with others of like mind. Most states, unions and organizations are based upon that same idea. That's United Progressives.

Capitalism also represents a community of people who have united in order that small amounts of capital can do large things. However, the fundamental difference is that capitalists, i.e., those who provide capital, share risk in proportion to their investment. It represents an accurate reflection of life itself. Some of us go skydiving and some of us, like me, work in the garden. The degree of risk determines the size of both failure and reward. If the garden fails, you can plant a new one. If skydiving fails, there usually isn't a second chance. I think that those are fair considerations to make in constructing a society. There should be some reward for risk.

However, because risk stratifies people as well, these stratifications become impenetrable class and power barriers when misused. More risk does not mean more equal and less risk less equal, and yet risk is distributed in shares or specific percentages of over-all value, and they are counted like individual votes, like real people in a democracy The more you own, the more votes you have. When you have 51%, you have a controlling interest.

That's the defining point at which capitalism completely breaks down. It is no longer a fair distribution of risk, but a disproportionate amount of risk that is acquired by a single player whose own prejudices as well as wisdom or the lack of it becomes a part of the risk, who may also completely upend the original purposes of pooling capital. The original purpose of pooling capital during the Revolutionary War was to gain independence from British tax collectors. After the war, taxes imposed by the states were six times higher than they had been before and resulted in widespread rebellion.

There should never be a market for national debt or for debt of any kind beyond the original function. No one purchasing bonds for war debt or any other debt created by our government should be allowed to transfer that debt to anyone else, except in the case of death, or perhaps a physical or mental impairment, and there ought to be strict limits on the percentage of over-all debt either a company or a country or any one individual may acquire that represents power over the health, welfare and incomes of other people.

No foreign country should be allowed to acquire our national debt or the debt of private corporations upon whom our economy depends to any percentage significant enough to affect our markets if a demand for payment in full would be made to satisfy that debt.

What is happening right now is the inevitable consequence of allowing debt to be the basis of our market and greed to be the underpinnings of democracy. Debt is not an asset. The last thing we should ever have done was to hinge the future of this country on the promises of our worst credit risks.

Published by
United Progressives
44 Music Square East
#702
Nashville, TN 37203
http://www.unitedprogressives.us
T

The Cholesterol Scare - Are You A Victim?

2008-10-22T13:49:00.004+05:30

posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Wednesday August 6 2008