Gk may 2013

ABBREVIATIONS

IDSN: Indian Deep Space Network.

INC: ISRO Navigation Centre.

IRNSS: Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System.

MAVEN: Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (spacecraft).

SAFAR: System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research.

AVIATION

Solar Impulse—Solar-powered plane

Solar Impulse, a solar-powered airplane that developers hope to eventually pilot around the world took off on

3 May 2013, from San Francisco Bay on the first leg of an attempt to fly across the United States with no fuel

but the sun’s energy.

After stops in Dallas, St. Louis and Washington D.C., with pauses at each destination to wait for favourable

weather, the flight team hopes to conclude the plane's cross-country voyage in about two months at John F.

Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Swiss pilots and co-founders of the project, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, will take turns flying the

plane, built with a single-seat cockpit.

The project began in 2003 with a 10-year budget of 90 million euros and has involved engineers from Swiss

escalator maker Schindler and research aid from Belgian chemicals group Solvay as backers who want to test

new materials and technologies while also gaining brand recognition.

With the wingspan of a jumbo jet and weighing the same as a small car, the Solar Impulse is a test model for

a more advanced aircraft the team plans to build to circumnavigate the globe in 2015. The plane made its first

intercontinental flight, from Spain to Morocco, in June 2012.

The Solar Impulse can fly after dark on solar energy generated during daylight hours, and will become the

first solar-powered aircraft capable of operating day and night without fuel to attempt a US coast-to-coast

flight.

But the plane is unlikely to set any speed or altitude records. It can climb gradually to 8,500 meters and flies

at an average pace of just 69 km per hour.

AWARDS

Outstanding Parliamentarian Award 

The recipients of the award are: BJP leader Arun Jaitley for 2010, Congress MP Karan Singh for 2011 and

JD(U) MP Sharad Yadav for 2012. The Indian Parliamentary Group had instituted the Outstanding

Parliamentarian Award in the year 1994. The award is conferred each year on an outstanding parliamentarian

recommended by the award committee and approved by the executive committee of the Indian Parliamentary

Group.

ISRO Young Scientist Award, 2013

Jenita Mary Nongkynrih, a young woman scientist from Meghalaya, has been selected for the award, for her

urban information system project in the North East. The award carries a citation and cash of Rs 50,000.

Currently working as a scientist at the North Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC), Umiam,

Nongkynrih holds a Master’s degree in Geography from the North Eastern Hill University.

Green Oscar (Whitley Award), 2013

Aparajit Datta, a young wildlife biologist who converted bird hunters into their saviours in remote forests of

Arunachal Pradesh, has been awarded the 2013 Whitley Award, also known as Green Oscar. She was among

the eight conservationists from across the world to win the prestigious award and shared 295,000 pounds as

the prize money.

Datta leads a programme to conserve hornbills in the Indian Eastern Himalaya at the Nature Conservation

Foundation (NCF), an NGO established in 1996 to promote science-based wildlife conservation in India.

Hornbills are prominent birds of Asian tropical forests and Arunachal is home to five hornbill species. But

their killing by locals for meat and habitat loss because of shifting cultivation had threatened their existence

deep inside forests.

World Press Freedom Prize, 2013

UNESCO has awarded Ethiopian journalist Reeyot Alemu the 2013 World Press Freedom Prize for her

exceptional courage, resistance and commitment to freedom of expression. She and Eskinder Nega are two of

the best-known Ethiopian journalists who have been imprisoned by the Ethiopian government on false

charges of terrorism.

Templeton Prize, 2013

Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, has been awarded the Prize for his life-long

work in advancing spiritual principles such as love and forgiveness which has helped to liberate people

around the world. He rose to world prominence with his stalwart—and successful—opposition to South

Africa’s apartheid regime. He combines the theological concept that all human beings are shaped in the image

of God, known in Latin as Imago Dei, with the traditional African belief of Ubuntu, which holds that only

through others do people achieve humanity.

The prize, valued at about $1.7 million, is the world’s largest annual monetary award for the past 40 years. It

honours a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.

Man Booker International Prize, 2013

Lydia Davis, the shortest of all short story writers, whose works can be as brief as a single sentence, has won

the fifth Man Booker International Prize. The £60,000 honour is presented every two years to a living, non-

UK author for a body of work published in English

The Massachusetts-born Davis is best known for her short stories, a number of them among the shortest ever

published. She has been described as “the master of a literary form largely of her own invention”.

Her work, closer to essayist poems and philosophical monologues than conventional short stories, includes

the story collections “Break It Down” (1986), “Samuel Johnson Is Indignant” (2002) and “Varieties of

Disturbance” (2007). Typically, her stories run for between three and four pages. But many are as brief as a

paragraph, or a sentence.

Currently professor of creative writing at the University at Albany, the capital of New York State, Davis is

due to publish her next collection of short stories, “Can’t and Won’t”, in June 2014.

The Booker International prize has previously been awarded to Ismail Kadaré in 2005, Chinua Achebe in

2007, Alice Munro in 2009 and Philip Roth in 2011.

Shaw Prize, 2013

For Astronomy: Steven A. Balbus and John F. Hawley “for their discovery and study of the

magnetorotational instability, and for demonstrating that this instability leads to turbulence and is a viable

mechanism for angular momentum transport in astrophysical accretion disks.”  Dr Balbus is Savilian

professor of astronomy at the University of Oxford in the UK. Dr Hawley is associate dean for the sciences,

and a professor and chair of the astronomy department at the University of Virginia, USA.

For Life Science & Medicine:  Shared by Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young “for

their discovery of molecular mechanisms underlying circadian rhythms, which are guided by biological

clocks and drive the waking and sleeping cycle.”   Dr Hall is visiting Professor at the University of Maine. Dr

Rosbash is Professor of Biology at Brandeis University. Dr. Young is Vice President for Academic Affairs

and Professor at the Rockefeller University.

For Mathematical Sciences: David L. Donoho for his “contributions to modern mathematical statistics and

in particular the development of optimal algorithms for statistical estimation in the presence of noise and of

efficient techniques for sparse representation and recovery in large data-sets.” Dr Donoho is Professor of

Statistics at Stanford University.

Shaw Prize, named after the 105-year-old Hong Kong media titan and philanthropist Run Run Shaw, is often

referred to informally as the Nobel Prize of Asia. The annual award marked its 10th anniversary for

recognizing scientists and scholars in the fields of astronomy, life science and medicine, and mathematical

sciences.  

Each prize receives US$1 million, and in the case of two or more winners for one prize, the award money is

shared. 

BOOKS

Gandhi's Outstanding Leadership

Written by former Indian diplomat-turned-Gandhian Pascal Alan Nazareth, its first Chinese version was

released at the Peking University’s Centre for India Studies on 27 May 2013, marking the debut of Gandhian

philosophy in a country intensely dominated by the ideology of Mao. Prof Shang Quanyu, a history professor

with the South China Normal University, translated the book into Mandarin.

DEFENCE

MiG-29Ks inducted in to Indian Navy

Union Defence Minister AK Antony commissioned MIG-29 K fighter planes into the Indian Navy on 11 May

2013, at INS Hansa naval base in Goa. The squadron has been named INAS 303 Black Panthers.

The MIG-29K (K stands for ‘Korabelny’ meaning “Carrier Borne” in Russian) is a potent carrier borne

fighter, which, once integrated with ‘INS Vikramaditya’ will bolster the Navy’s punch with its multi-role

capability.

The aircraft, armed with its arsenal of weapons, including advanced anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles,

precious bombs and sophisticated systems to support weapon delivery, will not only be able to dominate the

air in all spectrum of conflict but simultaneously project power to meet the nation’s military objectives.

ENVIRONMENT

System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research

The System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), which provides information about air quality,

weather and the current UV index, was launched on 1 May 2013.

Pollutants like PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO3, O3 have adverse effects on the respiratory system of humans. These

pollutants can also affect blood circulation, cause allergies and cardiovascular diseases. Hence, monitoring

these parameters is very essential.

Under SAFAR, pollutants will be continuously monitored at ten air quality monitoring stations, established at

Bhosari (Growth lab, PCMC), Nigdi Pradhikaran (Jal Shudhikaran Kendra, PCMC), Alandi (MIT), Pashan

(IITM), Shivajinagar (Shimala Office), Dhankawadi (Bharati Vidyapeeth), Hadapsar (Lohiya Udyan, PMC),

Manjari (VSI), Lohegaon (Pune Airport) and Girinagar (DIAT).

The Index rates the pollutants on a scale of good, moderate, poor, very poor and critical. Information would

be disseminated in a simple and user-friendly format for the public through digital display boards, SAFAR

website, e-mail alerts, SMS alerts and interactive voice response service (IVRS).

UNESCO designates Nicobar Islands as a world biosphere

UNESCO has designated India’s Nicobar Islands as a world biosphere reserve under its Man and the

Biosphere Programme. Member countries establish such reserves and the world body recognizes them under

the programme to promote sustainable development based on local community efforts and sound science.

They are considered as sites of excellence, where new and optimal practices to manage nature and human

activities are tested and demonstrated.

The island chain, home to 1,800 animal species and some of the world’s most endangered tribes, was among

12 new sites added to the global network of biosphere reserves. Such reserves are located in 117 countries

and nine of them are now located in India.

Other sites added to the list include Pakistan’s Ziarat Juniper forest and China’s Snake Island.

PLACES

Daulat Beg Oldi

This area in Ladakh region of J&K was in news due to incursions across the LAC by Chinese troops, up to 19

km inside Indian territory, in end April 2013.  Following the incidence, both countries exercised restraint and

properly handled the incident through relevant mechanisms, diplomatic channels and border meetings.  After

prolonged efforts, the Chinese finally agreed to withdraw on 5 May 2013.

Daulat Beg Oldi (also known as Oldie, DBO) is a historic camp site. It lies at the easternmost point of the

Karakoram Range, just 8 km south of the Chinese border and 9 km northwest of the Aksai Chin Line of

Actual Control between China and India. Other than Siachen Glacier military bases, it is India’s northernmost

built-up area. The nearest inhabited town is Murgo, which has a small population of Baltis.

The Indian Army maintains helipads and a gravel air strip here, the highest airstrip in the world. Routine

sorties are carried out using An-32 aircraft to provide relief and supplies to the troops stationed nearby.

Katchatheevu 

The 1974 Agreement signed between India and Sri Lanka had determined Katchatheevu islet as a part of Sri

Lanka, and it was ceded by the Indian government. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha has called for

India to retrieve the islet as it was ceded without obtaining the approval of both Houses of Parliament. The

Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on 3 May 2013, stating that in view of the legal

invalidity of the 1974 and 1976 Agreements, the Centre should take steps to retrieve Katchatheevu and

surrounding areas. The Tamil Nadu government also feels that retrieving the islet will help put an end to the

“continuing threat to the livelihood” of State fishermen by Lankan navy.

Oklahoma 

On 20 May 2013, over 90 people, including 20 children, were killed after a monstrous tornado ripped through

this US city, flattening entire neighbourhoods, crushing two elementary schools and turning the area into a

war-zone. The tornado, over a km wide, ripped through the area with winds of up to 320 km/h.  Oklahoma

City is the capital and the largest city in the US State of Oklahoma. The city ranks 30th among United States

cities in population, and features one of the largest livestock markets in the world.  Since the time weather

records have been kept, Oklahoma City had been struck by nine strong tornadoes before the 20 May tornado. 

On 3 May 3 1999, parts of southern Oklahoma City and nearby communities had suffered one of the most

powerful tornadoes on record, an F-5 on the Fujita scale, with wind speeds topping 510 km/h.

Rashtriya Smriti

The Union government has given approval for the construction of a ‘Rashtriya Smriti’ at the Samadhis

Complex near the Ekta Sthal in New Delhi, to establish a place to perform the last rites of departed national

leaders which would include Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Prime Ministers, former Presidents, former Vice-

Presidents, former Prime Ministers and other such leaders as decided from time to time. 

Thanjavur

To strengthen India’s presence over Indian Ocean region, a fighter aircraft base has been established here. It

was inaugurated on 27 May 2013. IAF has stationed its most lethal Su-30MKI combat aircraft here.  This is

the first ever fighter base in southern peninsula area of India. The full Sukhoi squadron (16 to 18 jets) will be

deployed at the base by 2017-18.  So far India has inducted over 170 of the 272 Sukhoi-30MKIs contracted

from Russia. Pune and Bareilly already have housed two Sukhoi squadrons each, while Tezpur, Chabua,

Halwara and Jodhpur have a squadron each.

Thanjavur, formerly Tanjore, is the headquarters of the Thanjavur District of Tamil Nadu. Scholars believe

the name Thanjavur is derived from Tanjan, a legendary demon in Hindu mythology.  The city first rose to

prominence during the reign of medieval Cholas when it served as the capital of the empire. After the fall of

Cholas, the city was ruled by various dynasties like Pandyas, Vijayanagar, Madurai Nayaks etc.   It is an

important centre of South Indian art and architecture. Most of the Chola temples, which are UNESCO World

Heritage monuments, are located in and around Thanjavur. The foremost among these, the Brihadeeswara

Temple, is located in the centre of the city. 

Thanjavur is also home to Tanjore painting, a painting style unique to the region.

RESEARCH

NASA Rover to explore Greenland Ice sheet

On 3 May 2013, NASA sent a six feet-tall solar-powered rover prototype designed for ice exploration on

highest part of Greenland’s massive ice sheet.

The robot, known as GROVER, which stands for both Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated

Vehicle for Exploration and Research, will roam the frigid landscape collecting measurements to help

scientists better understand changes in the massive ice sheet.

This autonomous, solar-powered robot carries a ground-penetrating radar to study how snow accumulates,

adding layer upon layer to the ice sheet over time.

Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, expect GROVER to detect the layer of the

ice sheet that formed in the aftermath of that extreme melt event.

Research with polar rovers costs less than aircraft or satellites, the usual platforms.

GROVER will be joined on the ice sheet in June by another robot, named Cool Robot, developed at

Dartmouth College, Hanover. This rover can tow a variety of instrument packages to conduct glaciological

and atmospheric sampling studies.

The robot is powered entirely by solar energy, so it can operate in pristine polar environments without adding

to air pollution. The panels are mounted in an inverted V, allowing them to collect energy from the Sun and

sunlight reflected off the ice sheet.

A ground-penetrating radar powered by two rechargeable batteries rests on the back of the rover. The radar

sends radio wave pulses into the ice sheet, and the waves bounce off buried features, informing researchers

about the characteristics of the snow and ice layers.

Because the Sun never dips below the horizon during the Arctic summer, GROVER can work at any time

during the day.

Samsung tests 5G wireless technology

Samsung Electronics has successfully tested super-fast fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology that would

eventually allow users to download an entire movie in one second. The South Korean giant said the test had

witnessed data transmission of more than one gigabyte per second over a distance of two kilometres.

However, the new technology will not be ready for the commercial market before 2020 at the earliest.

Samsung said it had found a way to harness millimeter-wave bands which have proved to be a sticking point

for the mobile industry to date. The test used 64 antenna elements, which the tech titan said overcame the

issue of “unfavourable propagation characteristics” that have prevented data travelling across long distances

using the bands. One of the most wired countries on earth, South Korea already has around 20 million 4G

users.

SPACE RESEARCH

Take poems to Mars

NASA is giving the public an opportunity to send a message to Mars aboard the Mars Atmosphere and

Volatile Evolution spacecraft (MAVEN). The spacecraft will bring along with it a DVD containing three

haikus, along with the name of their authors as part of the Going To Mars project to publicize the spacecraft’s

mission.

“The Going to Mars campaign offers people worldwide a way to make a personal connection to space, space

exploration and science in general, and share in our excitement about the MAVEN mission,” said Stephanie

Renfrow, lead for the MAVEN Education and Public Outreach program at University of Colorado, Boulder’s

Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

Along with ferrying the public’s haikus to the Red Planet, the spacecraft is being sent to investigate what

caused the loss of Mars’ atmosphere and water. The probe will gather data about the evolution of Mars’

climate to examine why the planet lost 99% of its atmosphere over millions of years.

The submission deadline for poetry is July 1, and the public will be able to vote for their favorites starting

July 15. Just three haikus will be selected to join MAVEN on its Martian journey. The contest is open to

“anyone on planet Earth” over 18. The poem must be three lines: five syllables in the first line, seven

syllables in the second, and five again in the third.

Opportunity Mars rover breaks US off-planet driving record

NASA’s long-lived Opportunity Mars rover is the new US champion of off-planet driving, breaking a

distance record set more than 40 years ago by an Apollo moon buggy. The six-wheeled Opportunity rover

drove 80 meters on 15 May, bringing its total odometry on the Red Planet to 35.760 kilometres. The previous

mark had been held by the Apollo 17 moon rover, which astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt drove

for 35.744 km across the lunar surface in December 1972.

Opportunity still trails another robot for the international distance record. The Soviet Union’s remote-

controlled Lunokhod-2 rover had travelled 37 km on the moon in 1973.

The golf-cart-size Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, landed on Mars in January 2004 on three-month missions

to search for signs of past water activity on the Red Planet. They found plenty of such evidence and since

then have been roving around the planet.

Spirit stopped communicating with Earth in 2010 and was declared dead a year later. But Opportunity is still

going strong, exploring the rim of Mars’ Endeavour Crater.

ISRO Navigation Centre

On 28 May 2013, ISRO opened a navigation centre near Bangalore for a proposed Indian Regional

Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), a constellation of seven spacecraft that will enable users to know their

location and time accurately.

Located in the Deep Space Network (DSN) complex of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at

Byalalu, about 40 km from Bangalore, the navigation centre will function as the main ground station for the

satellite system.

The satellite system will be equipped with high precision atomic clocks and transmit navigation signals to

multiple users round the clock. The navigation centre will also be responsible for the time reference,

generation of navigation messages and monitoring and control of ground facilities, including ranging stations.

A network of 21 ranging stations located across the country will provide data for the orbit determination of

the satellites and monitoring of the navigation signal. The data from the ranging and monitoring stations is

relayed to the data processing facility at the centre on real-time basis to generate navigation messages, which

are in turn transmitted to the satellites through the spacecraft control facility of the space agency at Hassan in

Karnataka (180 km from Bangalore) and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh.

The navigation satellite system will provide two types of services–standard positioning service for civilian

use and restricted service, which is encrypted, for authorised users (military and security).

April 2013ABBREVIATIONS

AAA:  Appropriate Arrangement Agreement.

ATT: Arms Trade Treaty.

HFT: High Frequency Trading.

VVPAT:  Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (system).

AWARDS

Jnanpith Award, 2012

Eminent Telugu novelist, short story writer, poet and critic Ravuri Bharadwaja has been selected for the

prestigious Jnanpith award for the year 2012, for his contribution to Telugu literature.

Mr. Bharadwaja is the third Telugu to be chosen for the honour, after the late Viswanatha Satyanarayana

for Ramayana Kalpavruksham (1970) and C. Narayana Reddy for Viswambara’(1988). The 86-year-old

writer has to his credit 37 collections of short stories, 17 novels, six short novels for children and eight plays.

Topping the galaxy of writers of post-Gopichand era, he was first reckoned as a successor to Chalam. But

Bharadwaja made a mark of his own by embellishing his writings with distinct characteristics in his

inimitable style, diction, portrayal and narration. If Paakuduraallu is a masterpiece that presents a graphic

account of life behind the screen in the film industry, and came to be known for its originality and

craftsmanship, another novel, Kadambari, is equally acclaimed as an outstanding work. His other notable

works are Jeevana Samaram, Inupu Tera Venuka andKoumudi.

Kalidas Samman, 2013

Veteran actor Anupam Kher, for his contribution in the field of theater. The Kalidas Samman is a prestigious

award presented annually by the government of Madhya Pradesh. It is named after Kalidas—a renowned

Classical Sanskrit writer of ancient India—widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit

language with his Meghadutam and Abhigyan Shakuntalam.

Dada Saheb Phalke Award, 2012

Veteran actor Pran Sikand, a Hindi cinema villain loved and feared in equal measure by moviegoers. The

award, named after the father of Indian cinema, Dada Saheb Phalke, also marked the 100 years of Indian

cinema.

