Kolkata, A professor of chemistry of the Jadavpur University was arrested on Friday along with his neighbour for allegedly posting a cartoon on a popular social networking site involving chief minister Mamata Banerjee, railway minister Mukul Roy and former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi. DCP (south suburban division) Sujay Chanda said that professor Ambikesh Mohapatra was arrested along with a neighbour residing in east Jadavpur for spreading derogatory messages against "respectable persons". They would be produced in a court, he said. The cartoon showed the chief minister and the railway minister exchanging dialogues from a popular Bengali film by Satyajit Ray which alluded to the replacement of Dinesh Trivedi by Mukul Roy as railway minister. The arrests triggered reaction from various circles with state labour minister Purnendu Bose justifying the police action. Bose argued that it was not a cartoon, but real pictures, which were nothing but an insult. "Law will take its own course," he said. Rebel Trinamool Congress MP Kabir Suman, who has fallen foul of party supremo Mamata Banerjee for his controversial statements, slammed the police for making the ...
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London, Oxford University scientists are planning to introduce the first driverless car on Britain's roads. The vehicle, a modified BAE Wildcat military jeep, will be programmed with a three-dimensional map of routes around Oxford and nearby Woodstock. The scientists intend to ask the government to approve the vehicle for use on open roads within the next two months. The robotic car uses a series of sensors, including cameras and lasers, to calculate its exact location. It can sense the presence of other vehicles on the road and take avoiding action if necessary, something that driverless cars equipped with GPS-based technology have been unable to do. Professor Paul Newman, head of the mobile robotics group at the university, said the vehicle had made its first driverless journey last week on a private road at the university's Begbroke science park. "We want to use it on normal everyday roads where other people would use them. Central Oxford would be nice, also Woodstock because of the variable terrain and roads," the Telegraph quoted Newman as saying. He added that a research team member would be in the car during testing to take control in the event of an ...
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Islamabad, Pakistan's apparent opinion about the US of being a threat equal to or larger than India, amid its changing relationship with the latter, has led Islamabad into rushing to make more bombs, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) has claimed in a write-up. Americans are now a threat, equal to or larger than India. They are also considered more of an adversary than even the TT jihadists who have killed thousands of Pakistani troops and civilians, Pervez Hoodbhoy, a former head of the physics department at Quaid-i-Azam University, writes in The Express Tribune column. They are also considered more of an adversary than even the TT jihadists who have killed thousands of Pakistani troops and civilians. The anti-American feeling is allegedly rising over reports that the US is tightly embracing India, and standing in the way of a Pakistan-friendly government in Kabul. The writer says that this shift in their attitude has created two strong non-India reasons that favour speeding up bomb production. First, Pakistan's nuclear weapons are seen to be threatened by America. This perception has been reinforced by the large amount of attention given to the ...
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London, Pop star Lady Gaga will launch her Born This Way Foundation at Harvard University next month. The 25-year-old set up the youth anti-bullying charity with her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, and is now making plans to unveil her initiative before some of the US-based university, reports contactmusic.com. Explaining the idea behind the project, Germanotta said: "My daughter's foundation was born out of her passion to create a better world where people are kinder and nicer to one another and are accepted for who they are, regardless of how different they may be." "...Together, we look forward to creating a new movement that will engage and empower youth and accept them as valuable members of our society," she added. ...
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Islamabad, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has again suggested that the military should always remain subservient to civilian rule. All national institutions should perform their functions in their respective domains, he said Tuesday at the National Defence University (NDU) here, the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported. "Democracy guarantees dynamic stability. It enables the creative forces of our people to find expression and full resonance for the socio-economic transformation of our country," he added. APP said the audience included Chief of Army General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral M. Asif Sandila and senior officials of the three services. Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar also attended the event. "Our institutions are stable and have a rich history and tradition," said Gilani, who recently created a flutter when he bluntly told the military that only the elected government can decide Pakistan's future. The prime minister promised to work towards creating "a stable external environment conducive to ...
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Washington, A cutting edge software, developed and tested by naval scientists, can help undersea robots become smarter at surveying large swathes of the ocean. "Using the new algorithms, the vehicle has a greater ability to make its own decisions without requiring a human in the loop," said Marc Steinberg, programme officer for Office of Naval Research's (ONR) multidisciplinary programme. With plans to deploy squadrons of air, surface and undersea robotic vehicles later this decade, the US Navy is investing in basic research programmes to improve autonomous system capabilities, according to an ONR statement. "Advancing autonomy for unmanned systems allows you the ability to do things that wouldn't be practical otherwise because we don't have enough warfighters or communication today," said Steinberg, who works in ONR's Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department. ONR funded researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Southern California to advance the intelligence of autonomous vehicles under its programmes for surveillance. They developed a persistent surveillance theory that provides a framework for decision making software that ...
