Joins hands with Reliance Communications. Move spurs neutrality concerns
Facebook on Tuesday announced a tie-up with Reliance Communications to launch Internet.org in India, bringing to the land of a billion-plus people a service that the social media giant says helps affordable Internet access but whose critics disapprove its restrictiveness.
India now becomes the sixth destination for Internet.org, a Facebook-led initiative envisaged about a year-and-a-half back with six other founding partners, including Samsung and Qualcomm. The service has already been
launched in Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia and Ghana.
Facebook’s 30-year-old founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the development on his social network. He posted, “More than a billion people in India don’t have access to the internet. That means they can’t enjoy the same opportunities many of us take for granted, and the entire world is robbed of their ideas and creativity.”
The tie-up gives subscribers of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications who have Internet-enabled handsets free access to 38 Websites – a mix of news, music, education, weather and health sites. The list includes Facebook, Wikipedia, and Reliance Astrology. The lone search option available is Microsoft’s Bing. They can be accessed via an Android app.
For the time being, the service has gone live in Maharashtra, Gujarat, A.P., T.N. and Kerala.
The pan-India launch is planned in three months.
Gurdeep Singh, CEO, Consumer Business, Reliance Communications, said during the launch in Mumbai, “This partnership will not only accelerate internet penetration In India, it will also open new socioeconomic opportunities to users in fields like education, information and commerce.”
Chris Daniels, VP of Internet.org at Facebook, said, “This is a big step forward in our efforts to connect every one in India to the internet.” Critics, however, see little altruism in Internet.org.
Lawyer Prashant Reddy said, “It will be interesting to see how TRAI (the regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) handles such deals, and whether the market will accuse both these players of violating network neutrality.”
Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director of the Bangalore-based research and advocacy organisation The Centre for Internet & Society, said he is worried about the long-term consequences. “The Internet.org model violates most definitions of net neutrality, as it provides access to a limited menu of services claiming to be the Internet — being based on a cable TV model — rather than providing actual access to the Internet at a low cost.”
Independent telecom consultant Kunal Bajaj, however, doesn’t believe the initiative hinders Net neutrality. That would be the case, he said, if they are “charging more” selectively or “deteriorating quality” selectively.
Court seeks Centre’s view on screening YouTube videosHearing a public interest litigation petition against the AIB Roast programme on Tuesday, the Bombay High Court sought the opinion of the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry on a mechanism to keep a check on video uploads on YouTube.
The petitioner, Sharmila Ghuge, a Professor of Law, has sought guidelines for such a mechanism to screen obscene and vulgar content. Professor Ghuge submitted a copy of the CD of the AIB Roast held in Mumbai last December. The videos of the programme were uploaded on YouTube on January 28.
The crux of the case, as regards Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, could open a fresh debate on what constitutes decent humour. Sources said the response of the Centre was likely to be along the lines of what had been argued in the Supreme Court thus far.
In the present case, the High Court admitted an intervention petition filed by the AIB (All India Bakchod). “We oppose this [PIL] petition. It was a humorous show for a private audience. None of the private audience found it offensive. The language was excessive, but within the bounds of humour,” senior counsel Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for the organisation, said.
The AIB will file a reply, if any, to the petition and the Ministry its opinion within two weeks. The court will hear the case on March 3.
Shyam Dewane, petitioner’s lawyer, said a mechanism was required to filter out vulgar and obscene videos from YouTube. The court thereafter sought the Union government’s say.
“The video of the AIB show has not been verified by any of the authorities, whether the content of the video is suitable to be thrown open to public at large … Neither the organisers nor the respondents felt the need and importance of verifying the content before putting the video on air… ,” the petition said.
The plea has sought punishment under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of Women Act. However, for the AIB to be found guilty under any of these sections, by judicial precedents, the petitioner has to prove an “intention to insult” before the video is uploaded.
Taking the pain out of injectionsIISc. researchers have designed a capsule loaded with medicine that is triggered by micro-shock waves
Scientists at the Indian Institute of Science have successfully tested an alternative to syringes for drug delivery.
The method, tested on mice, delivers medicine through tiny capsules when triggered by a micro-shock wave.