93-year-old Pran, who acted in over 400 films in his six-decade-long career, retired from acting in

1998.Beginning his career as a hero in 1940 with Yamala Jat, Pran went on to achieve fame as a villain in

numerous films, including classics like Milan,Madhumati and Kashmir Ki Kali.

Such was the magic of his unique on-screen villainy, that people stopped naming their children ‘Pran’ at the

height of his fame as an actor.

He was equally good when he stepped into character roles and won many hearts as loveable Mangal

Chacha in Upkar, thoroughly entertained as street-smart fraud inVictoria No.203, and epitomised on-screen

friendship in the role of a rough but kind Pathan in Zanjeer.

Pulitzer Prizes, 2013

For Public Service: The Sun Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for its investigation of off-duty police

officers who were endangering the lives of citizen.

For National Reporting: Reporters at InsideClimate News, an online site in Brooklyn, New York, for their

“rigorous” reports on the flawed regulation of the nation’s oil pipelines.

For International Reporting:  David Barboza of The New York Times, for his exposure of corruption at high

levels of the Chinese government, including secret wealth owned by relatives of the Prime Minister.

For Investigative reporting: Two reporters for The New York Times, David Barstow and Alejandra Xanic

von Bertrab, for their reports on how Wal-Mart used widespread bribery to dominate the market in Mexico.

For Explanatory Journalism: The staff of The New York Times, for its coverage of business practices by

Apple and other technology companies that “illustrates the darker side of a changing global economy for

workers and consumers”.

For Feature Writing: John Branch of The New York Times, for his “evocative narrative” about skiers killed

in an avalanche.

For Breaking News Reporting: Denver Post, for its coverage of the deadly mass shooting at a movie theatre

in Aurora, Colorado.

For Local Reporting: Brad Schrade, Jeremy Olson and Glenn Howatt of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, for

their reporting on a spike in infant deaths at poorly regulated day-care homes that resulted in legislative

action.

For Commentary: Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal, for his columns on US foreign policy and

domestic politics.

For Criticism: Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post, for his “eloquent and passionate” essays on art and

social forces.

For Editorial Writing: Tim Nickens and Daniel Ruth of the Tampa Bay Times of St. Petersburg, Florida, for

work that helped reverse a decision to end fluoridation of the local water supply.

For Editorial Cartooning: Steve Sack of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

For photography (Breaking News): Rodrigo Abd, Manu Brabo, Narciso Contreras, Khalil Hamra and

Muhammed Muheisen of the Associated Press, for their coverage of the civil war in Syria.

For Feature Photography: Javier Manzano, a freelance photographer for Agence France-Presse, for his picture

of Syrian rebel soldiers.

For Fiction: “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson. 

For Drama: “Disgraced” by Ayad Akhtar, a play about a successful corporate lawyer coming to terms with

his Pakistani Muslim heritage.

For History: “Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam” by Fredrik

Logevall, published by Random House, 

For Biography: “The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo” by

Tom Reiss, published by Crown.

For Poetry: “Stag’s Leap” by Sharon Olds, published by Alfred A. Knopf.

For general nonfiction: “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a

New America” by Gilbert King, published by Harper.

For Music: Caroline Shaw, for “Partita for 8 Voices”.

The 97th annual Pulitzer Prizes were awarded by Columbia University and are the most prestigious prizes in

US journalism.

BOOKS

Above All Things

Written by Tanis Rideout, the novel tells the story of British climber George Mallory’s wife Ruth as she waits

for her husband and tends their children. Mallory may have been one of the first men to make it to the top of

Mount Everest before perishing on its slopes. The book is based partly on the couple’s actual letters—

including some found on Mallory’s body in 1999, 75 years after his death. Mallory is famed for saying

“because it’s there” when asked why he wanted to climb Everest.

CYBER SPACE

Bitcoin

It is an open source P2P digital currency, first described in 2009 by a pseudonymous developer (or

developers) Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin is a digital currency, a protocol and a software that enables instant

peer to peer transactions, allowing worldwide payments at low or zero processing fees.

Bitcoin is one of the first implementations of a concept called “crypto-currency”. Based on this

concept, bitcoin is designed around the idea of a new form of money that uses cryptography to control its

creation and transactions, rather than relying on central authorities. Managing transactions and

issuing Bitcoins are carried out collectively by the network. 

More than $1 billion worth of the digital currency circulates on the web, and interest in the currency is

skyrocketing. In many ways, bitcoins function like any other currency. You can buy anything from any

company, both online and in the real world, that accepts bitcoins as currency.

Rather than trusting in governments or central banks to secure the value of the currency and guarantee

transactions, the founder ensured the bitcoin places its trust in mathematics. At the start 2013, a bitcoin

worth $13.51; the price of a singlebitcoin then blasted through the $100 barrier in April 2013, according to

Gox, a site where users can swap bitcoins for more traditional currencies. 

Virtually untraceable bitcoin currency can be swapped anonymously online for almost anything. It is in a

sense the digital equivalent of using hard cash and so some have criticised it for facilitating online drug

markets. A recent study estimates that $23 million of illicit items are sold for bitcoins every year.

According to the Time magazine, the Internet will offer more access to a growing number of such currencies

that are beyond national control, and these “currencies will be no easier to control than Facebook”.

Password stealing virus

A new virus has been found to be “spreading widely” in the Indian cyberspace which cleverly steals bank

account details and passwords of the user once it is clicked. It is new and suspected variant of malware family

called “Win32/Ramnit”.

Ramnit worm spreads by infecting or modifying files existing on target systems such as (exe, dll or html) and

creating a new section so as to modify the entry point to that section. The malware steals credentials like file

transfer protocol passwords, bank account logins, infects removable media, changes browser settings and

downloads and executes arbitrary files.

The virus is so deadly and potent, cyber sleuths say, that it has ability to hide itself from anti-virus solutions

and acquires various aliases to attack a genuine system or Internet-based connection which works to play

emails and other user services. It infects the removable media by copying itself to its recycle bin and creates

an autorun.inf file. Once the system is infected, the malware injects its code into windows executables, html

files or dlls to communicate with its command and control server, thereby compromising the security of the

online system.

World Wide Web turns 20

Two decades back, on 30 April 1993, CERN, a European research organisation near Geneva, announced that

the World Wide Web would be free, with no fees due. Here are certain interesting facts about the Web:

British engineer and computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, now Director of the World Wide Web

Consortium (W3C), wrote a proposal in March 1989 for what would finally become the World Wide Web.

On 6 August 1991, the first website—http://info.cern.ch—went online.

A NeXT Computer was used by Sir Tim Berners-Lee as the world’s first web server and also to write the first

web browser—WorldWideWeb—in 1990.

It is believed that a turning point in the history of the the World Wide Web began with the launch of the

Mosaic web browser in 1993. It was a graphical browser developed by a team at the National Center for

Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. Mosaic is the web browser credited with

popularising the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organisation for the World Wide

Web, was founded by Tim Berners-Lee after he left CERN in October 1994.

Archie is considered to be the first Internet search engine. It was the first tool for indexing FTP archives,

allowing people to find specific files.

Most people tend to treat the Internet and the Web as synonymous. They, in fact while being related, are not.

Internet refers to the vast networking infrastructure that connects millions of computers across the world and

the World Wide Web is the worldwide collection of text pages, digital photographs, music files, videos, and

animations, which users can access over the Internet. The Web uses the HTTP protocol to transmit data and is

only a part of the Internet. The Internet includes a lot that is not necessarily the Web.

DEFENCE

National Defence University to be set-up near Gurgaon

Decks have been cleared for setting up the Indian National Defence University (INDU). The Kargil Review

Committee, under K. Subrahmanyam, had recommended setting up of such a university to build a strategic

culture in the country. 

INDU will be a fully autonomous institution and will be located at Binola, near Gurgaon, Haryana. The

university will have a mandate to provide knowledge-based higher education for management of defence of

the country keeping its participants abreast of emerging security challenges through scholarly research and

training.

The university will be headed by a Lieutenant General rank or equivalent ranks in Navy and IAF officer. As

many as 66 per cent of students would be from the armed forces, whereas 33 per cent of students would be

drawn from other government agencies, police and civilians. The teaching faculty will comprise both military

personnel and civilians in the ratio of 1:1.

PLACES

Barmer

Vedanta group firm Cairn India announced on April 9, 2013, that it had made the 26th oil discovery in its RJ-

ON-90/1 block in Rajasthan’s Barmer district. Technical evaluations indicate nearly 10 metres of gross oil

column within Dharvi Dungar sands in Raageshwari-Tukaram area.

Boston

Boston was in news when, in a major terror strike on the United States of America, two explosions rocked the

Boston Marathon, killing at least three people and injuring over 144 others. 

Boston Marathon is always held on Patriots’ Day, on the third Monday in April, which commemorates the

earliest battles of the American war for independence. It was first held in 1897 with 18 participants, making it

the world’s oldest annual marathon. Women were not officially allowed to participate until 1972. Bobbi Gibb

was the first woman to unofficially complete the race in 1966. 

Bushehr

Iran’s only nuclear power plant is located in this port city. On April 9, 2013, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake, with

epicentre lying 90 km south of the town, had killed more than 30 people.

Chabahar Port

India is working on an arrangement with Iran to develop this Port, which will provide India a vital link to

transport its goods to war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Hyderabad

The UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Commission’s conference on Sustainable Tourism

Development was held here in April 2013.

Mount Fuji

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a consultative body to UNESCO, has found

the almost perfectly conical Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776 metres, appropriate for registering as

a World Heritage site. Mt. Fuji covers roughly 172,900 acres in Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures,

including five major lakes and the Shiraito Falls, as well as eight Shinto shrines.

It is being considered as a “cultural” heritage site, rather than a “natural” heritage site. The mountain “has

nurtured Japan's unique art and culture” as it has been depicted in “ukiyoe” woodblock prints and represents

the tradition of mountain worship in Japan. The volcano had last erupted around 300 years ago.

Niyamgiri Hills

In Odisha, the hills have been in news due to protest by locals on bauxite mining by Vedanta Aluminium and

subsequent ban on mining by the Supreme Court of India.  The hills are home to more than 8,000 of

the Dongria Kondh people, whose lifestyle and religion have helped nurture the area’s dense forests and

unusually rich wildlife.  At the centre of the struggle is the Dongria’s sacred mountain, the ‘mountain of law’.

The Dongrias worship the top of the mountain as the seat of their god and protect the forests there.  Vedanta

want to mine the bauxite from the top of the same mountain, that could result in the Dongria Kondh losing

their livelihood, their identity and the sanctity of their most religious site, according to the people opposing

mining in the area.

Sichuan

A province of China, this place was hit by a powerful earthquake on 20 April 2013 that killed more than 200

people. The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake, which had a 6.6 magnitude, was centred 50km

west of the town of Linqiong.  In 2008 an earthquake in Sichuan had left five million people homeless.

Siddheshwar Dhaam

The four revered Dhaam of the Hindu’s—Jagannaath Puri, Dwaraka Puri, Rameshawaram  and Badrinath—

have been replicated in this complex, located at Solophok, Namchi, South Sikkim. President Pranab

Mukherjee inaugurated the complex on April 16, 2014.

Siddheshwar Dhaam has a 33 m tall statue of Shiv, replicas of 12 Jyotirling, models of sacred “chaar dhaam”

temples and a 5.5 m statue of Kirateshwar—the hunter incarnation of Shiv. It is believed that Lord Shiv, after

losing “satee” in “agni kund” of Daksh’s “Yagya”, had gone into seclusion and became a hunter in the forests

of Sikkim.

South Sudan

Five Indian army personnel, including a Lieutenant Colonel, serving on a UN peacekeeping mission in South

Sudan, were killed on April 9, 2013, when armed rebels launched an audacious attack on a convoy they were

escorting. The 37-member convoy which was heading to Bor town, came under attack near Gumuruk.

RESEARCH

World’s Lightest Material developed

Chinese scientists at Zhejiang University have developed the world’s lightest substance—carbon aerogel—

with a density only one sixth of that of the air. The solid material has a density of only 0.16 mg/cubic

centimeter, breaking the previous record of the world’s lightest material held by graphite aerogel.

The graphite aerogel was developed by German scientists in 2012, with a density of 0.18 mg/cubic

centimeter.

Aerogel is a material produced with semi-solid gel dried and solvent removed. It appears in a solid state with

many internal pores filled with air, and thus it’s of minimal density.

Despite its fragile appearance, carbon aerogel is excellent in elasticity. It can bounce back when compressed.

In addition, it’s one of the materials with biggest oil absorption capacity. Current oil absorbing products can

usually absorb organic solvent of about 10 times of their own weight. The carbon aerogel can absorb up to

900 times its own weight.

Carbon aerogel is expected to play an important role in pollution control, in addition to becoming an ideal

material for energy storage insulation, catalytic carrier and sound-absorption.

New camera that can take 3-D pictures from a km away

Researchers have developed a new laser powered camera system that creates high-resolution 3-D images of

objects from up to a kilometre away.

A standard camera takes flat, 2-D pictures. To get 3-D information, such as the distance to a far-away object,

scientists can bounce a laser beam off the object and measure how long it takes the light to travel back to a

detector. The technique is called time-of-flight (ToF) navigation systems for autonomous vehicles.

The new system works by sweeping a low-power infrared laser beam rapidly over an object. It records, pixel-

by-pixel, the round-trip flight time of the photons in the beam as they bounce off the object and arrive back at

the source. The system can resolve depth on the millimeter scale over long distances, using a detector that can

“count” individual photons.

The ability of the new system to image objects like items of clothing that do not easily reflect laser pulses

makes it useful in a wider variety of field situations. The primary use of the system is likely to be scanning

static, human-made targets, such as vehicles. With some modifications to the image-processing software, it

could also determine their speed and direction.

World’s Smallest Antenna

Professor Srikanta Pal, who is with the Birla Institute of Technology in Mesra, and his research scholar

Mrinmoy Chakraborty claim to have invented the world’s smallest super compact ultra-wideband (UWB)

planar antenna that can find application in homes and the military among other domains. The antenna is just

14 mm X 11 mm, with much more than a 10:1 bandwidth. The antenna is cheap and the goal is to reduce the

size so that it can be pasted on any curved surface. The UWB technology brings mobility of wireless

communications with high data rates.

See-through Brain to help clear mental mysteries

Dr Karl Deisseroth has invented a technique to make brains transparent, a breakthrough that should give

researchers a truer picture of the pathways underlying both normal mental function and neurological illnesses,

from autism to Alzheimer’s. In fact, the first human brain the scientists clarified came from someone with

autism.

Deisseroth and his colleagues reported in the online edition of the journal Nature that they had developed a

way to replace the opaque tissue in brains (harvested from lab mice or donated by people for research) with

“hydrogel”, a substance similar to that used for contact lenses.

The result is see-through brains, their innards revealed in a way no current technique can: Large structures

such as the hippocampus show up with the clarity of organs in a transparent fish, and even neural circuits and

individual cells are visible.

Until now, the only way to trace neural connections was by cutting a brain into ultra-thin slices, examining

each slide under a microscope to map the cells and then using a computer to virtually reassemble the slices to

reveal the entire circuit. But, slicing deforms the tissue and makes it difficult to work out long-range

connections, like those between such far-flung regions as the prefrontal cortex and the amygdale.

Deisseroth’s process, dubbed CLARITY (an anagram for the technique), works by a delicate feat of

biochemical engineering. It turns out that what makes the brain opaque are the fatty membranes that surround

and support its cells. Removing these layers by brute force, however, would make the brain tissue collapse in

a puddle of neuro-glop. Instead, Deisseroth and his colleagues immersed the brains of a three-month-old mice

in a vat of soft, jelly-like hydrogel. Molecules of the hydrogel seeped into the brain and took the place of the

lipid bilayers, which were then removed through an electro-chemical process.

Once the hydrogel was in place, the scientists heated it to just above body temperature, causing the molecules

to connect to one another and form a sturdy mesh that acted like a shell holding in the contents of each brain.

After eight days, the scientists had just what they had hoped for: an intact, see-through mouse brain.

The hydrogel is not only transparent but also permeable. That allows scientists to infuse into the brain special

fluorescent dyes and other molecules that attach to just one of the thousands of different kinds of brain cells,

and even to individual proteins and other molecules, turning the circuitry a neuroscientist wants to study into

can’t-miss hues when viewed in special light.

CLARITY has the potential to unmask fine details of brains from people with brain disorders, without losing

larger-scale circuit perspective.

Ants can sense earthquakes a day in advance

Ants can sense earthquakes before they strike and the tiny insects suspend their normal activity till a day after

the quake, according to a research by German scientists. 

Researchers have discovered that red wood ants prefer to build their colonies along active faults, fractures

where the Earth ruptures during earthquakes. Gabriele Berberich of the University Duisburg-Essen in

Germany has counted more than 15,000 red wood ant mounds lined up along Germany’s faults. 

Berberich and her colleagues, for three years, tracked the ants round the clock with video cameras, using

special software to catalogue their behavioural changes. 

During the study period, 2009 to 2012, there were 10 earthquakes between magnitude 2.0 and 3.2 and many

smaller temblors. The ants changed their behaviour only for quakes larger than magnitude 2.0, which also

happens to be the smallest quakes that humans can feel. 

While during the day, ants busily went about their daily activity, at night the colony rested inside the mound,

mirroring human diurnal patterns.  However, before an earthquake, the ants were awake throughout the night,

outside their mound, vulnerable to predators, the researchers found. Normal ant behaviour did not resume

until a day after the earthquake. 

Berberich suspects the insects pick up changing gas emissions or local shifts in the Earth’s magnetic

field. “Red wood ants have chemo-receptors for carbon dioxide gradients and magneto-receptors for

electromagnetic fields,” she said. 

The research was presented at the European Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna.

Kolkata scientists achieve a breakthrough in developing hydrogen-based energy source

Abhishek Dey and his team at the IACS Kolkata’s department of inorganic chemistry have achieved a

breakthrough in developing an efficient and bankable hydrogen-based energy source. The scientists hope

hydrogen could be used as a source of clean and sustainable fuel to meet ever-increasing global energy needs.

The scientists have shown in two different studies that hydrogen can be generated from water in a

considerable amount, using two different metals, cobalt and iron, to speed up the reaction. Hydrogen can be

produced from natural gas, alcohol, biomass and other non- renewable material. Splitting of water into

oxygen and hydrogen currently remains the core method of hydrogen generation.

Goodbye QWERTY, hello faster typing with KALQ

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, and their colleagues from the University of St

Andrews and Montana Tech claim to have developed a new keyboard for touch-screens that allows superfast

thumb-typing, enabling you to type 34 percent faster than on a QWERTY layout. 

Typing on today’s mobile phones and tablets is needlessly slow. One limitation is that the QWERTY layout is

ill-suited for tablets and other touch-screen devices when typing with the thumbs. Thumb typing is also

ergonomically very different from typing on a physical keyboard. 

Researchers said it has been established that normal users using a QWERTY on a touch-screen device are

limited to typing at a rate of around 20 words per minute, which is slow compared to the rates achieved on

physical keyboards. 

The computational optimisation process had two goals: To minimise the moving time of the thumbs and to

approximate alternating sides as well as possible. In the new keyboard KALQ, all vowels, with the exception

of the letter “y” are placed in the area for the right thumb, whereas the left thumb gets assigned more keys. To

fully benefit from this layout, the users are trained to move their thumbs simultaneously. While one thumb is

typing, the other one can move to its next target. 

Finally, researchers developed probabilistic error correction methods that took into account how thumbs

move and also statistical knowledge about how the texts users type. 

KALQ is expected is to be made available as a free app for Android-based smart-phones.

SPACE RESEARCH

Breakthrough discovery to help locate neutron stars faster

Scientists at National Center for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), Pune, through its Giant Meterwave Radio

Telescope (GMRT), have developed a novel technique of “gated imaging” to find the location of neutron

stars or pulsars in the galaxy. This will help them to find accurate positions of neutron stars in the galaxy,

which will go a long way in discovering the existence of gravitational waves, helpful in tracing the evolution

of the universe and the existence of extreme events like merging of two super-massive black-holes. The

breakthrough technique gives scientists immediate knowledge of the positions of these stars and is said to be

a thousand times more accurate and faster than the traditional technique.