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London, Jay Z is now a part of the course curriculum in Georgetown University, entitled ‘Sociology of Hip Hop: Jay-Z’. The course, offered by Professor Michael Eric Dyson, will study the rapper’s lyrical prowess, which has been compared by him as if analysing fine literature. For Dyson, Jay Z’s lyrics reflect incisive social commentary, and perfect material for a university class. The course may seem an unlikely offering at a Jesuit, majority-white school that counts former President Bill Clinton among its alumni, the Daily Mail reported. Additionally, the fact that a class at one of nation’s top schools is based around a popular, living celebrity has struck many as odd. But Dyson asserted that that his class confronts topics present in any sociology course: racial and gender identity, sexuality, capitalism and economic inequality. “It just happens to have an interesting object of engagement in Jay-Z – and what better way to meet people where they are?” Mr Dyson said. Dyson has said that Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, is a worthy subject because of his diverse business interests – a clothing entrepreneur, he’s also a part owner of ...
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London, Scientists from Keele University have found that swearing after hurting yourself can help numb the pain of an injury. They discovered that letting forth a volley of foul language could have a powerful painkilling effect, especially for people who do not normally use expletives, reports the Telegraph. In the study, student volunteers placed their hands in a bucket of ice cold water while swearing repeatedly. They then repeated the exercise but, instead of swearing, used a harmless phrase instead. Researchers found that the students were able to keep their hands submerged in the icy water for longer when repeating the swear word, establishing a link between swearing and an increase in pain tolerance. They also found that the pain-numbing effect was four times more likely to work in the volunteers who did not normally use bad language. The team believes the pain-lessening effect occurs because swearing triggers the ''''fight or flight'''' response. ''''Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon,” said Richard Stephens, who worked on the project. ''''It taps into emotional brain centres and appears to ...
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By Arun Kumar , Six Indian American university students have been chosen the American Rhodes Scholar Class of 2012 out of a pool of 830 candidates who had been nominated by their colleges and universities. Ishan Nath, Aysha Bagchi, Nabeel Gillani, Anand Habib, Mohit Agrawal and Tenzin Seldon are among 32 students chosen for the prestigious scholarship for two or three years study at Oxford University at about $50,000 per year. Ishan Nath, a senior at Stanford double-majoring in economics and earth systems with a concentration in energy science, will earn an MSc in economics for development at Oxford. Aysha Bagchi, also from Stanford, graduated in June with a double major in philosophy and history before shifting to Jerusalem, Israel, where she currently studies at its Hebrew University. She will earn an M Phil in political theory at Oxford. The son of an Indian mother and Bangladeshi father, Nabeel Gillani is a senior at Brown University majoring in applied mathematics and computer science. At Oxford he plans to do his MSc in computer science and MSc in education. Another Stanford graduate, Anand R. Habib, is the son of Geetha Habib, a native of Madurai, and Mohamed ...
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Washington, Dinosaurs that existed in the North Pole might have had tougher and shorter lifespan, with many not making it to their 20th birthday, according to a new study. The findings offer a rare look at dinosaur life stages. By counting tree-like bands on femur fossils, paleontologists can estimate dinosaur growth stages. Fossils from high latitudes better express growth bands that reveal how these animals grew up. Scientists can then analyze them similar to how they study tree rings. “We determine growth rates by looking at the number and spacing of the growth bands in a cross section of a femur,” co-author Patrick Druckenmiller told Discovery News. “We measure the distance of each band from the centre of the bone as a proxy for body size. In this case, it’s presented as a percentage of total length. Growth banding becomes narrower as the growth rate progressively tapers off later in life,” he explained. Following this process, the researchers determined some polar dinosaurs grew rapidly as juveniles, became sexually mature at about age 9, and died at around age 19 (assuming they didn’t bite the dust due to disease, an accident, or for some other ...
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London, Have you ever wondered how we make accurate perception of environment out of smell, taste, hear, view and touch. Now, a team of scientists at the University of Rochester, Washington University in St. Louis, and Baylor College of Medicine has solved the mystery. The human brain is bombarded with a cacophony of information from the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin. But the team has discovered how the brain manages to process those complex, rapidly changing, and often conflicting sensory signals to make sense of our world. They say a relatively simple computation performed by single nerve cells, an operation that can be described mathematically as a straightforward weighted average, make it possible. The key is that the neurons have to apply the correct weights to each sensory cue, and the authors reveal how this is done. The study represented the first direct evidence of how the brain combines multiple sources of sensory information to form as accurate a perception as possible of its environment, the researchers said. It showed that the brain does not have to first “decide” which sensory cue is more reliable and demonstrated that the low-level ...