Developing methods for alternative delivery of drugs has gained importance considering the large number of infections that are spread through contaminated, non-sterilised syringes. “Each year, 1.3 million early deaths are caused by unsafe injections,” said Dipshikha Chakravortty, a biologist on the team of aerospace engineers and cell biologists who developed the model. Their research was published in the journal The Royal Society of Chemistry last month.
The researchers designed tiny biocapsules made of a polymer (spermidine-dextran sulfate or Sper–DS). The capsules are so small that 10 of the biggest ones could be placed in a length of one millimetre. The capsules are loaded with either insulin or the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. They are then placed on the infection site — for instance, external diabetic wounds — and are triggered by micro-shock waves produced by a handheld machine.
“The micro-shock waves we create last a millionth of a second, and affect a small area. They don’t affect living cells in the body,” said Jagadeesh Gopalan, Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IISc.
The result, say the researchers, is that a controlled portion of the drug is released with every shock wave (on an average 20 per cent of the medicine is released with every wave). Almost 90 per cent of the drug release was observed when the particles were exposed to micro-shock waves five times. “It can be used where there is a need for frequent injections (diabetes, for instance). This method can help do away with invasive procedures,” Ms. Chakravortty said.
Added benefitThe shock waves have an added benefit, the researchers noted. Infections by bacteria such asStaphylococcus (cause of foot infections that people living with diabetes are susceptible to) are lethal as they form a biofilm around the protein in the cell. The shock waves tear this biofilm and aid the treatment, scientists said.
World’s biggest solar telescope being built in HawaiiTo be launched in 2019, the world’s biggest solar telescope based in Maui, Hawaii, would significantly improve the forecasting of space weather hazards, say researchers from the University of Sheffield in Britain.
“The development of this telescope provides great potential for us to make earlier forecasts of space weather hazards, such as identifying solar winds which can cause huge disruption to life on Earth,” said Professor Michail Balikhin from the University of Sheffield.
With a four-metre diameter primary mirror, the telescope will be able to pick up unprecedented detail on the surface of the Sun — the equivalent of being able to examine a one pound coin from 100 km away. — IANS
Israel offers expertise to clean up GangaIn an effort to deepen economic cooperation, Israel has offered its expertise and technological capabilities to India in its ambitious drive to clean up the Ganga.
A preliminary offer on this was made when Amit Lang, Director-General of the Ministry of Economy, Israel, met Indian officials on Tuesday.
Mr. Lang is leading a large trade delegation to continue talks on the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which both countries had initiated in 2007, as well as expand cooperation in the field of water management, waste water treatment and more. Mr. Lang said the “agenda of the visit is mainly to introduce technologies to India.”
On the delay in concluding the FTA, Mr. Lang said, “We have few challenges on the Indian side.” “Israel has no real concerns… It is an open market,” he added. The Israeli delegation has submitted a proposal to the Indian side on the issue.
The FTA will be further discussed when External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visits Israel in the next few months.
Israel has made significant technological advancement in desalination and drip irrigation with the world’s largest desalination plants and recycles 90 per cent of water for agricultural needs. India-Israel ties received a major boost when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu last September.
New steps soon against black moneyAttorney-General Mukul Rohatgi, who is the government’s face before the Supreme Court in the black money case, said the Budget session of Parliament in February will see new legal provisions for “treatment” of black money abroad.
Mr. Rohatgi is faced with the task of explaining to the Supreme Court the new Indian list of Swiss account holders in HSBC. The new list, published as part of a global media investigation, almost doubles the 628 black money account holders whose names are with the government.
On Monday, the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) chairperson Justice M.B. Shah said the onus was on the government to act with promptitude and ferret out illegal accounts from the new names.
“We share everything with the SIT. There is total transparency. Even on the new list, many names are common with the earlier list of 628 HSBC account holders,” Mr. Rohatgi said.
“By March 31, 2015, we will complete the prosecution of illegal account holders in the first batch of 628 names. In this list, we have already recovered substantial amounts as penalty for tax evasion from over 300 Indians having Swiss bank accounts. There will be no delay,” he said.
The A-G said that prime focus was on ushering in legislative changes to prevent and account for illegal money flowing abroad. Justice Shah had on Monday said that it was the government's responsibility to fortify the laws against black money abroad.