Sun’s “magnetic heartbeat” discovered

Scientists claim to have discovered a magnetic “solar heartbeat” in the Sun’s deep interior that generates

energy which leads to solar flares and sunspots.

Researchers developed a new supercomputer simulation to probe the Sun’s periodic magnetic field reversals.

According to the model, every 40 years the Sun’s zonal magnetic field bands switch their polarity. That cycle

is about four times longer than the 11-year sunspot cycle that governs the level of solar activity. 

Turbulence happens at both large and small scales. When energy from turbulence dissipates, the turbulence

flows into smaller and smaller whirlpool shapes, called vortices.

On the Sun, dissipation takes place at a scale of tens of yards. That is extremely minute, compared with the

huge size of the Sun. 

NASA approves planet hunting project

NASA has approved a $200 million mission to search for Earth-size planets orbiting the nearby stars, and the

project will come into full swing within the next four years. The space observatory, called the Transiting

Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is scheduled for a 2017 launch.

The project, led by principal investigator George Ricker, a senior research scientist at MIT Kavli Institute for

Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI), will use an array of wide-field cameras to perform an all-sky survey

to discover transiting exoplanets, ranging from Earth-sized planets to gas giants, in orbit around the brightest

stars in the Sun’s neighbourhood.

TESS relies upon a number of innovations developed by the MIT team over the past seven years, among

which is the special new ‘Goldilocks’ orbit for the spacecraft – one which is not too close, and not too far,

from both the Earth and the moon. As a result, every two weeks TESS approaches close enough to the Earth

for high data-downlink rates, while remaining above the planet’s harmful radiation belts. This special orbit

will keep TESS’s sensitive cameras in a very stable temperature range.

With TESS, it will be possible to study the masses, sizes, densities, orbits and atmospheres of a large cohort

of small planets, including a sample of rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars.

Proba-3 mission will call on satellites to fly in sub-millimeter precision

The European Space Agency (ESA) wants to bring the sort of precision normally associated with Swiss watch

making to satellite navigation. When it launches in 2017, ESA’s Proba-3 mission will incorporate the first

satellite pair capable of flying in formation to within a tolerance of a millimetre to one another. It’s part of a

demonstration technology that could one day be used to build space telescopes using formation-flying

satellites as a “rigid structure” that would be impossibly large to achieve in a single spacecraft.

Led by SENER of Spain, the “Proba” project stands for PRoject for OnBoard Autonomy – a name that

highlights the fact that the ground control team, based in Redu, Belgium, only need to monitor the spacecraft

during working hours. The mission’s basic task is flying in formation to form a 150-meter long solar corona-

graph to study the Sun, with the size of the “instrument” and the vacuum of space providing enough clarity

and resolution to allow Proba-3 to see closer to the solar rim than ever before.

To carry out such a task, the two Proba-3 craft must fly in tighter formation than satellites have managed until

now – to within a millimeter and one second of arc in precision over a distance of 150 meters. This sort of

precision is needed because space-based instruments will need to be ever larger if they are to increase their

ability to study the universe. 

Proba-3 will consist of two solar-powered spacecraft based on ESA’s standard Proba platform. The larger of

the two will be the Coronagraph. Weighing 340 kilograms and measuring 1.1 x 1.8 x 1.7 meters, it will be the

active member of the pair that carries out most of the manoeuvres. As the name suggests, it contains the

corona-graph for observing the Sun, and optical meteorology sensors. For maneuvering, there will be reaction

motors using cold gas thrusters, three gyroscopes, a three-headed star tracker, six sun sensors and two GPS

receivers.

The other satellite will be the Occulter. This one will be smaller at 200 kilograms and a more compact 0.9 x

1.4 x 0.9 meters. Its job will be to block the Sun for the Corona-graph with a 1.4-meter disk.

The planned Proba-3 mission is scheduled for launch in 2017 when the pair will be set in a highly elliptical

orbit at a 60-degree inclination, where they will separate and fly in tandem, circling the earth every 19.7

hours. As they fly in formation, the pair will line up with the Sun, with the Occulter forming artificial

eclipses.

Because of the need to conserve fuel, the satellites won’t fly in formation all the time. Instead, they will go

into formation while approaching apogee (60,530 km), when they’re travelling slowest, to carry out corona-

graph observations. They will then manoeuvre to avoid colliding with each other as they break formation,

while approaching perigee (600 km).

Using two spacecraft as a corona-graph isn’t a first for Proba-3. That honour goes to the Apollo-Soyuz

mission in 1975, when the Apollo spacecraft blocked the Sun for observation by the Soyuz capsule. What is

new is the increase in precision from being able to observe the Solar corona out to three solar radii down to

1.04 radii.

Russian becomes oldest person in the world to spacewalk

Pavel Vinogradov, 59-year-old Russian cosmonaut, became the world’s oldest spacewalker on 19 April 2013,

when he emerged from the hatch for a little maintenance work outside the International Space Station.

Previously, the record was held by retired NASA astronaut Story Musgrave, who was 58 when he helped fix

the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993.

SpaceShipTwo makes history with first rocket-powered flight

On 29 April 2013, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, a private spaceship designed to carry space tourists,

made its first rocket-powered test flight, reaching supersonic speeds as it paved the way toward commercial

flights in the near future.

The vehicle was carried aloft by the mothership WhiteKnightTwo, and then released in midair at an altitude

of about 46,000 feet. At that point, SpaceShipTwo test fired its rocket engine, designed to propel the craft the

rest of the way up to space.

After a short 16-second burn, SpaceShipTwo reached a maximum altitude of 56,000 feet before it flew back

to Earth. The trip marked the 26th test flight of the vehicle and the first “powered flight”, which propelled the

ship to Mach 1.2, fast enough to beat the speed of sound, which is 761 miles an hour. 

Virgin Galactic is backed by British billionaire Richard Branson.

If test flights continue to go well, SpaceShipTwo may carry passengers as soon as 2013-end or 2014. Already,

more than 500 people have signed up for the flights, which will be run out of Spaceport America in New

Mexico once testing is complete.

Herschel space observatory stops working

Europe’s Herschel space observatory–the largest infrared telescope ever launched–has stopped working after

exhausting its supply of liquid helium coolant, ending more than three years of pioneering observations of the

cool Universe.

Instruments on The European Space Agency’s (ESA) billion-euro flagship observatory had warmed to levels

resulting in the observatory closing its eyes on the Universe.

The mission began with over 2300 litres of liquid helium, which had been slowly evaporating since the final

top-up the day before Herschel’s launch on 14 May 2009. The liquid helium was essential to cool the

observatory’s instruments to close to absolute zero, allowing Herschel to make highly sensitive observations

of the cold Universe.

Herschel made over 35,000 scientific observations, amassing more than 25,000 hours worth of science data

from about 600 observing programmes. A further 2000 hours of calibration observations also contributed to

the rich dataset, which is based at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Center, near Madrid in Spain.

The archive will become the legacy of the mission. It is expected to provide even more discoveries than have

been made during the lifetime of the Herschel mission.

These unique far-infrared observations had given astronomers a new insight into how turbulence stirs up gas

in the interstellar medium, giving rise to a filamentary, web-like structure within cold molecular clouds.

MISCELLANEOUS

UN World Tourism Organization

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of

responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism. As the leading international organization in the

field of tourism, UNWTO promotes tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive

development and environmental sustainability and offers leadership and support to the sector in advancing

knowledge and tourism policies worldwide. 

UNWTO encourages the implementation of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, to maximize tourism’s

socio-economic contribution while minimizing its possible negative impacts, and is committed to promoting

tourism as an instrument in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), geared

towards reducing poverty and fostering sustainable development.

The headquarters of UNWTO are located in Madrid, Spain.

High Frequency Trading

HFT is a program trading platform that uses powerful computers to transact a large number of orders at very

fast speeds. High-frequency trading uses complex algorithms to analyze multiple markets and execute orders

based on market conditions. Typically, the traders with the fastest execution speeds will be more profitable

than traders with slower execution speeds. It is estimated more than 50% of exchange volume comes from

high-frequency trading orders.

Aiming to capture just a fraction of a cent per share or currency unit on every trade, high-frequency traders

move in and out of such short-term positions several times each day. Fractions of a cent accumulate fast to

produce significantly positive results at the end of every day.

All portfolio-allocation decisions are made by computerized quantitative models. Specific algorithms are

closely guarded by their owners and are known as “algos”.

Many high-frequency traders provide liquidity and price discovery to the markets through market-making and

arbitrage trading.

World’s Fastest Data Storage

In November 2012, Cray’s Titan Supercomputer, which is being used at Oak Ridge National Laboratory,

earned the crown of World’s Fastest Supercomputer. Now Oak Ridge hopes to bolster the performance of that

supercomputer by building the world’s fastest data storage system.

After a competitive bid process, the Laboratory has selected DataDirect Networks to build the file system.

The system, which will be named Spider II, will have a capacity of 40 petabytes. If you have a 1 terabyte

hard-drive in your computer now, it would take 40,960 of them to have the same memory capacity. And it

will transfer that data within Titan at a rate of about 1 terabyte per second. Those specs will give Titan’s new

storage system six times the speed and three times the capacity of its current data storage system.

The building blocks of the storage system will be 36 of DDN’s SFA12K-40 systems. These systems have a

pretty small footprint–a rack apiece, which means that Titan will be able to store all that data on just 36 racks.

That’s even though the total storage system will comprise over 20,000 hard drives.

March 2013ABBREVIATIONS

GOCE: Gravity Ocean Circulation Explorer.

WWT: Worldwide Telescope, (The)

AWARDS

Stree Shakti Puruskar

The December 16 Delhi gang-rape victim has been posthumously bestowed with “Stree Shakti” award as a

tribute to her courage and strength.

As a measure of recognition of achievements in individual women in the field of social development, the

government had instituted of six national awards which are called “Stree Shakti Puraskar” are given on the

Women’s Day (March 8) every year. The awards are in the name of the eminent women personalities,

namely, Devi Ahalya Bai Holkar, Kannagi, Mata Jajabai, Rani Gaidinliu Zeliang, Rani Lakshmi

Bai and Rani Rudramma Devi (which is open to both men and women).

The spirit of “Nirbhaya”, a name by which many remember the Delhi gang-rape victim, has been given

Laxmi Bai Award which has been instituted “to recognise the spirit of courage and the personal achievement

of a woman in difficult circumstances, who has established this spirit of courage in her individual or

professional life”.

The other winners are:

Mata Jijabai Award: Ms Sonika Agarwal (Delhi). 

Rani Gaidinliu Zeliang Award: Mrs Omana T.K. (Kerala).

Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Award: Mrs Olga D’ Mello (Maharashtra).

Kannagi Award: Mrs Guramma H. Sankina (Karnataka).

Rani Rudramma Devi Award: Mrs Pranita Talukdar (Assam)

Each of the six “Stree Shakti Awards” carries a cash award of Rs 3 lakh.

Ayvaiyar Award, 2013

Dr. V. Shanta, chairperson of Adyar Cancer Institute, has been given the award in recognition of her

contribution in the field cancer treatment. The award carries a citation, a medallion, a cheque for Rs 1 lakh

along with a shawl.

Every year, a woman who contributed in the fields of social reforms, women development, religious

harmony, language, arts, tradition, culture, science, journalism and administration is presented with Avvaiyar

award.

National Film Awards, 60th

Best Feature Film: Paan Singh Tomar

Best Director: Shivaji Lotan Patil for Dhag (Marathi)

Best Actor: Irrfan Khan, Paan Singh Tomar and Vikram Gokhale for Anumati(Marathi)

Best Actress: Usha Jadhav, Dhag (Marathi)

Best Supporting Actress: Dolly Alhuwalia, Vicky Donor and Kalpana, Thanichallanjan

Best Supporting Actor: Annu Kapoor, Vicky Donor

Best Male Playback Singer: Shankar Mahadevan for "Bolo Nafrom"  fromChittagong

Best Female Playback Singer: Samhita for “Palakein Naa Moon Don” from Aarti

Anklekartikekar (Marathi)

Best Song: “Bolo Na” from Chittagong

Best Lyrics: Prasoon Joshi for “Bolo Na” from Chittagong

Best choreography: Birju Maharaj for the Tamil film Vishwaroopam.

Best Screenplay Writer (adapted): Bhavesh Mandalia and Umesh Shukla for Oh My God!

Best Dialogue: Anjali Menon for Ustad Hotel (Malayalam)

Indira Gandhi Award for the best debut film of a director: Hindi film Chittagongand Malayalam

movie 101 Chodiyangal

Best Telugu Film: Eega

Best Hindi Film: Filmistan

Best Investigative Film: Inshallah Kashmir

Best Child Artist: Master Virendra Pratap for Dekh Indian Circus

A special jury award has been conferred on Rituparno Ghosh for Bengali filmChitrangadha

Nawazuddin Siddiqui for the films  Kahaani, Gangs of Wasseypur, Dekh Indian Circus and

Parineeti Chopra won a special mention for her performance in Ishaqzaade for her convincing delineation of

a daredevil girl, and so did Tannishtha Chatterjee for Dekh Indian Circus

Queen Elizabeth Engineering Prize, 2013

Internet pioneers, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Louis Pouzin and Marc Andreessen, will

share the £1 million award. They are the first recipients of the prize. The citation panel said the five men had

all contributed to the revolution in communications that has taken place in recent decades.

The UK government initiated the QE Prize as a companion to the Nobel Prizes, to raise the profile of

engineering. It is endowed by industry and administered by an independent trust chaired by Lord Browne, a

former chief executive of BP. The award was announced at the Royal Academy of Engineering in central

London.

Saraswati Samman, 2012

Manalezhuthu, a collection of Malayalam poems, written by Ms Sugathakumari, has been selected for the

award, for her anthology marking a variety of lyrical mode and complexity of metamorphical imagination.

The Saraswati Samman is instituted by K.K. Birla Foundation and is given annually to an outstanding

literary work in any of the Indian languages that are part of the 8th Schedule of the Constitution. The honour

carried a citation and cash award of Rs 10 lakh.

Abel Prize 2013

Belgian-born mathematician Pierre Deligne has been awarded the $1 million Abel Prize for mathematics by

the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Prof. Deligne was cited for “seminal contributions to algebraic geometry and for their transformative impact

on number theory, representation theory, and related fields.” The 68-year-old has contributed to finding

connections between various fields of mathematics and his research has resulted in key discoveries and

concepts named after him, including the Deligne conjecture. 

Algebraic geometry concerns the study of the relationship between geometry and algebra.

BOOKS

Lean In

Written by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, it challenges men in the upper echelons of corporate

America to take more women under their wing. The book has been praised as an ambitious reboot of

feminism and criticized as a manifesto directed to women from a privileged perch. 

CYBER SPACE

The Worldwide Telescope

The Worldwide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your

computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the world’s best ground- and

space-based telescopes for the exploration of the universe. Students of all ages will feel empowered to

explore and understand the cosmos using WWT’s simple and powerful user interface.

Microsoft Research has assembled astronomical data from scientists all over the world to build a 3D model

that users can actually fly through. NASA’s Hubble Images are used liberally, and Microsoft hopes to

incorporate data from the James Webb Telescope when it launches in a few years. 

Users will be able to do flybys of any star, nebula or planet of which astronomers have gathered data on.

There is real data backing this simulation that makes it useful from the elementary school level, all the way up

to graduate studies. It has support for visible light, as also X-ray and infrared observations.

Microsoft Research has also built WWT with touch interactions in mind. Desktop mouse

controls aren’t forgotten, but pinch-zooming is being held up as the best way to use the maps. The product is

currently limited to desktops, but a mobile version is expected soon.

Microsoft has created an API that will allow developers and educators to build custom “stellar tours” entirely

within The Worldwide Telescope. It can run in a web browser on PC or Mac, but Silverlight is required.

There is also a Windows client that can be installed.

WWT represents a major step toward the democratization of science, and it has turned the Internet into “the

world´s best telescope”—a veritable supercomputer at your desktop. 

Microsoft Research has dedicated WWT to the memory of Jim Gray, releasing it as a free resource to the

astronomy and education communities with the hope that it will inspire and empower people to explore and

understand the universe like never before.

DEFENCE

Nirbhay—Sub-sonic Cruise Missile of India 

Taking an important step forward to make its missile arsenal more potent, India, on March 12, 2013, test-fired

first indigenously developed sub-sonic cruise missile Nirbhay(fearless). It was test-fired from the Integrated

Test Range at Chandipur near here in Balasore district of Odisha. 

However, the missile failed to hit the target in its maiden test-firing as it had to be terminated midway after

deviating from the flight course.  DRDO said the missile “successfully” met the basic mission objectives and

performed some of the manoeuvres satisfactorily before being terminated midway. 

The missile, under development since 2007, has a range of 1,000 km—similar to the US

flies like an aircraft. It has good loitering capability, control and guidance, a high degree of accuracy in terms

of impact and very good stealth features.

The missile has been developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment, a Defence Research and

Development Organisation laboratory based at Bangalore. 

Successful Test of submarine-launched BrahMos

On March 20, 2013, India successfully carried out the maiden test-firing of the over 290 km-range submarine-

launched version of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile in the Bay of Bengal, becoming the first country in

the world to have this capability. The missile was successfully test-fired from an underwater pontoon.

Ship and ground-launched versions of the missile have been successfully tested and put into service with the

Indian Army and the Navy. The maiden test of the submarine-launched version of BrahMos

week after indigenously built long-range subsonic cruise missile Nirbhay failed to hit its target in its first test.

The BrahMos missile is set be the primary weapon for the Navy in the coming years. While the induction of

the first version of BrahMos missile system in the Navy started from 2005 with INS Rajput, it is now fully

operational with two regiments of the Army. The Air Force version of the missile is also said to be ready and

work is going on to modify two Russian Sukhoi (Su-30) fighter jets to make the aircraft 

PERSONS

Pope Francis

Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina has been elected as the 266th pontiff of the Catholic

church. Both an insider and an outsider, he is the first pontiff from Latin America and the first Jesuit. He will

be called Pope Francis.

The Society of Jesus, as the Jesuits are called, is a teaching and missionary order, long associated with

independence from secular authority and a passion for social justice. The new Pope is known for shunning the

trappings of high religious office, preferring to travel by bus or subway and to live a humble life. He sent that

message Wednesday by wearing a simple white robe for his first appearance as Pope Francis. His name harks

back to the legacy of St. Francis of Assisi, the monk who devoted his life to the sick and the poor and who

founded the Franciscan order.

Known as a conciliator and a man with a strong pastoral vocation—unlike Pope Benedict XVI, who was an

acclaimed theologian and academic—Pope Francis faces huge issues: healing divisions in the church;

stanching the exodus of parishioners and the dwindling number of vocations among priests; reforming the

Curia, the clumsy and scandal-ridden Vatican bureaucracy; and imposing transparency and accountability in

the Vatican bank. 

Born in Buenos Aires on December 17, 1936, he is one of several children of working-class Italian

immigrants. As a teenager he suffered from a serious chest infection and had a lung removed. He set his

youthful aspirations on a career in chemistry, earning a master’s degree at the University of Buenos Aires,

before finding his vocation and entering the Jesuit seminary of Villa Devoto. After earning a degree in

philosophy from the Catholic University of Buenos Aires in 1960, he taught literature and psychology to

high-school students for several years before returning to his own theological studies. He was ordained on

December 13, 1969.

RESEARCH

Higgs boson ‘God particle’ found, confirm CERN scientists

Scientists say they are confident that the subatomic particle discovered in 2012 by the Large Hadron Collider

(LHC) is indeed a Higgs boson or the elusive ‘God particle’.

It remains an open question, however, whether this is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model of particle

physics, or possibly the lightest of several bosons predicted in some theories that go beyond the Standard

Model.

Having analysed two and a half times more data than was available for the discovery announcement in July

2012, they found that the new particle is looking more and more like a Higgs boson, the particle linked to the

mechanism that gives mass to elementary particles. Whether or not it is a Higgs boson is demonstrated by

how it interacts with other particles, and its quantum properties.

For example, a Higgs boson is postulated to have no spin, and in the Standard Model its parity—a measure of

how its mirror image behaves—should be positive.

CMS and ATLAS have compared a number of options for the spin-parity of this particle, and these all prefer

no spin and positive parity. This, coupled with the measured interactions of the new particle with other

particles, strongly indicates that it is a Higgs boson.