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Ludhiana, January 26 (DNS)- The Centre has nominated Chairman and Managing Director, Vardhman Group of Industries, SP Oswal, for the Padma Bhushan award. An announcement in this regard was made in New Delhi today. The award will be conferred on him by the President at the Rashtrapati Bhawan soon. Talking to DNS from New Delhi, Oswal said he was grateful to the state and Central governments for having chosen him for one of the highest awards. He said, “I am also grateful to society and the people in my organisation, who worked as a team to achieve greater heights.” Born in 1942, Oswal passed his master degree in commerce with gold medal from Panjab University, Chandigarh. The Vardhman Group established in 1962 has today blossomed into one of the largest textile business houses in India. It has the largest yarn manufacturing capacity in the country with over 7,50,000 spindles. The group achieved a turnover of Rs 3,200 crore in 2008-09 and employs around 23,000 persons at its various plants, offices and branches. Oswal has contribution in the area of agriculture. In 1999, 2001 and 2002, when the yield of cotton in the state had fallen to a level that scared farmers, he took ...
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Chandigarh, January 24 (DNS)- Punjab’s agriculture economists today advised the state’s farmers to cut down on ostentatious expenditure. During a day-long seminar organised by the Institute of Sikh Studies, Chandigarh, on the state of rural economy of Punjab, experts highlighted the plethora of causes that had made agriculture an economically unprofitable occupation in Punjab. In the inaugural address, Dr GS Kalkat, Chairman of the Punjab State Farmers Commission, explained that the agricultural yield in the state was among the highest in the world and it might not be possible to increase it further using current technology. “Even though income per acre has increased a lot, the income per household had gone down due to breakdown of the joint family system and fragmentation of agricultural holdings,” he said. He pointed out that the wheat-paddy cycle of cultivation was being promoted by the Government of India by providing marketing support for the produce to ensure food security of the country. “However, for protecting the ecological balance of the state, it was incumbent to start cultivating alternative crops like maize,” he said. He also felt that due to faulty ...
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Patiala, January 15 (DNS)- Punjabi University has decided to set up a centre for Sufi studies on the varsity campus. The centre would be called the Baba Farid Centre for Sufi Studies. This was stated by varsity’s Vice-Chancellor Dr Jaspal Singh here today while presiding over a two-day national seminar on “Sufism and Sufi literature”. The seminar is being organised by the varisity’s Department of Persian, Urdu and Arabic studies at the Senate Hall. Dr Jaspal Singh said the centre would come up by the end of this year and it would be devoted to creating a treasure house of knowledge available in the discipline, carrying out research and starting courses related to Sufism. He said there was a deep symbiotic relationship between preachings of Sufism and Guru Granth Sahib. Both theses spiritual traditions vehemently denounced discrimination among human beings and duplicitous practices. “Banis of Sikh Gurus and Baba Farid, as contained in Guru Granth Sahib, have many common undertones, aimed at promoting a composite culture and a pluralistic society, imbibed with a spirit of brotherhood among mankind, he said. Dr AA Siddiqui, a former DGP of Punjab and Chairman of the ...
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Ludhiana, December 30 (DNS)- Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, has released five new varieties of vegetables and fruits, one each of bitter gourd, tomato, guava, grapefruit and mushroom. The varieties are Punjab kareli-1 of bitter gourd, Punjab ratta of tomato, Punjab pink of guava, star ruby of grapefruit and shitake mushroom. Clearance for their release for general cultivation was given at a state variety approval committee meeting held recently at PAU under the chairmanship of Dr Baldev Singh, Director of Horticulture, Punjab. Punjab kareli-1 has green, smooth and serrated leaves. Its vines are long and fruits long thin, green and ridged. It takes 66 days for first harvest. One fruit weighs about 50g and the average yield is 70 q per acre. Punjab pink guava is an apple colour hybrid. The trees of this variety are vigorous with drooping branches. The fruit is medium to large with attractive red skin in summer and golden yellow in winter. The flesh is red with a pleasant flavour. The TSS ranges from 10.5 to 12.0 per cent. It is a prolific bearer and the average yield is 53 kg per tree. The grape variety star ruby has medium-sized trees, its fruit size is ...
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