“This Budget session we will bring in new legal provisions which will take care of treatment of black money abroad, especially on the liability for disclosure,” Mr. Rohatgi told The Hindu on Tuesday.
In a hearing before the Supreme Court in January 2015, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, the petitioner in whose case the SIT was constituted, had accused the government of delayed action. This, he said, was despite promises in the party’s election manifesto that “we will also proactively engage with foreign governments to facilitate information sharing on black money.”
Mr. Jethmalani had filed an interlocutory application which reproduced a 2011 BJP Task Force report on ways to rein in black money.
This report had recommended steps like enacting “suitable legislation to vest all unauthorised accounts held by Indians in foreign tax havens in the Central government.” It also suggested that besides having an electoral candidate to file a pre-election affidavit declaring he has no illegal money abroad, the same should apply to high officials, including RBI Governor, SEBI Chairman, CBI Director, Cabinet Secretary, IB Director, RAW Chief, and CVC.
Keynes Prize for Amartya SenRecognition for Nobel laureate’s ‘contribution to society’
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has won the newly instituted Charleston-EFG John Maynard Keynes Prize.
“In the spirit of John Maynard Keynes’ work, life and legacy, this new global prize recognises Professor Sen’s outstanding contribution to society,” a release accessed here said.
Regarded as one of the foremost thinkers in the field of famine, poverty, social choice and welfare economics, Professor Sen has done ground-breaking work that has been academically influential and had a profound impact on the formation of development policy worldwide.
Currently a Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, he has been a Professor at the London School of Economics. Till 2004, he was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Professor Sen reacted thus: “I feel deeply honoured by the news of this award. The world in which we live today has been made much more secure by the economic wisdom that Keynes brought to us during the dark days of the Great Depression. When that wisdom is partly or wholly ignored in the making of economic policy, large numbers of people are made to suffer unnecessarily. I am afraid we have seen several depressing examples of that in the recent years, especially in Europe, with a huge human toll. Keynes was a great pathfinder, and it would have distressed — if not surprised — him to see how well-identified paths can be comprehensively neglected by policy making that draws more on ideology than on well-reflected reasoning.”
Professor Sen will receive £7,500 to commission a work of art and will deliver the annual Charleston-EFG Keynes Lecture at the Charleston Festival in the U.K. This year’s lecture, scheduled for May 23, will be on “The economic consequences of austerity.”
Heart of earth’s inner core revealedScientists have found that the earth’s inner core has its own smaller core within it, a discovery that may shed light on how our planet evolved.
The discovery was made possible after a novel application of earthquake-reading technology by a research team at the University of Illinois and colleagues at Nanjing University in China.
“Even though the inner core is small — smaller than the Moon — it has some really interesting features,” said Xiaodong Song, a professor of geology at the University of Illinois. “It may tell us about how our planet formed, its history, and other dynamic processes of the Earth. It shapes our understanding of what’s going on deep inside the earth,” Prof. Song said.
The team used a technology that gathers data not from the initial shock of an earthquake, but from the waves that resonate in the earthquake’s aftermath.
The team found a distinct inner-inner core, about half the diameter of the whole inner core. The research was published in the journal Nature Geoscience . — PTI
Sale of non-PDS kerosene deregulatedThe Union government on Tuesday freed the sale of market-priced kerosene from regulatory control to ease its availability and check black-marketing of the fuel sold through the public distribution system (PDS).
The government amended the Kerosene (Restriction on Use and Fixation of Ceiling Price) Order, 1993, deregulating storage, transportation and sale of non-PDS kerosene. Subsidised kerosene sold through the PDS is blue in colour, while the market-priced fuel is colourless. While PDS kerosene costs Rs. 15.14 a litre, the market-priced fuel comes for Rs. 27.68 a litre.
It is expected that the move will reduce the demand for diverted PDS kerosene, an official statement said.
The latest move is in sync with the government’s effort to decontrol fuel prices gradually. The administered price mechanism for petrol and diesel has already been lifted.
Centre pushes for easing urban building normsAhead of launching its ambitious ‘smart cities’ scheme, the Centre on Tuesday pushed for easing the norms for construction in urban areas by substantially reducing the number of approvals and no-objections required for taking up new projects.