The detection of the boson is a very rare event—it takes around 1 trillion (1012) proton-proton collisions for

each observed events.

Coordinating Robots to serve humans in future

Scientists are developing a team of coordinating robots that could eventually serve humans in future, relying

on networking to accomplish a range of tasks. Researchers in the Sheffield Centre for Robotics of

the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, have been working to programme a group of 40

robots, and say the ability to control robot swarms could prove hugely beneficial in a range of contexts, from

military to medical.

They have demonstrated that the swarm can carry out simple fetching and carrying tasks, by grouping around

an object and working together to push it across a surface. The robots can also group themselves together into

a single cluster after being scattered across a room, and organise themselves by order of priority.

Swarming robots could also have important roles to play in the future of micro-medicine, as ‘nanobots’ are

developed for non-invasive treatment of humans. 

On a larger scale, they could play a part in military, or search and rescue operations, acting together in areas

where it would be too dangerous or impractical for humans to go. In industry too, robot swarms could be put

to use, improving manufacturing processes and workplace safety.

The programming that the team has developed to control the robots is deceptively simple. For example, if the

robots are being asked to group together, each robot only needs to be able to work out if there is another robot

in front of it. If there is, it turns on the spot, if there isn't, it moves in a wider circle until it finds one,

researchers said. 

SPACE RESEARCH

Astronomers accurately measure distance to nearest Galaxy

Astronomers have for the first time accurately measured the distance to one of the Milky Way’s neighbouring

galaxy—and it is just 163,000 light-years away.

Scientists using telescopes at European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile as well as

others around the globe and found the dwarf galaxy nearby, called the Large Magellanic Cloud, which lies

163,000 light-years away.

The new measurement improves scientists’ knowledge of the rate of expansion of the Universe—the Hubble

Constant—and is a crucial step towards understanding the nature of the mysterious dark energy that is

causing the expansion to accelerate.

The astronomers worked out the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud by observing rare close pairs of

stars, known as eclipsing binaries.

As these stars orbit each other they pass in front of each other. When this happens, as seen from Earth, the

total brightness drops, both when one star passes in front of the other; and by a different amount when it

passes behind.

By tracking these changes in brightness very carefully, and also measuring the stars’ orbital speeds, it is

possible to work out how big the stars are, their masses and other information about their orbits. When this is

combined with careful measurements of the total brightness and colours of the stars, remarkably accurate

distances can be found.

This method has been used before, but with hot stars. However, certain assumptions have to be made in this

case and such distances are not as accurate as is desirable.

But now, for the first time, eight extremely rare eclipsing binaries where both stars are cooler red giant stars

have been identified.

Third-closest Star System to Sun Discovered

In a first-of-its-kind discovery in nearly a century, NASA scientists have found the third-closest star system to

the Sun — located only 6.5 light-years away. The pair of newly found stars is the closest star system

discovered since 1916.

Both stars in the new binary system discovered by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) are

“brown dwarfs”, which are stars that are too small in mass to ever become hot enough to ignite hydrogen

fusion. As a result, they are very cool and dim, resembling a giant planet like Jupiter more than a bright star

like the Sun.

The star system is named “WISE J104915.57-531906” because it was discovered in an infrared map of the

entire sky obtained by WISE. It is only slightly farther away than the second-closest star, Barnard’s star,

which was discovered 6 light-years from the Sun in 1916.

The closest star system consists of: Alpha Centauri, found to be a neighbour of the Sun in 1839 at 4.4 light-

years away, and the fainter Proxima Centauri, discovered in 1917 at 4.2 light-years.

“Grey Mars” could have supported life: NASA

An analysis of rock samples collected by the Curiosity rover indicates that Mars could have supported living

microbes, the American space agency NASA has said.

Scientists identified sulphur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon—some of the key chemical

ingredients required to support life – in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient

stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red Planet in February 2013.

The data indicates that the Yellowknife Bay area, which the rover is exploring, was the end of an ancient river

system or an intermittently wet lake bed that could have provided chemical energy and other favourable

conditions for microbes. The rock is made up of a fine grain mudstone containing clay minerals, sulphate

minerals and other chemicals.

This wet environment, unlike some others on Mars, was not harshly oxidising, acidic, or extremely salty,

NASA said.

Scientists were surprised to find a mixture of oxidised, less-oxidised, and even non-oxidised chemicals

providing an energy gradient of the sort many microbes on Earth exploit to live.

The $2.5 billion nuclear-powered Curiosity has been exploring the planet’s surface since its dramatic landing

on August 6, 2012, for an anticipated two-year mission. Scientists do not expect Curiosity to find aliens or

living creatures—the rover does not have the capability to identify microbial life or fossils, even if they were

present today.

Japan’s earthquake heard in space

The colossal earthquake that sent a devastating tsunami barrelling into Japan in 2011 was so big it could be

heard from space, a study has said. A specially fitted satellite circling the Earth was able to detect the ultra-

low frequency sound waves generated by the massive shift in the planet’s crust, when the 9.0-magnitude

quake struck.

The Gravity Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) is a super-sensitive satellite run by the European Space

Agency.

Scientists say earthquakes not only create seismic waves that travel through the planet’s interior, but large

tremors also cause the surface of the planet to vibrate like a drum. This produces sound waves that travel

upwards through the atmosphere. GOCE is designed to capture and register these signals, acting like an

orbital seismologist.

The satellite first recorded the signal as it passed over the Pacific Ocean about 30 minutes after the quake and

then again 25 minutes later as it moved across Europe.

Alma—Largest Radio Telescope—becomes operational

At a cost of US$1.4bn, the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, which opened on March 13,

2013, in Chile, promises to start a new era in science by offering insight into unexplored stars and galaxies.

It comprises 66 giant radio telescopes destined to observe the sky in millimeter and sub-millimeter

wavelengths. They are located more than 5,000m high in the Atacama Desert. That makes it the second-

highest construction in the world, after a train station in the Himalayas.

The telescopes are scattered on a large field where rain is very rare; the dry atmosphere facilitates good

observations.

To achieve the same result of Alma with a traditional telescope, scientists would need to build one so big that

it would take up 15 sq km in surface space. 

Alma will observe galaxies millions of light-years distant. It will study the clouds of gas and dust that go into

making stars and planets. The hope is that its pictures will enable scientists to watch planets actually in the

process of construction.

Other key objectives include trying to observe important new details about black holes, and attempting to

study a galaxy that produces up to 100 suns a day.

NASA’s Swift satellite helps discover youngest-known supernova remnants

NASA’s Swift satellite has uncovered the previously unknown remains of a shattered star while performing

an extensive X-ray survey of our galaxy’s central regions. Designated G306.3–0.9 after the coordinates of its

sky position, the new object ranks among the youngest-known supernova remnants in our Milky Way galaxy.

Astronomers estimate that a supernova explosion occurs once or twice a century in the Milky Way. The

expanding blast wave and hot stellar debris slowly dissipate over hundreds of thousands of years, eventually

mixing with and becoming indistinguishable from interstellar gas.

Like fresh evidence at a crime scene, young supernova remnants give astronomers the best opportunity for

understanding the nature of the original star and the details of its demise. Supernova remnants emit energy

across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to gamma rays, and important clues can be found in each

energy band.

Using an estimated distance of 26,000 light-years for G306.3–0.9, the scientists determined that the

explosion’s shock wave is racing through space at about 2.4 million km/h).

Express ride to Space Station

On March 28, 2013, a crew of two Russians and an American blasted on a Russian rocket for the

International Space Station (ISS), in a trip that was the fastest ever manned journey to the facility. The

journey time was just six hours, compared with the previous time of over two days.

The slash in travel time has been made possible because technological improvements resulting in the Soyuz

needing to orbit the Earth four times before docking with the ISS, compared to some 30 orbits that had to be

made earlier.

The manned “express” flight came after Russia successfully sent three “Progress” supply capsules in August,

October and February to the station via the short six hour route.

The shortened flight time has several advantages for the crew. Firstly, as the crew only start to experience the

tough effects of weightlessness after 4-5 hours of flight they will be in better shape when they arrive at the

station for the docking procedure.

Also, the reduced time means that the Soyuz capsule will be able to deliver biological materials for

experiments aboard the ISS in time before they spoil, something that would not have been possible with a two

day trip.

MISCELLANEOUS

Times Higher Education ranks top-10 institutions in India

In its latest World Reputation Rankings for 2013, Times Higher Education magazine, (THE) UK, for the first

time, has released an India top-10 list. According to THE India Reputation Rankings, Indian Institute of

Science (IISc), Bangalore, is in the first position, followed by IIT Bombay, All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS), IIT Kanpur and IIT Delhi, respectively. The University of Delhi takes the sixth place—the

first full-fledged university on the list. IIT Madras (7), IIT Kharagpur (8), Aligarh Muslim University (9) and

University of Hyderabad (10) are the other names, which feature in the list. 

The reputation rankings, a spin-off of the annual THE World University Rankings, are based on subjective,

but expert judgement of senior, published academics. 

However, globally, not a single Indian institution has made it to the top 100 of the “World Reputation

Rankings 2013”. While Harvard University tops the list, it is followed by Massachusetts Institute of

Technology (MIT), University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of California, Berkeley and

Stanford University. 

THE revealed that if the rankings were to list more than top-100, IISc Bangalore would be 130th, IIT Bombay

in the 192nd place, with all other Indian institutions falling outside the global top-200. 

Facebook ‘like’ may tell a lot about your personality

Clicking those friendly blue “like” buttons strewn across the Web may be doing more than marking you as a

fan of Coca-Cola or Lady Gaga. It could out you as gay. It might reveal how you vote. It might even suggest

that you’re an unmarried introvert with a high IQ and a weakness for nicotine.

That’s the conclusion of a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers

reported analysing the likes of more than 58,000 American Facebook users to make guesses about their

personalities and behaviour, and even whether they drank, smoked, or did drugs. Cambridge University

researcher David Stillwell, one of the study’s authors, said the results may come as a surprise.

Facebook launched its like button in 2009, and the small thumbs-up symbol has since become ubiquitous on

the social network and common across the rest of the Web as well. According to Facebook, roughly 2.7

billion new likes pour out onto the Internet every day – endorsing everything from pop stars to soda pop. That

means an ever-expanding pool of data available to marketers, managers, and just about anyone else interested

in users’ inner lives, especially those who aren’t careful about their privacy settings.

When researchers crunched the “like” data and compared their results to answers given in the personality test,

patterns emerged in nearly every direction. Since the study involved people who volunteered access to their

data, it’s unclear if the trends would apply to all Facebook users.

The study found that Facebook likes were linked to sexual orientation, gender, age, ethnicity, IQ, religion,

politics and cigarette, drug, or alcohol use. The likes also mapped to relationship status, number of Facebook

friends, as well as half a dozen different personality traits.

Some likes were more revealing than others. Researchers could correctly distinguish between users who

identified themselves as black or white 95 percent of the time. That success rate dropped to a still impressive

88 percent when trying to guess whether a male user was homosexual, and to 85 percent when telling

Democrats from Republicans. Identifying drug users was far trickier – researchers got that right only 65 per

cent of the time, a result scientists generally describe as poor. 

The linkages ranged from the self-evident to the surreal. Men who liked TV song-and-dance sensation “Glee”

were more likely to be gay. Men who liked professional wrestling were more likely to be straight. Drinking

game aficionados were generally more outgoing than, say, fans of fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett. People

who preferred pop diva Jennifer Lopez usually gathered more Facebook friends than those who favoured the

heavy metal sound of Iron Maiden.

Among the more poignant insights was the apparent pre-occupation of children of divorce with relationship

issues. For example, those who expressed support for statements such as “Never Apologize For What You

Feel It’s Like Saying Sorry For Being Real” or “I’m The Type Of Girl Who Can Be So Hurt But Still Look

At You & Smile” were slightly more likely to have seen their parents split before their 21st birthday.

Jennifer Golbeck, a University of Maryland computer scientist who wasn’t involved in the study but has done

similar work, endorsed its methodology, calling it smart and straightforward and describing its results as

“awesome.”

Facebook users can change the privacy settings on their likes to put them beyond the reach of researchers,

advertisers or nearly anyone else. For the unknown number of users whose preferences are public, the

researchers had this advice: Look before you like.

Feb 2013\

ABBREVIATIONS

FAC: Fuel Adjustment Component.

GOC: Global Ocean Commission.

NOFHC: Non-Operative Financial Holding Company.

SARAL: Satellite with ARgos and ALtika.

AWARDS

Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development , 2011

The award has been conferred to Ms Ela Bhatt, founder of Self-Employed Women’s Association of India

(SEWA), for her lifetime achievements in comprehensively empowering women in India and elsewhere

through grassroots entrepreneurship. The Prize carries a citation and a cash award of Rs.

Life Sciences Breakthrough Prize

The first 11 winners of the Prize and their fields of research are: 

Cornelia I. Bargmann, genetics of neural circuits and behaviour; 

David Botstein, linking disease in humans using changes in DNA; 

Lewis C. Cantley, the discovery of proteins involved in cancer metabolism; 

Hans Clevers, molecular signalling in stem cells and cancer; 

Napoleone Ferrara, angiogenesis that led to therapies for cancer and eye diseases; 

Titia de Lange, how telomeres protect chromosomes and their role in genome instability in cancer;

Eric Lander, genetics in human disease and analysis of genetic, physical and sequence maps of the human

genome; 

Charles L. Sawyers, cancer genes and targeted therapy; 

Bert Vogelstein, cancer genomics and tumor suppressor genes; 

Robert Weinberg, characterization of human cancer genes; 

Shinya Yamanaka, induced pluripotent stem cells.

All prize winners will be added to the selection committee for future Breakthrough Prizes. Going forward,

there will be five winners each year. The Breakthrough Prize promises a transparent selection process.

Anyone can nominate a candidate online for consideration and the $3 million prize.

A group of Bay Area tech and investment luminaries have announced the multimillion-dollar competition for

researchers to develop cures for the world’s toughest diseases and solve the life sciences’ most

complicated problems. At a gathering in San Francisco, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Levinson, chairman of both Apple and Genentech, Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of genetic mapping start-

up23andMe, and investment guru Yuri Milner to announce the new $3 million Life Sciences Breakthrough

Prize and name the first 11 winners.

Tagore Award for Cultural Harmony

Pandit Ravi Shankar is the first recipient of the award, which has been given to him in recognition of his

outstanding contribution to cultural harmony and universal values. 

The Tagore award has been established by government of India, celebrating 150th birth anniversary of

Rabindra Nath Tagore. It carries an amount of Rs. one crore, a citation in a scroll, a plaque, as well as an

exquisite traditional handicraft/handloom item. The award is open to all persons regardless of nationality,

race, language, cast, creed or sex. 

85th  Annual Academy Awards (Oscar Awards)

Achievement in Directing: Ang Lee, “Life of Pi”.

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”.

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”.

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained”.

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway, “Les Miserables”.

Best Motion Picture: “Argo”.

Best Animated Short Film: Paperman.

Best Animated Feature Film: Brave.

Achievement in Cinematography: Claudio Miranda, “Life of Pi”.

Achievement in Visual Effects: “Life of Pi”.

Achievement in Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran, “Anna Karenina”.

Achievement in Makeup & Hairstyling: “Les Miserables”.

Best Live-Action Short Film: “Curfew”.

Best Documentary Short Subject: “Inocente”.

Best Documentary Feature: “Searching for a Sugar Man”.

Best Foreign-Language Film: “Amour” (Austria).

Achievement in Sound Mixing: “Les Miserables”.

Achievement in Sound Editing: “Skyfall” and “Zero Dark Thirty”

Achievement in Film Editing: "Argo".

Achievement in Production Direction: “Lincoln”.

Original Score: Mychael Danna, “Life of Pi”.

Original Song: “Skyfall”, Adele Adkins & Paul Epworth.

Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio , “Argo”.

Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, “Django Unchained”.

COMMISSION

Global Ocean Commission

Global Ocean commission (GOC) is a new initiative to restore health and productivity to the ocean.

independent body of international leaders and aims to reverse degradation of the ocean and restoring it to full

health and productivity.

The objective of GOC is to formulate politically and technically feasible short-, medium- and long-term

recommendations to address four key issues facing the high seas: overfishing, large-scale loss of habitat and

biodiversity, the lack of effective management and enforcement, deficiencies in high seas governance.

GOC work will examine key threats, challenges, and changes to the ocean in the 21st century, and

identify priority issues. The Commission will begin by analysing threats to the global ocean, based on the

latest and most rigorous evidence from science and economics. It will map out the implications of a business-

as-usual approach. In this phase of its work, it will draw on the abundance of existing reports from world

experts, but will also begin original research in partnership with other organisations.

It will also review the effectiveness of the existing legal framework for the high seas in meeting the unique

challenges and threats of the 21st century and beyond. 

GOC will engage with interested parties around the world, including groups of people with direct interests in

ocean issues as well as the general public. It will also raise understanding among policymakers, economists

and other groups, including the general public, of the implications should high seas issues not be reformed.

The recommendations of GOC, regarding cost-effective, pragmatic and politically feasible reforms of high

seas governance, management and enforcement, will be based on the evidence and testimonies before it, and

present a reasonable prospect of resolving gaps and weaknesses that have been identified.

DEFENCE

Rudra helicopters to be inducted soon

Paving the way for the Indian Army to get its first lot of armed helicopters, the indigenously produced armed

helicopter Rudra has been accorded the initial operational clearance, marking an important milestone in

military aviation history in the country.

The Rudra is based on the platform of the advanced light helicopter (ALH) that is already in service in India.

It has been code named ALH Mark IV and is produced by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The

helicopter derives its name from Rig vedic god for wind, storm and hunt.

This will be the first time that the armed forces will be equipped with armed helicopters capable of fighting in

the higher reaches of the Himalayas along the borders with China and parts of Pakistan.

The induction of the Rudra will be an important milestone as the Indian inventory of armed helicopters, the

Mi-35, currently has a flying ceiling of 10,000-12,000 feet. TheRudra, powered by a new

has been co-developed by French company Turbomeca, will fly up to an altitude of 20,000 feet. The

Himalayas rise above this altitude along large parts of the India-China frontier.

The weapons on board the chopper will include a M6-21 20 mm gun and 70 mm rockets with a range of 8

km. The chopper will also carry anti-tank guided missiles and the air-to-air-missiles, the first lot has been

imported but will be produced here latter. 

Rudra is equipped with integrated sensors, weapons and electronic warfare suite using an upgraded version of

the glass cockpit used in the Mk-III of the ALH. The Electronic Warfare (EW) suite consists of missile

approach warning system, laser and radar warning systems and automated sensors covering all envisaged

threats. It also has automatic dispensation of countermeasures like chaff and fare dispensing systems.

RESEARCH

New 17-million-digit monster is largest known prime

The largest known prime number has just shot up to 257,885,161 - 1, breaking a four-year dry spell in the

search for new, ever-larger primes.

Curtis Cooper at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg made the find as part of the

Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), a distributed computing project designed to hunt for a particular

kind of prime number first identified in the 17th century.

All prime numbers can only be divided by themselves and 1. The rare Mersenne primes all have the form 2p

1, where p is itself a prime number.

The new prime, which has over 17 million digits, is only the 48th Mersenne prime ever found and the 14th

discovered by GIMPS. The previous record holder, 243,112,609 - 1, which was also found by GIMPS in

2008, has just under 13 million digits. All of the top 10 largest known primes are Mersenne primes discovered

by GIMPS. Until today, the most recent addition to the list was found in 2009, but it was smaller than the

2008 discovery.

SPACE RESEARCH

Curiosity Mars rovers takes first historic soil sample

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has finally drilled deep enough into a rock to acquire a powdered sample for

analysis. The fine grey material from the 6cm-hole was sieved and inspected before being delivered to the

robot’s onboard “Chemin” and “Sam” labs.

This was a historic first in planetary exploration—never before has the interior of a rock on another world

been probed in such a way.

Drilling is absolutely central to the rover’s mission in Gale Crater, a deep bowl sited on Mars’ equator.

Curiosity is investigating whether past environments at this location could ever have supported life, and

getting inside rocks to analyse their make-up will provide some of the most telling evidence.

Curiosity has already seen plenty of evidence for past running water in Gale Crater and the results from the

drill-hole analysis are expected to reveal further information about that wet history.

Astronomers discover Moon-sized exo-planet called Kepler-37b

Scientists have discovered an odd little planet that has set a new record for the smallest alien world ever

discovered. According to the scientists, the exo-planet is about the same size as the Earth’s moon. The planet

has been dubbed Kepler-37b.

The scientists involved in the discovery say that this is the first exo-planet ever discovered that is smaller than

Mercury. The planet makes an orbit of its parent star every 13 days and has an insanely high surface

temperature of about 800°F. This planet was discovered along with two other larger planets orbiting the same

parent star.

The parent star is about 215 light years from Earth, it and its planets were discovered using the Kepler space

telescope. The two larger planets have been called Kepler-37c and Kepler-37d. 

The scientists say that all three of the planets in orbit around the star are likely un-inhabitable, and are well

inside the Earth-sun distance.

PSLV-C20 puts SARAL and six other satellites into orbit

On February 25, 2013, in a multiple launch mission, a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C20) put India-

French satellite SARAL and six others into their precise orbits after its successful launch from the Sriharikota

spaceport. This was the 22nd consecutive successful PSLV mission by the Indian Space Research

organisation (ISRO). 

The other satellites to go into orbit one after the other were SAPPHIRE, NEOSSAT, AAUSAT, BRITE,

UniBRITE and STRand, all from abroad.

SARAL stands for Satellite for Argos-3 and Altika. While these two payloads are from French space agency

CNES, a third payload, a solid state C-band transponder, is from the ISRO. All the three payloads were

integrated into a satellite at the ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore.

SARAL is a unique satellite that will cater to the research community and it has practical applications as well.

It will help in oceanographic studies. It will study the ocean currents and sea surface heights. While ARGOS-

2 will collect the data, the Altikameter will measure the height of the sea surface. ARGOS provides scientists

with a tool to increase their understanding of environment and helps industry comply with environmental

protection regulations. 

SARAL will also help researchers to study the development of climate. It has practical applications in

continental ice studies, coastal erosion, protection of biodiversity, study of marine animals’ migration and so

on.

The 148-kg SAPPHIRE and the 82-kg NEOSSAT are both from Canada. SAPPHIRE will look at space

debris and other satellites in orbit. NEOSSA —Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite—has a telescope for

detecting and tracking asteroids, satellites and space debris. The 3-kg AAUSAT has been built by the students

of Aalborg University, Denmark to receive automatic identification system signals from ships in the Arctic

region. 

STRaND-1, from the UK, is a unique yet simple contraption. It comprises a smart-phone loaded with specific

apps, stuck to a 30 cm x 10 cm cubesat. The Google Nexus phone has four apps that were selected based on a

Facebook contest. One of the apps, ‘Postcards from space’, will take pictures of the Earth based on unique

public demands. Another app, ‘360’, will provide photos on a map showing where they were taken.

As the name suggests, ‘Scream in space’ app will allow a chosen few to test how they would sound in the

space. Based on the creativity of the videos, those chosen will be able to speak via phone and their voice will

be recorded through a microphone in orbit. The app, ‘iTesa’ will record the magnetic field of the phone in

orbit. This will test the possibility of making calls from outer space in the future. The last app, ‘The STRaND

Data’, will monitor the satellite telemetry of the smart-phone. The 3.5-kg STRaND satellite also has a 3D

printed part—an apparent first in space.

UniBRITE and BRITE are the other satellites onboard. These microsatellites, weighing 14 kg each, will study

the brightest stars by observing their temperature variations.

Strand-1—First “Phonesat” in space

India has become the world’s first country to launch a smartphone into space, loaded with a number of

experimental “Apps”, some serious and some just for fun.

The British-built Strand-1 spacecraft, developed by scientists in Surrey, was sent into orbit from Sriharikota,

using PSLV launcher, the spacecraft is an innovative 3U CubeSat, weighs 4.3 kg and is the worl’s first

“phonesat” to go into orbit, as well as the first UK CubeSat to be launched.

Developed by a team from the University of Surrey's Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and Surrey Satellite

Technology Limited (SSTL), STRaND-1 is a training and demonstration mission, designed to test

commercial off-the-shelf technologies in space.

During the first phase of the mission, STRaND-1 will be controlled by the satellite’s attitude control system

and a new high-speed linux-based CubeSat computer.

During phase two the STRaND-1 team plans to switch many of the satellite’s in-orbit operations to the

smartphone, a Google Nexus One which uses the Android operating system, thereby testing the capabilities of

many standard smartphone components for a space environment.

MISCELLANEOUS

Param Yuva II—India’s fastest supercomputer

Precise weather forecasting, faster tapping of natural resources in the sea and designing of customised drugs

for individuals will now be possible using Param Yuva II, India's fastest supercomputer.

Developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Param Yuva II

inaugurated on February 8, 2013. 

The supercomputer has been upgraded to 524 teraflops, about 10 times faster than the present facility. With

an investment of Rs 16 crore, it was developed in a record three months. 

Param Yuva II will also give a boost to research in space and bioinformatics, among others. Developing

research-based applications will take lesser time than before and complex problems will be solved in a

simpler way. For instance, if it takes about 18 to 20 years to discover a new drug now—from designing to

testing—Param Yuva II will help reduce this time to 15 years.

The supercomputer would also help in reducing the time-frame in weather predictions. If researchers

currently collect satellite data to predict the conditions for a six-km region, the supercomputer could help

cover a wider region, may be up to 10 km. 

About 300 people from the C-DAC team were involved in the making of the supercomputer, which also

promises to be energy efficient with 35% reduction in energy consumption as compared to the earlier facility.

Jan 2013ABBREVIATIONS

CTS: Cheque Truncation System

TMT: Thirty Metre Telescope.

AWARDS

Kirti Chakra, 2013

Major Anup Joseph Manjali of the Bihar Regiment is the sole awardee of the Kirti Chakra, India’s second

highest peacetime gallantry award. The highest gallantry medal, Ashok Chakra, has not been awarded in

2013.

Padma Awards, 2013

The President of India has approved 109 awards including one duo case (counted as one) and 14 in the

category of Foreigners/NRIs/PIOs/ Posthumous. These comprise 5 Padma Vibhushan, 27

Padma Bhushan and 77 Padma Shri Awards. There are 19 ladies among the awardees.

 

Padma Awards, the country’s highest civilian awards, are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma

Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. The Awards are given in all disciplines/fields of activities, viz.

art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and

education, sports, civil service, etc. ‘Padma Vibhushan’ is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service;

‘Padma Bhushan’ for distinguished service of high order and ‘Padma Shri’ for distinguished service in any

field. The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year.

Padma Vibhushan: K.G Subramanyan (Art-Painting & Sculpture, West Bengal), Late Shri Mario De

Miranda (Art-Cartoonist, Goa), Late (Dr.) Bhupen Hazarika (Art-Vocal Music, Assam), Dr.

Hastimal Sancheti (Medicine-Orthopedics, Maharashtra), T. V. Rajeswar (Civil Service, Delhi).

Padma Bhushan: Prominent among the winners are: Sharmila Tagore  (Art,  Delhi ), Late Rajesh Khanna

(Art,  Maharashtra), Late Jaspal Singh Bhatti  (Art,  Punjab), Dr. Apathukatha Sivathanu Pillai

Engineering,  Delhi), Adi Burjor Godrej  (Trade and Industry, Maharashtra),  Rahul Dravid (Sports,

Karnataka), Ms. H. Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom  (Sports,  Manipur).

Padma Shri: Prominent among the winners are: Gajam Anjaiah  (Art,  Andhra Pradesh), Sridevi Kapoor

(Art,  Maharashtra), Vishwanath Dinkar Patekar alias Nana Patekar (Art,  Maharashtra), Rekandar Nageswara

Rao alias Surabhi Babji (Art,  Andhra Pradesh), Ms Mahrukh Tarapor  (Art,  Maharashtra), Vandana Luthra

(Trade and Industry, Delhi), Prof. (Capt.) Dr. Mohammad Sharaf-eAlam (Literature & Education, Bihar), Dr.

Radhika Herzberger (Literature & Education, Andhra Pradesh), J. Malsawma  (Literature & Education,

Mizoram), Nida Fazli  (Literature & Education,  Madhya Pradesh),  Premlata Agrawal  (Sports,

Yogeshwar Dutt  (Sports,  Haryana), Hosanagara Nagarajegowda Girisha  (Sports,  Karnataka),

Major Vijay Kumar  (Sports,  Himachal Pradesh), Ngangom Dingko Singh  (Sports,  Maharashtra), Ms. Ritu

Kumar (Fashion Designing, Delhi), Dr. Ravindra Singh Bisht  (Archaeology,  Uttar Pradesh).

DSC Prize for South Asian Literature

Novelist Jeet Thayil has been given the award for his first novel—Narcopolis, which depicts the Mumbai

underground in the 70s.

Golden Globe Awards, 2013

Best Supporting Actor - Film: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or TV Movie: Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey

Best Mini-Series or TV Movie: Game Change

Best Actress, Television Movie or Mini-Series: Julianne Moore, Game Change

Best Actor, Television Drama: Damian Lewis, Homeland

Best Television Series, Drama: Homeland

Best Original Score: Mychael Danna, Life of Pi

Best Original Song: Skyfall - Skyfall

Best Actor, Television Movie or Mini-Series: Kevin Costner, Hatfields & McCoys

Best Actress, Musical or Comedy: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Best Supporting Actor, TV: Ed Harris, Game Change

Best Supporting Actress - Film: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Best Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Best Actor, Television Comedy or Musical: Don Cheadle, House of Lies

Foreign Language Film: Amour

Best Actress, Television Drama: Claire Danes, Homeland

Best Animated Feature Film: Brave

Best Actress, Television Comedy or Musical: Lena Dunham, Girls

Cecil B. Demille Award: Jodie Foster

Best Director: Ben Affleck, Argo

Best Television Series, Comedy or Musical: Girls

Best Actor, Musical or Comedy: Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables

Best Picture, Musical or Comedy: Les Misérables

Best Actress, Drama - Film: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Actor, Drama: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Best Picture, Drama: Argo

CYBER SPACE

Internet turns 30

The computer network officially began functioning when it fully substituted previous networking systems Jan

1, 1983. On that day, it was the first time the US Department of Defence-commissioned Arpanet network

fully switched to use of the Internet protocol suite (IPS) communications system.

This new method of linking computers paved the way for the arrival of the World Wide Web (www).

Based on designs by Welsh scientist Donald Davies, the Arpanet network began as a military project in the

late 1960s. It was developed at many American universities, including the University of California-Los

Angeles (UCLA) and the Stanford Research Institute.

In 1973, work on the IPS and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) technology began. The new systems were

designed to replace the more vulnerable Network Control Program (NCP) used previously, and made sure the

network was not exposed to a single point of failure.

By January 1, 1983, the substitution of the older system for the new Internet protocol had been completed and

the Internet was born.

British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee later used it to host a system of interlinked hypertext documents

in 1989, known as the World Wide Web

DEFENCE

K-15 underwater ballistic missile ready for integration

On January 27, 2013, India successfully test-fired the underwater ballistic missile, K-15 (code-named B05),

off the Visakhapatnam coast, marking an end to a series of developmental trials.

In its twelfth flight trial, the 10-metre tall Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) lifted off from a

pontoon, rose to an altitude of 20 km and reached a distance of about 700 km as it splashed down in the

waters of the Bay of Bengal near the pre-designated target point. The missile was tested for its full range of

700 km and the mission met all its objectives. The impact accuracy of the medium range strategic missile was

in single digit.

With the completion of developmental trials, the process of integrating K-15 missile with INS Arihant, the

indigenously-built nuclear submarine, will begin soon. As many as 12 nuclear-tipped missiles, each weighing

six tonnes will be integrated with Arihant, which will be powered by an 80 MWt (thermal) reactor that uses

enriched uranium as fuel and light water as coolant and moderator.

India is only the fifth country to have such a missile—the other four are the United States, Russia, France and

China.

Besides Arihant, three other nuclear-powered submarines are being constructed—one at Visakhapatnam and

two at Vadodara. India is also developing K-4 missile with a range of 3,000 km.

RESEARCH

World’s most advance molecule maker

A molecule is the smallest and most basic part of matter that can exist independently. For instance, a

molecule of sugar will exhibit all the properties of sugar such as taste, colour, etc.

The development of a machine which uses molecules to make molecules in a synthetic process is similar to

the robotic assembly line in car plants. The machine is just a few nanometres long (few millionths of a

millimetre) and can only be seen using special instruments. Its creation was inspired by natural complex

molecular factories where information from DNA is used to programme the linking of molecular building

blocks in the correct order. 

David Leigh, Professor at the University of Manchester School of Chemistry, led the team that developed this

unique machine.

The most extraordinary of these factories is the ribosome, a massive molecular machine found in all living

cells, which has inspired Leigh’s machine.

It features a functionalised nanometre-sized ring that moves along a molecular track, picking up building

blocks located on the path and connecting them together in a specific order to synthesise the desired new

molecule.

Leigh says the current prototype is still far from being as efficient as the ribosome. “The ribosome can put

together 20 building blocks a second until up to 150 are linked. So far we have only used our machine to link

together four blocks and it takes 12 hours to connect each block.”

Researchers turn DNA in to Digital Storage

The next great digital storage medium may be us—or our DNA, to be precise. Deoxyribonucleic acid stores

the code that makes us humans and not, say, flatworms. Which is to say that DNA is remarkably evolved

storage media that can pack in all the variety and complexity of organic life in just a small amount of

biological matter?

But, turning DNA into storage for digital and not biological information, using artificial means, is tough

because it’s proven difficult to encode efficiently and reliably, say researchers at the EMBL-European

Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI).

In the latest issue of Nature EMBL-EBI, researchers Nick Goldman and Ewan Birney explain that their

breakthrough could make it possible to “store at least 100 million hours of high-definition video in about a

cup of DNA.”

Goldman and Birney said they enlisted the help of bio-analytics instrument maker Agilent Technologies, a

former lab of Hewlett-Packard, to help synthesize DNA from encoded digital information—in this case, an

MP3 of Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech, a .txt file of Shakespeare’s sonnets, a .pdf file

containing James Watson and Francis Crick’s original paper describing the structure of DNA, and a final file

describing the encoding itself.

“We knew we needed to make a code using only short strings of DNA, and to do it in such a way that creating

a run of the same letter would be impossible,” Goldman explained. “So we figured, let’s break up the code

into lots of overlapping fragments going in both directions, with indexing information showing where each

fragment belongs in the overall code, and make a coding scheme that doesn’t allow repeats. That way, you

would have to have the same error on four different fragments for it to fail—and that would be very rare.”

The result was “hundreds of thousands of pieces of DNA” that looked “like a tiny piece of dust”. Agilent sent

the synthesized sample back to the researchers at EMBL-EBI, where they sequenced it and said they decoded

the files without errors.

SPACE RESEARCH

Leaping hedgehog probes planned for Martian moon Phobos

Researchers at Stanford University and NASA are designing spiky spherical probes to bounce across the

Martian moon Phobos and prepare the way for possible astronaut colonization.

The plan calls for an orbital control satellite, a coffee table-sized unit dubbed Phobos Surveyor, which would

scan the moon’s surface using gamma ray or neutron detectors to get an idea of the surface composition. It

would then fire the “hedgehogs” down onto the Phobian surface, where their prongs would sample the soil.

Given the tiny amount of gravity on the moon’s surface, wheels would be useless to get around, so the probes

are controlled by tri-directional flywheels. These could force the probe to either roll, hop, or bound longer

distances across the surface, depending on the rotation speed of individual flywheels.

While the technique would be suitable for other low-gravity environments like asteroids and comets, Phobos

is the suggested first target. This is partially to work out what the moon actually is, and also to map it out for

a possible manned base.

Phobos is rather unusual as Solar System moons go – it orbits closer to the surface of its host planet than any

other moon and is so dark as to be difficult to spot at times. It’s suspected the moon is a captured rubble-pile

asteroid, with a third of its volume made up of hollow spaces.

The final system could be ready in ten years, but if the team gets moving they might hitch a ride with

“Curiosity” v2.0 at the end of the decade. 

15 billion years ago a huge river flowed on Mars

New astonishing pictures by the European Space Agency have revealed a 1,500 km long and 7 km wide river

that once ran across Mars. The agency's Mars Express imaged the striking upper part of the remnants of Reull

Vallis river on Mars with its high-resolution stereo camera. 

Reull Vallis is believed to have formed when running water flowed in the distant martian past, cutting a

channel through the Promethei Terra Highlands before running on towards the floor of the vast Hellas basin.

This structure, which stretches for almost 1,500 km, is flanked by numerous tributaries. 

The images show a region of Reull Vallis where the channel is 7 km wide and 300 m deep. The sides of Reull

Vallis are sharp and steep. These structures are believed to be caused by the passage of loose debris and ice

during the “Amazonian” perio,d due to glacial flow along the channel. They were formed after it was

originally carved by liquid water during the Hesperian period, which may have ended 3.5bn to 1.8bn years

ago. 

NASA beams Mona Lisa to Moon with laser 

In a major advance in laser communication, NASA scientists have beamed a picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s

masterpiece, Mona Lisa, to a powerful spacecraft orbiting the Moon. The first laser signal carrying the iconic

image, fired from an installation in Maryland, beamed the Mona Lisa to the Moon, to be received 384,400 km

away by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which has been orbiting the Moon since 2009.

The Mona Lisa transmission is a major advance in laser communication for interplanetary spacecraft. By

transmitting the image piggyback on laser pulses, the team achieved simultaneous laser communication and

tracking. The success of the laser transmission was verified by returning of the image to Earth using the

spacecraft’s radio telemetry system.

This is the first time anyone achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances.

World’s largest telescope to be built by a five-nation consortium

A five-nation consortium including India would be constructing the world’s largest optical telescope, which

would be the world’s most advanced ground based observatory. This telescope will be developed in Hawaii,

at the summit of the Mauna Kea Volcano.

Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT)  will be jointly built and operated by India, Japan, Canada, China and the

USA. The work on this telescope is expected to start in 2014 and the project is planned at an investment of

1.2 billion US dollar. 

This Thirty Meter Telescope would be eighty one times more sensitive than all the telescopes of its kind

available at present.

Indian scientists would play a major role in the development of the key components of the telescope and 15

percent of the 492 mirror segments, each of 1.44 m in size, would be fabricated in India.

Asteroid-prospecting spacecraft unveiled

From 2015, a fleet of “FireFly” spacecraft, weighing just 25 kg each, will whizz into space to explore any

passing asteroids for signs of useful materials such as industrial metals, platinum-like metals, water and

silicon. Within a decade Deep Space Industries, the company behind the project, hopes to be able to harvest

passing asteroids for metals and other building materials for use in space projects such as building

communications platforms and solar power arrays.

It will also seek out rarer and more valuable metals for sale on Earth, for example in pollution control

technology, and water and fuel which could be used in interplanetary space flight.

Initially, the fleet of “FireFlies” will be directed to examine suitable candidate asteroids as they fly past Earth,

hitching a lift into orbit with communication satellites to save on energy and costs. From 2016, larger

“DragonFly” craft weighing 32 kg will be tasked with collecting samples from suitable asteroids and

returning them to Earth for analysis by scientists.

The company believes materials harvested from asteroids can be used to build complex metal parts for use in

space infrastructure and to fuel and equip space craft, bringing down the cost of missions to Mars.

Using materials collected from asteroids in space projects– and therefore eliminating the need to launch them

from Earth–is the “only way to afford permanent space development,” chief executive David Gump added.

The company eventually hopes to find asteroids containing precious metals such as gold and platinum, which

could be sold on Earth.

MISCELLANEOUS

Marketing blitz flies into space

Several consumers would have won laptops or a holiday tour through marketing contests, but here’s one that

will take people from across the world to travel into space. 

In what is being considered to be one of its biggest promotional events so far, Axe, a Unilever brand, has

partnered with Space Expedition Corporation (SXC) to send 22 men and women from across the world into

space. SXC is a private company, which is planning to kick-start its daily commercial flights into space in

2014. 