At a meeting of Ministers and Secretaries of seven Ministries convened by the Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister, M. Venkaiah Naidu, it was suggested that all approvals should be given within 30 days from the date of application.
Referring to the long-drawn process of seeking approvals, Housing and urban Poverty Alleviation Secretary Nandita Chatterjee said at present 30-50 approvals were required to be taken from the Centre and State governments, which led to an average approval time of 90-600 days for construction projects. Based on the parameters of procedures, cost and time taken for approvals, India is ranked 182 among 185 countries, adversely impacting investments, she added.
“Based on the discussion, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has agreed to the suggestion that most of the forest and environment-related regulations can be included in the building by-laws for ensuring compliance by the urban local bodies concerned. He also said that his Ministry would soon unveil different guidelines for different plot sizes which could also be similarly incorporated in the Development Control Regulations,” an UD Ministry official said.
Mr. Javadekar said the issue of the Coastal Zone Regulations would be resolved soon and delineation of exact boundaries of 639 ecologically sensitive zones would be expedited to remove ambiguities and enable quick approvals.
Problems of hill areas in finding land for housing for the poor with most of the land categorised as forest land would also be looked into, he said.
For his part, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju has agreed that his Ministry would furnish necessary maps and information regarding height restrictions for construction in the funnel zone of all airports to the urban local bodies concerned for necessary action; while the Department of Culture said the restrictions for construction near monuments were being revisited and maps for each site would soon be published for the benefit of urban bodies for according quick approvals.
“Secretary [Consumer Affairs] said that the National Building Code-2015 will be finalised by September this year with the objective of enabling single window clearance for construction projects,” the official said.
How will the astronauts be selected? The next round involves more filmed interviews and group challenges to see how well people work together. The final selection round will follow the candidates as they cope with living in harsh, remote, mocked-up Mars habitats. At the end of the process, Mars One wants six groups of four astronauts to train for the mission.
How will Mars One pay for the mission? The Dutch not-for-profit organisation is raising money any way it can. That means broadcasting rights, sponsorship deals, crowdfunding, donations from philanthropists, and licensing intellectual property rights from inventions made along the way. The first mission, costing $6 billion, aims to send a spacecraft carrying two men and two women to the planet.
What do they need to do? It’s all quite complicated. The first humans are not scheduled to blast off for Mars until 2024. But plenty of missions are planned beforehand to do vital groundwork. In 2018, a lander will be sent to the planet as a trial run for technologies that the real mission will need. That will be accompanied by a communications satellite to beam messages back and forth. In 2020, an “intelligent” rover will be sent to Mars, along with a trailer. The rover’s job is to scope out a good landing site, far enough north for the soil to contain a good amount of water, but equatorial enough to get plenty of sunlight. Two years after that, in 2022, six cargo missions head off for Mars.
They include another rover, two living units and two life support units. These land near the first rover, which tows them into position and sets up solar panels to power the units. The life support unit is meant to produce a breathable atmosphere in the habitat, 3,000 litres of water, and 120 kg of oxygen kept in storage.
How will the astronauts get to Mars? Mars One will contract a rocket manufacturer to build them a rocket. That could be Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, or another company. In 2024, they will blast the crew’s landing module and their main living quarters for the voyage into Earth’s orbit and dock them together. The crew then launch into Earth’s orbit themselves, climb into the waiting Mars spacecraft, and head off for their destination.
How do they land? The Mars lander module detaches from the spacecraft and descends to the surface. Once down, the crew in their Mars suits are picked up by one of the rovers and taken to the habitat. © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2015
Greece fine tuning financing planGreece’s new leftist government was fine-tuning a 10-point plan on Tuesday in hopes of persuading its international creditors to rethink their “barbaric” bailout terms and prevent the country from crashing out of the eurozone.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is pushing for creditors to soften the tough conditions of the $270 billion bailout that Greece was forced to accept in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
At talks kicking off with an emergency meeting of eurozone Finance Ministers on Wednesday, Greece will plead its case for stop-gap financing with a view to clinching a reform deal that will not exacerbate poverty, to run from September 1. . - AFP
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