None other than Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, has been roped in as the ambassador to

promote the Axe Apollo Space Academy, or AASA, to rhyme with NASA, which will shortlist men and

women through an online competition. The winners will be sent into space on board the Lynx, a two-seater

sub-orbital reusable launch vehicle, in 2014. 

    

Across 90 countries, about a hundred people would be selected to go to a three-day space camp. They would

experience the training astronauts undergo. From this group, 22 people would be selected to go into space.

SXC is the launch customer of the space vehicle XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx vehicle that takes off and lands

like a normal airplane from regular airports.

India’s first space weather reading centre

A centre of excellence specialising in reading space weather conditions to help air traffic on polar routes

would come up in Kolkata by the middle of 2013, the first of its kind in the country. The centre would come

up at the Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER) campus. 

Besides air traffic on polar routes, the centre would help in the functioning of GPS networks and mobile

satellites placed in space.  

Several commercial flights from south Asia, Europe and north America now fly over the polar regions to cut

short time and distance. Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and solar flares are two kinds of storms originating

from the sun which expose flights to immense amounts of radiation over polar regions.

The centre would also work in field of gravitational physics in terms of analysing data and would also offer

PhD programs to students interested in space sciences.

DEC 2012ABBREVIATIONS

CCI: Cabinet Committee on Investments.

AWARDS

World’s richest science prize

Stephen Hawking, the British cosmologist who urged people to “be curious” in the Paralympics opening

ceremony, has landed the richest prize in science for his work on how black holes emit radiation.

Wheelchair-bound Hawking won $3 million from Russian Internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who set up his

prize this year to address what he regards as a lack of recognition in the modern world for leading scientists.

Alongside Hawking, a second $3 million award has gone to the scientists behind the discovery of a new

subatomic particle that behaves like the theoretical Higgs boson, imagined almost half a century ago and

responsible for bestowing mass on other fundamental particles.

The winners include the head of the LHC Lyn Evans, and the two spokespeople, Fabiola Gianotti and Joe

Incandela, who presented the discovery at CERN.

Michel Della Negra, another prize-winner who led a team that built one of the two giant detectors used to find

the Higgs, said the award was a big surprise.

Della Negra receives $250,000 because the $3 million is to be split three ways between Evans, and the two

teams working on the Atlas and CMS detectors. Two leaders of the Atlas team will get $500,000 each while

the four from CMS get $250,000 apiece.

The scale of the awards from the Milner could, over time, see them compete in prestige terms with the annual

Nobel prizes.

Diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21 and told in 1963 he had two years to live, Hawking,

now 70, has become one of the world’s most recognisable scientists after guest appearances on The Simpsons

and on Star Trek.

Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for Ravi Shankar

Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar has been bestowed with a posthumous lifetime achievement Grammy

award, the music industry’s top prize show. He is among seven artists, including Carole King, classical

pianist Glenn Gould, jazz musician Charlie Haden, blues legend Lightnin’ Hopkins, Motown greats the

Temptations and Patti Page, famous for “(How Much Is That) Doggie In The Window”, named as Grammys

Lifetime Achievement Award honourees.

Pt Ravi Shankar had on December 12, 2012, in southern California at the age of 92.

The sitar pioneer taught his close friend George Harrison, the late Beatle, to play the instrument and

collaborated with him on several projects, including the ground-breaking Concert for Bangladesh in 1971.

Harrison called Shankar “The Godfather of World Music”, and Yehudi Menuhin, widely considered one of

the greatest violinists of the 20th century, compared him to Mozart.

Infosys Prize for Humanities-Literary Studies

Amit Chaudhuri has become the first winner of the newly instituted Infosys Prize for Humanities-Literary

Studies, which carries the biggest purse in the country, that of Rs 50 lakhs.

Chaired by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, the jury included Leila Seth, the first woman High Court Chief

Justice of the country, Homi Bhabha, Rothenberg professor of English and American literature at Harvard

University, Akeel Bilgrami, Johnsonian professor of philosophy, Columbia University, Sheldon Pollock,

professor of South Asian Studies, Columbia University and Upendra Baxi, professor of law in development,

University of Warwick.

Chaudhuri has been awarded for his “imaginative and illuminating writings in literary criticism, which reflect

a complex literary sensibility, great theoretical mastery along with a probing sense of detail,” says the

citation.

Chaudhuri teaches contemporary literature in the University of East Anglia, Norwich, but spends a lot of time

writing both fiction and non-fictional critical appreciation of literature. Starting with his earliest critical

analysis of D.H. Lawrence to his present works on understanding and appreciating Tagore, Chaudhuri has

received world acclaim for his research based on serious thinking.

Aryabhatta Award

The former secretary of the Department of Ocean Development, A.E. Muthunayagam has been given the

prestigious Aryabhatta award, instituted by the Astronautical Society of India (ASI), for 2010 and V.K.

Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, has been given the award for 2011. They have been

selected for their achievements in rocketry.

Dr. Muthunayagam was the director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, ISRO. In 2011, the Department

of Atomic Energy appointed him as head of a committee to look into safety issues related to the Kudankulam

Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu.

Dr. Saraswat, who is also the director-general of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO),

is an architect of the interceptor missile programme, the Agni and Prithvi programmes.

RESEARCH

Flicker-free, plastic bulbs

Researchers have created a new technology which provides flicker-free, shatterproof lighting which is easy

on the eyes and may soon replace the buzzing overhead fluorescent light bulbs in your office.

The lighting, based on field-induced polymer electroluminescent (FIPEL) technology, also gives off soft,

white light—not the yellowish glint from fluorescents or bluish tinge from LEDs, claim scientists at Wake

Forest University.

The team uses a nano-engineered polymer matrix to convert the charge into light. This allows the researchers

to create an entirely new light bulb—overcoming one of the major barriers in using plastic lights in

commercial buildings and homes.

The device is made of three layers of mouldable white-emitting polymer blended with a small amount of

nano-materials that glow when stimulated to create bright and perfectly white light, similar to the sunlight

human eyes prefer.

However, it can be made in any colour and any shape— from 2x4-foot sheets to replace office lighting to a

bulb with Edison sockets to fit household lamps and light fixtures.

This new lighting solution is at least twice as efficient as compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs and on par with

LEDs, but these bulbs won’t shatter and contaminate a home like CFLs or emit a bluish light like LED

counterparts.

Wake Forest is working with a company to manufacture the technology and plans to have it ready for

consumers as early as 2013.

Seafaring robot makes world record

He weathered gale force storms, fended off sharks, spent more than 365 days at sea, skirted around the Great

Barrier Reef, and finally battled and surfed the East Australian Current to reach his final destination in

Hervey Bay near Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia.

It sounds impressive by any devoted ocean researcher’s standards, but this scientific adventurer is a wave-

powered robot dubbed Papa Mau, who scooped the world record for the longest distance travelled by an

autonomous vehicle, says the Liquid Robotics, the US company that developed him.

Papa Mau, one of the company’s ‘Wave Gliders’, navigated 9,000 nautical miles (16,668 kilometres) from

San Francisco, California, to Australia. Named after Mau Piailug, a master navigator from Micronesia, the

robot is one of four launched into the high seas by Liquid Robotics. Benjamin, a second Pacific-crossing bot,

is due to reach Australia early 2013; the two others are destined for Japan.

The surfboard-like bot—split in two parts— is a meticulous ocean scientist. The Wave Gliders have a number

of instruments aboard that record measures such as salinity, water temperature, fluorescence, weather, waves

and dissolved oxygen. Papa Mua encountered and recorded observations on a 1,200-kilometre stretch of

chlorophyll blooms around the Equator—which would normally be validated using satellite imagery.

According to scientists, robots may provide a way of reaping data from the seas that is cheaper than paying

out for ships and crews to spend months adrift to do the same job. Robots in the sea are increasingly being

used for research—such as Tethys, which can pursue marine organisms underwater, and an underwater ‘lab-

in-a-can’ that saves researchers from having to dive for ocean samples.

Gloves that work with touch-screen

The leather touch-screen gloves, by a Dutch firm Mujjo, can work with your smartphone. The Ethiopian

lambskin gloves use nanotechnology integrated into the leather. This makes them compatible with a touch-

screen. The gloves have also been treated for wind and water resistance.

Mujjo, the firm behind the gloves said, “The nanotechnology functions independent from the human skin, this

enables us to fully insulate the gloves with a layer of soft 100 per cent wool lining. The leather fully retains its

characteristics, affording the wearer maximum comfort and dexterity just like any other glove.”

The technology is pretty impressive and has become sort of a necessity. Most of the high-end smartphones

today have complete and only touch-screen capability. Some countries are too cold and require people to

wear gloves. It’s quite uncomfortable to remove your gloves to answer your phone or send a text. In such

places, these gloves make sense. The gloves are priced at Rs. 1,774.

A Landmark Year for Science

2012 will go down in history as a landmark year, when physicists discovered a fundamental particle that may

answer one of the greatest riddles of all.

Investigators believe their discovery to be the long-coveted Higgs Boson, an invisible particle that explains

the mystery of mass. Without the Higgs Boson, say theorists, we and all the other joined-up atoms in the

Universe would not exist.

Theorized back in 1964, the boson carries the name of a Briton, Peter Higgs. He was the first to suggest that a

field of these particles could explain a nagging anomaly: Why do some particles have mass and why do

others, such as light, have none?

That question was a gaping hole in the Standard Model, the conceptual framework for understanding the nuts-

and-bolts particles and forces that constitute the cosmos. CERN’s announcement on July 4 stressed the need

to confirm that the newcomer is the Higgs, a margin of uncertainty that probably prevented the discovery

from gaining a Nobel in 2012.

One notion is that the Higgs was born when the new Universe cooled after the Big Bang some 14 billion

years ago. It exists in an invisible field that, to use a simple image, is like a comb whose teeth are coated with

syrup.

The discovery has unfathomable potential in practical terms, said Sir Peter Knight, head of Britain's Institute

of Physics. He pointed to the discovery of hydrogen in 1766 by Henry Cavendish, who called the curious gas

“inflammable air.”

“Now, hydrogen is our rocket fuel,” said Knight. “Who knows what purpose the Higgs will serve, but I don’t

think anyone in the 18th century would have predicted a line of causation from Cavendish’s work to the first

man on the Moon.”

The hunt for the Higgs Boson was an extraordinary tale, exemplifying some of the best things in science. It

began with a dazzling series of conceptual insights by six men, including Higgs, each building on the work of

others, who published a flurry of papers within four months of each other back in 1964.

After years of cut-and-thrust debate in the community of particle physics, momentum developed for building

machines that smash sub-atomic particles together and trawl through the debris for clues.

Ultimately the crown went to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), whose labs are enclosed in a giant circular

tunnel straddling the French and Swiss borders.

The massive project was completed four years ago at a cost of 6.03 billion Swiss francs (five billion euros,

$6.27 billion dollars), yet is still not even close to running at full capacity.

Roboy—A robot helper to do daily chores

Scientists are designing a new ambitious robotic humanoid helper with artificial muscles to help people with

everyday tasks. Engineers at the University of Zurich's Artificial Intelligence Lab hope that 1.2 meter

tall Roboy, designed to look like a child, will help the sick and elderly by acting as a mechanical helper. The

research team is developing radical artificial ‘tendons’ to help the robot move.

Researchers hope Roboy will become a blueprint for ‘service robots’ that work alongside humans.

Service robots are machines that are, to a certain extent, able to execute services independently for the

convenience of human beings. Since they share their ‘living space’ with people, user-friendliness and safety

are of great importance. 

Roboy is expected to be unveiled in March 2013 at the Robots on Tour event in Zurich.

SPACE RESEARCH

Voyager-1 at the Edge: Cosmic Road-trip Hits Milestone

After a 35 year odyssey, the plucky little spacecraft Voyager-1 may be zipping through the final boundary

that separates our solar system from Interstellar space–the space between the stars, according NASA.

Sailing through the outermost reaches of the solar system, mission scientists believe they have detected the

telltale signs of Voyager crossing into a new region that represents the final boundary layer before officially

leaving the Sun’s realm. Over the past year the intrepid probe has seen the levels of cosmic rays pouring in

from the Milky Way galaxy skyrocket, while particles flowing out our solar system drop, indicating it is

about to make its exit into the final frontier.

Scientists have dubbed this new region where Voyager is now travelling as the ‘magnetic highway’, because

of the connection between the solar and interstellar magnetic lines and flow of charged particles in and out of

the solar system.

Launched in 1977, the twin Voyager spacecraft completed a grand tour of the outer planets back in the 80’s,

swinging by all the gas giants: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Voyager-1

object humankind has sent out into space having clocked about 18.5 billion km, while

the 15 billion km mark. It’s amazing to think that the weak signal from Voyager-1

hours to travel to Earth.

The big question now is exactly when it will it ‘officially’ cross the solar border and enter interstellar space.

The hope now is that Voyager reaches interstellar space before its power runs out—which is expected to

happen around the year 2020.

Seven Milky way planets could harbour life

Seven planets in the Milky Way outside our solar system that could potentially harbour life have been

discovered, researchers from an ambitious project to catalogue all habitable worlds claim.

The Habitable Exo-planets Catalogue (HEC) celebrated its first anniversary by announcing that it had

exceeded expectations in its search for possible new Earths.

There are 27 candidate planets waiting for inclusion in the habitable portion of the catalogue. Meanwhile, the

HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) instrument in Chile and orbiting Kepler Space

Telescope, among others, are quickly finding new exo-planets every month.

The HEC team principally assesses the potential of life on a planet using three metrics: the variability of

energy from the host star that the planet receives, the mass of the planet and the planet’s size. Simplistically,

bigger gas giants orbiting variable stars are less likely to host life than smaller, rocky planets near stable stars.

Sometimes a planet is found that can’t be confirmed through independent observation. One famous example

is Gliese 581g, which was discovered by one team but could not be found by another team using a different

instrument.

MISCELLANEOUS

20 years of text messaging

The humble text message, which celebrated its 21st birthday on December 2, 2012, is past its prime for the

first time in history, as new figures show a declining trend of SMSing.

From a tiny start with the world’s first message—the words “Merry Christmas” sent from a personal

computer to a mobile phone—on December 3, 1992, the use of texts exploded after 1998 when the UK’s four

major mobile-phone companies introduced “pay-as-you-go”.

Now four billion people around the globe use SMS—Short Message Service—to communicate with each

other.

NOV 2012ABBREVIATIONS

CTS: Cheque Truncation System.

NCIPC: National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre.

NCSC: National Cyber Security Coordinator.

AWARDS

Kyoto Prize, 2012

Indian literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is among the recipients prestigious Kyoto Prize, 2012, the

highest private award given in Japan for global achievement.

The Kyoto Prize is an international award to honour those who have contributed significantly to the scientific,

cultural and spiritual betterment of mankind.

The Prize, instituted by the Inamori Foundation, a charitable body founded in 1984, is presented annually in

the fields of Advanced Technology, Basic Sciences and Arts and Philosophy.

Gayatri, a professor at Columbia University, received the Arts and Philosophy Prize. US computer scientist

Ivan Sutherland, regarded as a father of computer graphics, won the Advanced Technology Prize, while

Japanese molecular biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi was awarded the Basic Sciences Prize.

Each laureate received a diploma, a gold Kyoto Prize medal and a cash gift of USD 630,000.

Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, 2012

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been honoured with Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace,

Disarmament and Development, “for his outstanding contribution to the developing world”.

The Prize is awarded annually to a person or body in recognition of creative efforts towards enlarging the

scope of freedom and enriching the human spirit. It consists of an award of Rs 2.5 million and a trophy with a

citation.

HEALTH

Global pat for Shillong surgeons’ feat on TB

A simple surgery for a complicated life-threatening disease has added firepower to the fight against

tuberculosis (TB). Two Shillong-based doctors–neuro-surgeon Bernard Trench Lyngdoh, 41, and gastro-

surgeon Mohammad Shamsul Islam, 5 –have modified a technique tried only once in 1958

hydrocephalus patients live a better life.

Hydrocephalus is the deadliest complication of brain TB. It affects the absorption of brain fluid by other

organs following which the fluid accumulates in the brain to increase pressure. A patient can be killed if this

fluid is not diverted.

The complication is usually treated by shunting via a tube the fluid from the brain to the peritoneum, a large

space between the abdominal viscera. But the problem arises when peritoneum is also infected with TB.

  

Islam and Lyngdoh developed upon an unpublished technique by one Dr Yarzagaray in 1958, changed the

place of the shunt chamber and placed the shunt end into the gall bladder. The procedure was given a new

name, ventriculo cholecysto (VC shunt).

TB remains a major killer disease in India with a prevalence rate of 256 per 100,000 people and a mortality

rate of 26 per 100,000. A worrying fact is that relapse occurs in 38% of the patients, treatment after failure in

6% and treatment after default in 25% because of the increase of multi-drug resistant strains of TB.

RESEARCH

Gene that gives humans edge over apes decoded 

Researchers have discovered a new gene which they say helps explain how humans evolved from

chimpanzees. The gene, called miR-941 , is carried only by humans and it appeared after humans evolved

from apes and played a crucial role in human brain development and could shed light on how we learned to

use tools and language. 

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh compared it to 11 other species of mammals, including

chimpanzees, gorillas, mice and rats. This finding, published in Nature Communications, brings us closer to

answering one of science’s leading questions: What makes the human body different from other mammals?

A previous study that also analysed the differences between apes and humans found that the evolutionary

genetic advantages that help humans live longer than apes also make them more vulnerable to diseases of

ageing, including heart disease , cancer, and dementia.

 

This new gene is the first known gene to be found in humans and not in apes. According to the team, it

appears to have a certain purpose in the human body. 

SPACE RESEARCH

Astronaut Drives Lego Robot Via “Interplanetary Internet”

In October 2012, NASA and the European Space Agency successfully controlled a small robot in Germany

from the International Space Station (ISS) with the help of a new networking protocol designed for deep

space communication.

As part of the experiment, NASA deployed a small Lego robot at the European Space Operations Center in

Darmstadt, Germany, and space station commander Sunita Williams connected to the robot from a

Lenovo ThinkPad T61p laptop on board the ISS’s Columbus Orbital Laboratory. The simulation was

intended to replicate a spacecraft orbiting any other planetary body.

The test used NASA’s Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol, which the space agency a decade ago

jointly developed with TCP/IP co-inventor and Google VP Vint Cerf. The technology can withstand delays

and disruptions that might be common in space due to long distances and obstacles like planets and solar

storms.

Unlike Internet Protocol, which establishes an end-to-end connection before sending data, DTN moves data

node-to-node, and can wait for connections to open up before relaying information to further nodes. NASA is

banking on DTN to be one of its primary future space protocols. 

Messenger detects frozen water, organic matter on Mercury

Mercury may be a scorching hunk of rock just next door to the sun, but planetary scientists have discovered

nearly pure frozen water and even some organic material in the planet’s frigid polar regions. The findings

from the Messenger spacecraft orbiting the planet cap the decades-long search for water on the second-hottest

planet in the solar system, and may help scientists better understand the origins of the molecular building

blocks for life on Earth.

The new research “doesn’t mean we have life on Mercury,” said UCLA planetary scientist David Paige, lead

author of one of three papers published by the journal Science. “But it is relevant for the question of life in the

solar system in general.”

As much as 1.1 trillion tons of ice could lie on or just beneath Mercury’s surface in the nooks and crannies of

craters that never see sunlight, according to scientists working on the Messenger mission. Much of that ice

may be protected by a dark layer of carbon-rich organic material several inches thick.

Before the Messenger spacecraft dropped into orbit in March 2011, Mercury remained something of an

enigma. The Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico detected bright, shiny spots on the planet’s surface in

1991, which scientists interpreted as a strong sign of frozen water. These spots seemed to map

some of the shadowy parts of polar craters that were glimpsed in the 1970s by the Mariner 10 spacecraft,

which saw only about half of the planet’s surface.

Researchers had calculated that because Mercury’s axis is tilted less than 1 degree, there are regions near its

poles that never see the sun. Though surface temperatures can hit a broiling 800 degrees, the permanently

shadowed regions could dip to minus 370 degrees.

With an X-ray spectrometer, magnetometer and topography-measuring laser altimeter among the gadgets in

its high-tech tool belt, Messenger was prepared to solve Mercury’s long-standing mysteries.

The water and organic material probably aren’t native to Mercury; it could have been delivered by icy comets

as they smashed into the surface. It’s widely believed that this is how organic molecules made their way to

Earth as well, but the theory can’t be tested because geologic forces have churned up the evidence.

MISCELLANEOUS

Indus Valley 2,000 years older than thought

The beginning of India’s history has been pushed back by more than 2,000 years, making it older than that of

Egypt and Babylon. Latest research has put the date of the origin of the Indus Valley Civilization at 6,000

years before Christ, which contests the current theory that the settlements around the Indus began around

3750 BC.

Ever since the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in the early 1920s, the civilization was considered

almost as old as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia.

The finding was announced at the “International Conference on Harappan Archaeology”, organised by the

Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

On the basis of radio-metric dates from Bhirrana (Haryana), the cultural remains of the pre-early Harappan

horizon go back to 7380 BC to 6201 BC. Excavations had been carried out at two sites in Pakistan, and

Bhirrana, Kunal, Rakhigarhi and Baror in India.

OCT 2012

ABBREVIATIONS

NEXCOR: National Expressways and Connectivity Corporation.

AWARDS

Man Booker Prize, 2012

British writer Hilary Mantel won the prestigious Man Booker literary prize for a second time with her blood-

soaked Tudor saga Bring Up the Bodies, which the head of the judging panel said had “rewritten the book” on

historical fiction.

Mantel is the first British author, and the first woman, to achieve a Booker double.

Bring Up the Bodies is the first sequel to win the prize. It and Wolf Hall are parts of a planned trilogy about

Thomas Cromwell, the powerful and ambiguous chief minister to King Henry VIII.

Alternately thoughtful and thuggish, trying to keep his head in a treacherous world, Mantel’s Cromwell has

drawn comparisons to the Mafia don at the center of theGodfather saga, and Mantel’s novel combines finely

wrought prose with thriller touches.

Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration, 27th

Renowned lyricist, poet and author Gulzar has been conferred the 27th Indira Gandhi award for National

Integration, in recognition of his contribution in promoting and preserving the spirit of national integration.

The award had been instituted by Congress in its centenary year to give recognition to outstanding

contribution to the cause of national integration by individuals and institutions. The award includes a citation

and cash prize of Rs 500,000.

Polly Umrigar Award, 2011-12

Virat Kohli has been chosen for the Polly Umriger award for being India’s top international cricketer in 2011-

12. The award carries a trophy and a cheque of Rs  lakh.

The previous winners of the award are: Sachin Tendulkar (2006-07 and 2009-10), Virender sehwag (2007-

08), Gautam Gambhir (2008-09) and Rahul Dravid (2010-11).

Nobel Prizes, 2012

Physics: Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland “for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable

measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems”. 

Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland have independently invented and developed methods for measuring

and manipulating individual particles while preserving their quantum-mechanical nature, in ways that were

previously thought unattainable.

The Nobel Laureates have opened the door to a new era of experimentation with quantum physics by

demonstrating the direct observation of individual quantum particles without destroying them. For single

particles of light or matter the laws of classical physics cease to apply and quantum physics takes over. But

single particles are not easily isolated from their surrounding environment and they lose their mysterious

quantum properties as soon as they interact with the outside world. Thus many seemingly bizarre phenomena

predicted by quantum physics could not be directly observed, and researchers could only carry out thought

experiments that might in principle manifest these bizarre phenomena.

Through their ingenious laboratory methods Haroche and Wineland, together with their research groups, have

managed to measure and control very fragile quantum states, which were previously thought inaccessible for

direct observation. The new methods allow them to examine, control and count the particles.

Chemistry: Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka “for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors”.

Human body is a fine-tuned system of interactions between billions of cells. Each cell has tiny receptors that

enable it to sense its environment, so it can adapt to new situations. Lefkowitz

groundbreaking discoveries reveal the inner workings of an important family of such receptors: G-protein–

coupled receptors. The studies by Lefkowitz and Kobilka are crucial for understanding how G-protein–

coupled receptors function. 

Medicine: Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka “for the discovery that mature cells can be

reprogrammed to become pluripotent”.

 The two scientists discovered that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells

capable of developing into all tissues of the body. Their findings have revolutionised our understanding of

how cells and organisms develop.

John B. Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialisation of cells is reversible. Shinya Yamanaka discovered

more than 40 years later, in 2006, how intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to become

immature stem cells. 

These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed view of the development and cellular

specialisation. Textbooks have been rewritten and new research fields have been established. By

reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods

for diagnosis and therapy.

Literature: Chinese writer Mo Yan “who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the

contemporary”.

Mo Yan (a pseudonym for Guan Moye) was born in 1955 and grew up in Gaomi in Shandong province in

north-eastern China. His parents were farmers. As a twelve-year-old during the Cultural Revolution he left

school to work, first in agriculture, later in a factory. In 1976 he joined the People’s Liberation Army and

during this time began to study literature and write. His first short story was published in a literary journal in

1981. His breakthrough came a few years later with the novella Touming de hong luobo

His novel Hong Gaoliang jiazu (in English Red Sorghum) consists of five stories that unfold and interweave

in Gaomi in several turbulent decades in the 20th century, with depictions of bandit culture, the Japanese

occupation and the harsh conditions endured by poor farm workers. Red Sorghum

1987, directed by Zhang Yimou. The novel Tiantang suantai zhi ge (in English

satirical Jiuguo (in English The Republic of Wine) have been judged subversive because of their sharp

criticism of contemporary Chinese society.

Peace: European Union (EU) “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and

reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”.

Economics: Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley “for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of

market design”.

The two scholars have answered the central economic problem: how to match different agents as well as

possible. For example, students have to be matched with schools, and donors of human organs with patients

in need of a transplant. How can such matching be accomplished as efficiently as possible? What methods are

beneficial to what groups? 

Lloyd Shapley used so-called cooperative game theory to study and compare different matching methods. A

key issue is to ensure that a matching is stable in the sense that two agents cannot be found who would prefer

each other over their current counterparts. Shapley and his colleagues derived specific methods–in particular,

the so-called Gale-Shapley algorithm–that always ensure a stable matching. These methods also limit agents’

motives for manipulating the matching process. Shapley was able to show how the specific design of a

method may systematically benefit one or the other side of the market.

Alvin Roth recognized that Shapley’s theoretical results could clarify the functioning of important markets in

practice. In a series of empirical studies, Roth and his colleagues demonstrated that stability is the key to

understanding the success of particular market institutions. Roth was later able to substantiate this conclusion

in systematic laboratory experiments. He also helped redesign existing institutions for matching new doctors

with hospitals, students with schools, and organ donors with patients. These reforms are all based on the

Gale-Shapley algorithm, along with modifications that take into account specific circumstances and ethical

restrictions, such as the preclusion of side payments.

Even though these two researchers worked independently of one another, the combination of Shapley’s basic

theory and Roth’s empirical investigations, experiments and practical design has generated a flourishing field

of research and improved the performance of many markets.

CONFERENCE

UN Convention on Biodiversity

UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was held in Hyderabad in October 2012. A commitment was

made to double funding for biodiversity from current levels by 2014 and to maintain that funding through the

remainder of the decade to meet the all-important 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets

(Visit www.cbd.int/sp/targets/ to read in detail about the Aichi Biodiversity Targets).

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while launching the Hyderabad Pledge, committed $50 million (Rs 250

crore) during India's presidency of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, to

strengthen institutional mechanism for biodiversity in India and other developing nations.

Hyderabad pledge calls for monetary assistance from member countries to successfully achieve the Aichi

Targets on biodiversity conservation.

DEFENCE

Army to fly attack helicopters

Ending a decade of friction between the Army and the Air Force (IAF), the ministry of defence (MoD) has

finally made a decision: the Army will hereafter operate the fleet of attack helicopters that provides crucial

fire support to troops in battle.

The MoD has ruled that the military’s entire attack helicopter fleet will be owned, operated and maintained by

the army. This includes the 22 Apache AH-64D helicopters that are being procured from US company,

Boeing Defence, Space and Security (BDS); as also a new-generation fleet of combat helicopters that

Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) is currently developing. That will include 179 Light Combat Helicopters

(LCHs) and 76 Rudras, which are a weaponised version of HAL’s Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH).

The IAF’s existing fleet of rapidly fading Russian Mi-25/35s, for long the world’s most heavily armed attack

helicopter, will continue to be operated by the air force until they are retired from service.

The MoD has also accepted the army’s long-standing request for Mi-17 medium lift helicopters to be located

in army camps in J&K, so that heliborne contingents can be launched into operations without delay. The army

says that heliborne operations are invariably delayed because a cumbersome IAF hierarchy takes too long to

sanction the use of its helicopters.

The IAF has opposed the army’s acquisition of an aviation wing ever since the Army Aviation Corps was

established in 1986. At that time, in the Joint Implementation Instructions, 1986, it was mandated that the

Army Aviation Corps would operate only helicopters below 5 tonnes in weight. The IAF has successfully

cited this document to block the expansion of the Army Aviation Corps.

The army, however, has argued that the pace of battle today demands dedicated weapons platforms and

command structures, and the aviation assets that are primarily designed for the land battle must be owned and

operated by the army.

SPACE RESEARCH

SpaceX capsule completes successful first mission

The unmanned SpaceX capsule returned to Earth on October 29, 2012, after successfully delivering its first

commercial payload to the International Space Station.

The Dragon spacecraft parachuted into the Pacific after an 18-day mission to resupply the station.

This historic mission signifies the restoration of America’s ability to deliver and return critical space station

cargo. It was also a milestone for American efforts to privatise the space industry, aimed at reducing costs and

spreading them among a wider group than governments alone.

The capsule delivered about 450 kg of cargo to the space station and took home 758 kg of supplies, hardware

and scientific tests and results.

Dragon is the only craft capable of returning a significant amount of supplies to Earth, and this mission marks

the first time since the space shuttle that NASA has been able to return research samples for analysis.

China unveils biggest radio-telescope

On October 28, 2012, China unveiled Asia's biggest radio telescope to be used in collecting accurate data

from satellites and space probes. The 65 meter diameter telescope is located at the foot of Sheshan Mountain

in Shanghai. 

The sprawling telescope, with the size of about 10 basketball courts, can pick up eight different frequency

bands and also track Earth satellites, lunar exploration satellites and deep space probes.

The telescope will be used for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), a type of astronomical

interferometry used in radio astronomy, as it can collect accurate data and increase its angular resolution

during astronomical observation. 

China's VLBI system is made up of four telescopes in the cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Kunming, Urumqi,

respectively, as well as a data centre in Shanghai.

Radio telescopes differ from optical ones in that they use radio antennae to track and collect data from

satellites and space probes.

The first radio antenna used to identify astronomical radio sources was built by American radio engineer Karl

Guthe Jansky, an engineer with Bell Telephone Laboratories, in the early 1930s.

MISCELLANEOUS

Supersonic free fall

Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic plunge to Earth from the stratosphere, on October 14,

2012, could help determine whether space tourists should wear spacesuits similar to the one that protected

him as he shattered the sound barrier.

Baumgartner jumped from an altitude of 128,097 feet (39,044 meters) over Roswell, New Mexico, reaching a

peak speed of about 1,342.8 kph. The speed of sound at that altitude is about 1,110 kph.

During his sky dive, Baumgartner wore a specially made suit similar to the orange pressurized flight suits that

space shuttle astronauts began using after the Challenger disaster. Until Baumgartner’s jump, the suits had

never been tested in supersonic flight or certified beyond 30,480 meters, the altitude that previous free-fall

record holder Joe Kittinger reached in 1960.

His goal was to break records—highest sky dive, fastest free fall, biggest balloon to carry a person into the

sky. The feat was closely followed by doctors, engineers and scientists working to make spaceflight and high-

altitude aircraft more survivable in accidents.

Clark had known the dangers first-hand. He lost his wife, astronaut Laurel Clark, when the damaged shuttle

Columbia broke apart on February 1, 2003. Before that, Clark served on a team that investigated the 1986

shuttle Challenger accident, another space disaster that claimed the lives of seven crew members.

This feat will result in to future space travellers having an emergency drogue chute packed on their suits that

would automatically deploy in cases requiring emergency evacuation after the launch.

Sealed inside his pressurized suit, Baumgartner did not feel himself going through the sound barrier. “It was

like swimming without touching the water. I was fighting all the way down to regain control,” he said.

Doctors were not sure what blasting through the sound barrier would do to the human body. In addition to

going into an uncontrollable spin and possibly losing consciousness or worse, Baumgartner’s supersonic body

could have triggered dangerous shock waves that may have collided with the force of an explosion.

SEP 2012ABBREVIATIONS

IDF: Infrastructure Debt Fund.

MAHLI: Mars Hand Lens Imager (camera)

AWARDS

Lal Bahadur Shastri Award, 2012

Tessy Thomas, the key defence scientist in the Agni series of missiles, has been conferred the award for her

outstanding contribution for making India self-reliant in the field of missile technology. The award is given

annually for excellence in public administration, academics and management. It carries a cash award of Rs 5

lakh, a plaque and a citation.

RESEARCH

Home cure for dengue

The juice of the humble papaya leaf has been seen to arrest the destruction of platelets that has been the cause

for so many deaths due to dengue.  

Ayurveda  researchers have found that enzymes in the papaya leaf can fight a host of viral infections, not just

dengue, and can help regenerate platelets and white blood cells. Scores of patients have benefited from the

papaya leaf juice, say doctors.

Papaya has always been known to be good for the digestive system. Due to its rich vitamin and mineral

content, it is a health freak’s favourite. But its dengue-fighting properties have only recently been discovered.

Chymopapin and papin-j enzymes in the papaya leaf—help revive platelet count, say experts.

The juice has to be prepared from fresh papaya leaves. De-vein the leaves and grind the green, pulpy part into

a paste. You can also use a mixer. The paste is very bitter and you would probably have to mix it with fruit

juice. 

Doctors recommend 20-25 ml (about four to five teaspoons), twice a day, for at least a week to get the best

results.

SPACE RESEARCH

Williams creates Spacewalk record

Indian-American NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and her Japanese counterpart Akihiko Hoshide

successfully restored power to the International Space Station on their second attempt on September 5, 2012.

With this Spacewalk, Williams surpassed Peggy Whitson’s record for total cumulative spacewalk time by a

female astronaut.

Whitson worked outside for 39 hours and 46 minutes over the course of six spacewalks. Williams has

conducted six spacewalks for a total of 44 hours and 2 minutes.

ISRO’s 100th mission

The Indian space odyssey crossed a historic landmark on September 9, 2012, when a Polar

Vehicle (PSLV-C21) put in orbit two foreign satellites. It marked the 100th space mission of the Indian Space

Research Organisation (ISRO) which started the journey in 1975 with the launch of its first satellite

“Aryabhata.”

Among those who watched the majestic rocket lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota,

100km north of Chennai, was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

PSLV-C21 injected two satellites into orbit—the French SPOT-6 and the Japanese micro-satellite

SPOT and Indian remote sensing satellites (launched earlier) are the two leading earth observation satellite

series. SPOT 6 is the heaviest foreign satellite ever to have been launched by the ISRO, which has made

launching of satellites as a significant business activity, earning precious foreign exchange to the country.

It was PSLV’s 21st consecutively successful flight. PSLV-C21 is India’s 38th satellite launch vehicle to lift

off from Sriharikota. India has so far put in orbit 62 Indian satellites. The total adds up to 100.

GSAT-10 launched

India’s advanced communication satellite GSAT-10 was successfully launched on September 29, 2012, on

board Ariane-5 rocket, from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana.

GSAT-10, with a design life of 15 years, is expected to be operational by November and will augment

telecommunication, Direct-To-Home and radio navigation services.

At 3,400 kg at lift-off, GSAT-10 is the heaviest built by Bangalore-headquartered Indian Space Research

Organisation. It was ISRO’s 101st space mission.

GSAT-10 is fitted with 30 transponders (12 Ku-band, 12 C-band and six Extended C-Band), which will

provide vital augmentation to INSAT/GSAT transponder capacity. 

It also has a navigation payload—GAGAN (GPS aided Geo Augmented Navigation)—that would provide

improved accuracy of GPS signals (of better than seven metres) to be used by Airports Authority of India for

civil aviation requirements.

This is the second satellite in INSAT/GSAT constellation with GAGAN payload after

May 2011.

AUG 2012ABBREVIATIONS

GRAIL: Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory.

DEFENCE

Navy gets stealth frigate Satpura

Continuing with its warship-building programme, India, on August 20, 2011, commissioned its second

indigenous stealth frigate, INS Satpura, which is the biggest in its class in the world. The ship, which is 143m

long, can tactically fire weapons even before the enemy detects it.

This one comes 15 months after the first such ship, the INS Shivalik, was commissioned and includes a

provision to fit the deadly super cruise missile, theBrahMos, at a later stage. It carries some eight different

types of radars and sensors to pick out activity at sea and form an anti-missile defence for its own protection

besides coordinate the firing of on-board weapons. Two electronic warfare suites, other than a host of

missiles, torpedoes and anti-submarine warfare capability are also on board.

ENVIRONMENT

Switch from coal to natural gas no boon to climate

Relying more on natural gas than on coal would not significantly slow down the effects of climate change,

even though direct carbon dioxide emissions would be less, a new study has found.

Burning coal emits far more climate-warming carbon dioxide than natural gas does, but it also releases lots of

sulfates and other particles that block incoming sunlight and help cool the Earth.

Using more natural gas for fuel could also produce leaks of methane, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas more

than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, study author Tom Wigley said in a statement.

A global, partial shift from coal to natural gas would speed up global warming slightly through at least 2050,

even with no methane leaks from natural gas operations. If there were substantial methane leaks, the

acceleration of climate change would continue through as late as 2140, according to Wigley's computer

simulations.

PERSONS

Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor

Hindi film actor Shammi Kapoor, who ruled the film industry in the 1950s and 1960s with his flamboyant,

charismatic personality, died on August 14, 2011. He was 79. He was a prominent member of the Kapoor

clan and the brother of Raj Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor.

Shammi, whose real name was Shamsher Raj Kapoor, was born on October 21, 1931, to Prithviraj Kapoor

and Ramsarni Mehra. He entered the film industry as a junior artiste in 1948 and debuted as an actor in 1953

with film “Jeevan Jyoti”.

He carved a niche for himself with his rock ‘n’ roll dancing style in films like Nasir Hussain's

Dekha” and “Dil Deke Dekho”. But it was the 1961 film“Junglee”, directed by Subodh Mukherjee, which

gave him the image of “the yahoo yuppie”.

The Nasir-Shammi combination struck gold at the box-office with murder mystery

the unforgettable films in the actor's career.

Shammi never really bid adieu to the big screen, appearing in films time and again. He starred with Shah

Rukh Khan in “Chamatkar” (1992) and played Salman Khan's grandfather in

His latest on-screen stint was a cameo in grand nephew Ranbir Kapoor's yet-to-be-released film

directed by Imtiaz Ali.

A great computer buff, Shammi was one of the earliest stars from Hindi film industry to join micro-blogging

website Twitter.

PLACES

Chennai

From a humble birth as one of the early settlements of the British East India Company in the 17th century,

Chennai has grown into a vibrant metropolis retaining its cultural moorings. It celebrated its 372nd founding

day on August 22, 2011.

It has been a long and eventful journey for the city which came into being on August 22, 1639, when the then

British administrator Francis Day struck a deal with local Nayak rulers for a sliver of land where the Fort St

George, the seat of power of the Tamil Nadu government, stands today.

Tracing Chennai's history is an interesting journey into the past. It was believed to have been first named

Chennappanaikan, in memory of the father of the Nayaks who sold the land to British, and later came to be

known as Chennapattinam from which the present name came about.

The original document relating to the building of Fort St George, a historic fort which was for a while the seat

of power of East India Company, is said to have been signed at Chandragiri fort in the neighbouring Andhra

Pradesh.

Robert Clive, founder of the British Empire in India, got married in a church inside the fort. His marriage

certificate is still the prized possession of the museum in the fort.

Villages around temples like Parthasarathy in Triplicane and Kapaleeswarer temple in Mylapore near the

southern coast and Marudheeswarer temple in Thiruvanmiyur existed for several centuries, long before the

Europeans arrived here.

The first Europeans to reach the shores of Madras were the Portuguese. They built a church in Saint Thomas

Mount enshrining the ‘Bleeding Cross’. 

PROJECTS

PowerGrid to launch India’s first 1,200-Kv station

 India’s power sector witnessed a new era in the transmission segment with the launch a 1,200-Kv ultra-high

voltage (UHV) test station along with experimental lines in Bina, Madhya Pradesh, by State-run Power Grid

Corp. The investment for the project is estimated at Rs 800 crore. 

As of now, the power is being transmitted on 765Kv /800Kv lines. The existing 400Kv line can transfer about

600 Mw power, 800Kv line can do between 1,200 Mw and 2,400 Mw and 1,200-Kv transfer 6,000-8,000

Mw.

With the government’s plan of adding over 100,000 Mw capacity in the coming 12th Plan, coupled with the

challenges put up by environment hurdles, right of way and transmission losses, there is a need to develop a

more sound transmission system. About 35 manufacturers, including BHEL, Areva, Siemens and Sterlite

have joined hands with PowerGrid to establish the 1,200kV test station. The test line in Bina is being

constructed with two 1200kV test bays in which the leading manufacturers are providing main equipment

such as transformers, surge arresters, circuit breakers, transformers among others. These test bays and test

lines shall be used for various field trials initially.

The first 1,200kV system field was tested and commissioned in the former Soviet Union in 1985 after 12

years of research, which was discontinued after the disintegration of the Union. Then, Japan started

developing a 1,000kV UHV system in 1978 and tests are still on. China started developmental work on a

1,100 kV UHV system in 2005 and a pilot project is presently under testing.

RESEARCH

Cancer-fighting virus shown to target tumours alone

Researchers have shown for the first time that a single intravenous infusion of a genetically engineered virus

can home in on cancer, killing tumour cells in patients without harming healthy tissue.

Scientists have been intrigued for decades with the idea of using viruses to alert the immune system to seek

and destroy cancerous cells. That interest has taken off in recent years as advances in genetic engineering

allow them to customize viruses that target tumours.

The field received a boost in January 2011, when bio-tech giant Amgen Inc agreed to pay up to $1 billion for

BioVex, the developer of experimental cancer-fighting virus OncoVex. But the only “oncolytic virus” so far

approved by a regulatory agency is for treatment of head and neck cancer in China.

In a study published in the journal Nature, scientists at , including the University of Ottawa and privately held

bio-tech company Jennerex Inc, said a small, early-stage trial of experimental viral therapy JX-594 found that

it consistently infected tumours with only minimal and temporary side effects.

The experimental virus will next be tested in a mid-stage trial of patients with liver cancer.

JX-594 is derived from a strain of the virus once commonly used to vaccinate children against smallpox.

Because the Jennerex virus can be given intravenously, spreading throughout the body, it may hold promise

for limiting the ability of cancer cells to metastasize and spread.

SPACE RESEARCH

Space junk reaching "tipping point," report warns

The amount of debris orbiting the Earth has reached “a tipping point” for collisions, which would in turn

generate more of the debris that threatens astronauts and satellites, according to a U.S. study.

NASA needs a new strategic plan for mitigating the hazards posed by spent rocket bodies, discarded satellites

and thousands of other pieces of junk flying around the planet at speeds of 28,160 km per hour, the National

Research Council said in the study.

The council is one of the private, non-profit U.S. national academies that provide expert advice on scientific

problems.

Orbital debris poses a threat to the approximately 1,000 operational commercial, military and civilian

satellites orbiting the Earth—part of a global industry that generated $168 billion in revenues in 2010,

Satellite Industry Association figures show.

The world’s first space smash-up occurred in 2009 when a working Iridiumcommunications satellite and a

non-operational Russian satellite collided 788 km over Siberia, generating thousands of new pieces of orbital

debris.

The crash followed China’s destruction in 2007 of one of its defunct weather satellites, as part of a widely

condemned anti-satellite missile test.

The amount of orbital debris tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network jumped from 9,949 catalogued

objects in December 2006 to 16,094 in July 2011, with nearly 20 percent of the objects stemming from the

destruction of the Chinese FENGYUN 1-Csatellite.

The surveillance network tracks objects approximately 10 centimetres in diameter and larger.

Juno embarks on journey to Jupiter

On August 6, 2011, NASA launched the billion-dollar solar-powered spacecraft

to Jupiter, aiming to discover what makes up the solar system's biggest planet.

The unmanned satellite observatory was propelled into space aboard a 60-mt-tall Atlas V rocket, blasting off

from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Once it arrives in July 2016, the spacecraft will orbit the poles of the gas giant, which has more than twice the

mass of all planets in the solar system combined and is believed to be the first planet that took shape around

the Sun. 

Named after the wife of the Roman god Jupiter, the $1.1-billion spacecraft is NASA's first mission there since

it launched Galileo in 1989. It aims for 30 orbits over a period of one year. Juno will get closer to Jupiter than

any other NASA spacecraft.

China launches communication satellite for Pakistan

On August 12, 2011, China launched a communications satellite for Pakistan, as the two all-weather allies

opened a “new platform” in space collaboration to further cement their strategic relationship.

PAKSAT-1R was launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China’s Sichuan Province.

The satellite, built and financed by China, will provide a range of services, including broadband Internet,

telecom and broadcasting, besides defence applications. The satellite will be operated from Space and Upper

Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) Ground Stations in Lahore and Karachi.

The satellite is China’s first in-orbit delivery to Asian customers and also the first commercial satellite export

to international users in 2011.

Pakistan’s first low-orbit satellite, BADR-A, was launched by China in 1990 with Long March 2E rocket.

NASA’s GRAIL mission around moon

NASA's GRAIL mission to study the moon from crust to core successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air

Force Station's Pad SLC-17B on September 9, 2011. 

The straight-line distance from Earth to the moon is about 402,336 kilometres. It took NASA’s Apollo moon

crews about three days to cover that distance. Each of the GRAILtwin satellites will be taking about 30 times

that , and covering more than 4 million kilometres to get there. This low-energy, high-cruise time trajectory is

beneficial for mission planners and controllers, as it allows more time for spacecraft checkout. The path also

provides a vital component of the spacecraft's single science instrument, the Ultra Stable Oscillator, to be

continuously powered for several months, allowing it to reach a stable operating temperature long before

beginning the collection of science measurements in lunar orbit.

GRAIL-A will enter lunar orbit on December 31, 2011, and GRAIL-B will follow the next day. When science

collection begins, the spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them as

they orbit the moon. Regional gravitational differences on the moon are expected to expand and contract that

distance. GRAILscientists will use these accurate measurements to define the moon’s gravity field. The data

will allow mission scientists to understand what goes on below the surface of our natural satellite.

JUEN 2012

ABBREVIATIONS

ART: Anti-Retroviral Therapy.

AWARDS

Magsaysay Awards, 2012

Kulandei Francis, from India. He is being recognized for “his visionary zeal, his profound faith in

community energies, and his sustained programs in pursuing the holistic economic empowerment of

thousands of women and their families in rural India.” 

Chen Shu-Chu, from Taiwan. She is being recognized for “the pure altruism of her personal giving, which

reflects a deep, consistent, quiet compassion, and has transformed the lives of the numerous Taiwanese she

has helped.” 

Romulo Davide, from the Philippines. He is being recognized for “his steadfast passion in placing the

power and discipline of science in the hands of farmers in the Philippines, who have consequently multiplied

their yields, created productive farming communities, and rediscovered the dignity of their labour.”

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, from Bangladesh. She is being recognized for “her uncompromising courage and

impassioned leadership in a campaign of judicial activism in Bangladesh that affirms the people's right to a

good environment as nothing less than their right to dignity and life.”

Yang Saing Koma, from Cambodia. He is being recognized for “his creative fusion of practical science and

collective will that has inspired and enabled vast numbers of farmers in Cambodia to become more

empowered and productive contributors to their country's economic growth.” 

Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto, from Indonesia. He is being recognized for “his sustained advocacy for

community-based natural resource management in Indonesia, leading bold campaigns to stop illegal forest

exploitation, as well as fresh social enterprise initiatives that engage the forest communities as their full

partners.”

Established in 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is Asia’s highest honour and is widely regarded as the

region’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. It celebrates the memory and leadership example of the third

Philippine President, and is given every year to individuals or organizations in Asia who manifest the same

sense of selfless service that ruled the life of the late and beloved Filipino leader.

This year’s Magsaysay Award winners will each receive a certificate, a medallion bearing the likeness of the

late President, and a cash prize.

DEFENCE

INS Sahyadri commissioned

On July 21, 2012, Defence Minister A.K. Antony commissioned the 6,200 tonne warship

INS Sahyadri, which is the third and last of the Shivalik-class stealth frigates under Project 17, built

indigenously at the Mazagon Docks Limited (MDL).

The first two ships in the class are INS Shivalik and INS Satpura and are now on active duty. The three have

cost some Rs 10,200 crore and have been commissioned in the past two years.

The INS Sahyadri is an indicator of the generational shift in India’s warship-building capability. The 143m

long ship can tactically fire weapons even before the enemy detects it.

The warship has long-range surface-to-surface Klub missiles, area defence missiles

submarine torpedoes, 100 mm mounted gun and six-barrelled 30 mm gun. Ships like this will form the core of

India’s battle fleet in the first half of this century. Powered by a unique combination of gas and diesel

engines, it can stay in sea for more than three weeks or cover 10,800 km without refueling.

Another set of seven new stealth warships—named Project 17-A—will be a derivative of the Shivalik-class

frigates. These will cost some Rs 45,000 crore, and will incorporate newer building materials like composites

besides a very high degree of automation to allow a smaller crew to operate it. MDL will build four and the

Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd (GRSE), Kolkata, will construct the remaining three.

The changes over the existing stealth frigates will help accommodate an advanced version of the

2 Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM) and a latest area air defence system that will include the

40km-range Shtil-1 MRSAMs, missile launchers besides a new E-band radar and

HEALTH

First-ever pill to prevent HIV

For the first time, a once-a-day pill which reduces the chance of contracting HIV among high-risk groups

“significantly” has got a green signal in the US, where 1.2 million people are infected by the deadly disease.

The drug, “Truvada” can now be used by those at high risk of the infection and anyone who may engage in

sexual activity with HIV-infected partners.

In two large clinical trials, daily use of the drug was shown to significantly reduce the risk of HIV infection.

There are, however, concerns that circulation of such a drug could engender a false sense of security and

mean people will take more risks. There have also been fears that a drug-resistant strain of HIV could

develop. The USFDA has stressed that the drug should be used as part of a “comprehensive HIV prevention

plan”, including condom use and regular HIV testing.

PERSONS

Bose, Satyendra Nath

The discovery of a new subatomic particle, possibly the Higgs boson, considered “a key to the cosmic riddle”,

has put the spotlight once again on Satyendra Nath Bose, the Indian scientist from whose surname the word

‘boson’ is derived.

Bose (1894-1974), a physicist from Kolkata and a contemporary of German scientist Albert Einstein, did

path-breaking work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, using maths to describe the behavioural pattern

of the bosons—bone of the two families of fundamental particles that the universe is classified into.

The other family of fundamental particles—fermions—is named after Italy-born American physicist Enrico

Fermi.

Bose worked with Einstein in the 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose-Einstein statistics and the Bose-

Einstein condensate. He is also acknowledged as the person who laid the foundation of quantum statistics.

However, Bose never won the Nobel Prize, even though in later years the award was given several times for

research on bosons.

Mukherjee, Pranab

He has been elected as the 13th President of India. His election to the President's office came as a fitting

finale for the 77-year-old Congressman from West Bengal. He is not a lawyer by training but is considered an

expert in the working of the Constitution and governance.

Mr Mukherjee was born on December 11, 1935 in Birbhum’s Mirati village, to senior Congress leader

Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee and Rajlakshmi.  A post-graduate in political science and history, he can recollect

any event of historical importance or mundane political and other events, a matter of envy to many of his

colleagues.

He got married to Suvra on July 13, 1957, and has two sons—Abhijit and Indrajit—and daughter Sharmistha.

Abhijit is a Congress MLA in West Bengal.

Mr Mukherjee started his public life in the 60s in Bangla Congress, during the time of late Chief Minister

Ajoy Mukherjee of the United Front government, when Jyoti Basu was Deputy Chief Minister in West

Bengal. He had a brief stint as lawyer, teacher and journalist before being embedded to his destiny of politics

in 1969, when he became a member of the Rajya Sabha.

He fought his first direct election to the Lok Sabha in 2004 from Jangipur in West Bengal. He repeated his

victory in the 2009 elections.

As Finance Minister of India, between 1982 and 2012, he presented seven Union Budgets. He has five books

published to his credit on political and economic issues, and under his editorial guidance, the history of

Congress was published in which there was a candid admission of excesses during the Emergency.

He got the best Parliamentarian Award in 1997. Ten years later, he was awarded Padma Vibhushan, the

second highest civilian honour.

RESEARCH

Scientist discover a new sub-atomic particle

Scientists at Europe's CERN research centre have found a new subatomic particle, a basic building block of

the universe, which appears to be the boson imagined and named half a century ago by theoretical physicist

Peter Higgs.

“We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature,” CERN director general Rolf Heuer told a

gathering of scientists and the world’s media near Geneva on July 4, 2012.

The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring

larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle's properties, and is likely to shed light on other

mysteries of our universe.

What scientists don’t yet know from the latest findings is whether the particle they have discovered is the

Higgs boson as described by the Standard Model, a variant of the Higgs or an entirely new subatomic particle

that could force a rethink on the fundamental structure of matter.

The Higgs is the last missing piece of the Standard Model, the theory that describes the basic building blocks

of the universe. The other 11 particles predicted by the model have been found and finding the Higgs would

validate the model. Ruling it out or finding something more exotic would force a rethink on how the universe

is put together.

Scientists believe that in the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was a gigantic soup of

particles racing around at the speed of light without any mass to speak of. It was through their interaction with

the Higgs field that they gained mass and eventually formed the universe.

The Higgs field is a theoretical and invisible energy field that pervades the whole cosmos. Some particles,

like the photons that make up light, are not affected by it and therefore have no mass. Others are not so lucky

and find it drags on them as porridge drags on a spoon.

The particle is theoretical, first posited in 1964 by six physicists, including Briton Peter Higgs. The search for

it only began in earnest in the 1980s, first in Fermilab’s now mothballed Tevatron particle collider near

Chicago and later in a similar machine at CERN, but most intensively since 2010 with the start-up of the

European centre’s Large Hadron Collider.

In particle physics, Boson is a subatomic particle with integer spin (i.e., angular momentum

mechanical units of 0, 1, etc.) that is governed by Bose-Einstein statistics, named after

Bose and Albert Einstein. Bosons include mesons (e.g., pions and kaons), nuclei of even

(e.g., helium-4), and the particles required to embody the fields of quantum field theory

gluons). Bosons differ significantly from a group of subatomic particles known as

limit to the number that can occupy the same quantum state. This behaviour gives rise, for example, to the

remarkable properties of helium-4 when it is cooled to become a super-fluid.

STANDARD MODEL: The Standard Model is to physics what the theory of evolution is to biology. It is the

best explanation physicists have of how the building blocks of the universe are put together. It describes 12

fundamental particles, governed by four basic forces.

But the universe is a big place and the Standard Model only explains a small part of it. Scientists have spotted

a gap between what we can see and what must be out there. That gap must be filled by something we don’t

fully understand, which they have dubbed ‘dark matter’. 

Galaxies are also hurtling away from each other faster than the forces we know about suggest they should.

This gap is filled by ‘dark energy’. This poorly understood pair are believed to make up a whopping 96

percent of the mass and energy of the cosmos.

Confirming the Standard Model, or perhaps modifying it, would be a step towards the holy grail of physics –

a ‘theory of everything’ that encompasses dark matter, dark energy and the force of gravity, which the

Standard Model also does not explain. It could also shed light on even more esoteric ideas, such as the

possibility of parallel universes.

LARGE HADRON COLLIDER: The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s biggest and most powerful

particle accelerator, a 27-km (17-mile) looped pipe that sits in a tunnel 100 metres underground on the

Swiss/French border. It cost 3 billion euros to build.

Two beams of protons are fired in opposite directions around it before smashing into each other to create

many millions of particle collisions every second in a recreation of the conditions a fraction of a second after

the Big Bang, when the Higgs field is believed to have ‘switched on’.

The vast amount of data produced is examined by banks of computers. Of all the trillions of collisions, very

few are just right for revealing the Higgs particle. That makes the hunt for the Higgs slow, and progress

incremental.

THRESHOLD FOR PROOF? To claim a discovery, scientists have set themselves a target for certainty that

they call “5 sigma”. This means that there is a probability of less than one in a million that their conclusions

from the data harvested from the particle accelerator are the result of a statistical fluke. The two teams

hunting for the Higgs at CERN, called Atlas and CMS, now have twice the amount of data that allowed them

to claim ‘tantalising glimpses’ of the Higgs at the end of 2011 and this could push their results beyond that

threshold.

MISCELLANEOUS

GAAR

General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR), allows tax authority to declare an ‘impermissible avoidance

arrangement’. Once the case is declared so under GAAR, tax liability is to be determined as if the

arrangement did not exist.

As per the draft guidelines of GAAR, any step in or a part or whole of any transaction, operation, scheme,

agreement or understanding, whether enforceable or not would be covered. P-Notes and sub-accounts have

been excluded. GAAR will also not have any retrospective effect and onus of proof will lie on the tax

authority.

GAAR, essentially, covers tax avoidance (as result of actions taken by assesses, none of which are illegal or

forbidden). It does not cover tax evasion or tax mitigation.

GAAR has been part of global tax laws for a while now. Australia introduced it in 1981, Canada in 1988,

China in 2005 and South Africa in 2006.

JUNE 2012RESEARCH

Carry your PC in a memory stick

There are times when people need to use a computer — and not leave a trace. Now, a clever piece of software

lets one carry their own personal computer which can easily be carried inside the pocket — and once the

person has finished using it, no one will ever know.

Technically, the PC that people would be carrying is not a whole computer; instead, it is a simple USB

memory stick. But within it is a full operating system (like Windows), and when you plug it into a PC, that

computer will restart into your own personal setup, called Tails.

When you have finished, simply shut down the computer, put the USB stick back in the pocket, and the PC

will never know that it has been used.

As everything the user does is contained within Tails, the software on a stick, not a single trace is left on the

original PC. That means no cookies of websites browsed, no chance of documents being left in a recycle bin.

As with any technology, there are both good and bad sides to the idea. Critics say this may allow people to

carry out illegal activities in secrecy—indeed, even technically on other PCs, whereas privacy advocates will

laud the idea of being able to work in complete secrecy.

SPACE RESEARCH

Transit of Venus

In a rare astronomical treat, the planet Venus moved across the face of the sun appearing as a small dark disc

on June 6, 2012. The phenomenon is known as the transit of Venus, and the planet appears as a black spot

travelling from one limb of the solar disc to the other. This happens because the planet Venus comes between

the Earth and the Sun and thus appears as a small black dot on the sun to sky-gazers on Earth.

The next transit of Venus will occur after a century in 2117. The last Venus transit took place back on June 8,

2004.

Transit of Venus is one of the most rare astronomical phenomena. Venus Transits take place in a pattern that

repeats every 243 years. The transit takes place in pairs, which are 8 years away from each other and

separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years.

So why the long gaps in the transits? That’s because of the difference in the orbit planes of the Earth and

Venus.

Historically, the discovery of the transit of Venus not only started a new era of scientific experimentation

through international collaborations, but also gave us the first concrete concept of the structure of the solar

system.

China successfully accomplishes first-ever manual docking

China's astronaut trio, including its first woman cosmonaut Liu Wang, returned to Earth safely on June 29,

2012, after accomplishing country’s first-ever manual docking that helped it join the exclusive US-Russia

club and took it a step closer to setting up a space station by 2020.

The Shenzhou-9 (Divine Grace) spacecraft carrying the three astronauts had a bumpy but safe touchdown in

grasslands of Inner Mongolia as it withstood severe heat and friction during the re-entry phase following a

13-day space rendezvous.