Jun 27 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

CRACKDOWN OVER MGNREGA - States to Pay Compensation for Wage Delay by July 31

YOGIMA SETH SHARMA

NEW DELHI





25% of payments amounting to `. 2,700 cr are delayed beyond the stipulated 15 days

Centre has come down heavily on states asking them to pay the entire compensation to workers arising out of delay in wages by July 31 under the employment guarantee scheme, in the absence of which states will not be allowed to apply for further funds under the scheme from the Centre.At present, 25% of the payments amounting to Rs 2,700 crore are delayed beyond the stipulated 15 days. A fraction of payments, about Rs 125 crore, have been delayed for over 90 days.
Ministry of Rural Development had introduced the penal system of monetary compensation for delay in wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in January this year and till date the cumulative compensation stands at Rs 90.6 crore.
` Of this, compensation for delay in wages in 2013-14 is Rs 79.7 crore while it Rs 10.9 crore in the first quarter of the is ` current financial year.
Under the compensation clause, government penalises states at the rate of 0.05% of the wages delayed per day .
States, in turn, can recover this from the functionaries or agencies involved in payment of wages.
“This kind of tough stand was needed as barring two states, no state has taken our instructions seriously as a result of which the problem of delay in wages continued despite the compensation clause being put in place,“ a senior government official told ET.
In a letter written to special chief secretaries of all states recently, the ministry of rural development has said that barring Maharashtra and Chattisgarh, in no other state the programme officers have been examining the delayed cases, which reflects poorly on the monitoring of the scheme.
Conveying the Centre's message of 'zero tolerance' for delays, the ministry has also directed states to tighten the system of wage payments without any further loss of time.
The states with highest compensation in the current fiscal include Madhya Pradesh (. `2.3 crore), Tamil Nadu (.
` 2.03 crore), Chattisgarh (. `1.1 crore), Maharashtra (. ` 0.98 crore)and Andhra Pradesh (. `0.97 crore).
MGNREGA promises 100 days of work each year to every rural household. The Act stipulates that wage payments have to be made within 15 days to the beneficiary.
However, complaints of delayed wage payments have been rampant since the scheme was implemented in February 2006.
Centre has allocated ` . 34,000 crore for 2014-15 to MGNREGA, the flagship employment guarantee scheme.

Jun 27 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Brain implant helps paralysed man move his hand using thoughts

Washington PTI





Ian Burkhart in the US is the first patient to use Neurobridge, an electronic neural bypass for spinal cord injuries that reconnects the brain directly to muscles, allowing voluntary and functional control of a paralysed limb

For the first time, a 23year-old paralysed man from US has been able to move his hand using his thoughts, thanks to an innovative device that bypasses the injured site.
Ian Burkhart, from Dublin, Ohio, is the first patient to use Neurobridge, an electronic neural bypass for spinal cord injuries that reconnects the brain directly to muscles, allowing voluntary and functional control of a paralysed limb.Burkhart is the first of a potential five participants in a clinical study by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Centre and Battelle. “It's much like a heart bypass, but instead of bypassing blood, we are actually bypassing electrical signals,“ said Chad Bouton, research leader at Battelle. “We're tak ing those signals from the brain, going around the injury , and actually going directly to the muscles,“ said Bouton. The Neurobridge technology combines algorithms that learn and decode the user's brain activity and a high-definition muscle stimulation sleeve that translates neural impulses from the brain and transmits new signals to the paralysed limb. Ian's brain signals bypass his injured spinal cord and move his hand, hence the name Neurobridge.
Burkhart was paralysed four years ago during a diving accident.
During a three-hour surgery on April 22, Ohio State neuroscience researcher Dr Ali Rezai implanted a chip smaller than a pea onto the motor cortex of Burkhart's brain.
The tiny chip interprets brain signals and sends them to a computer, which recodes and sends them to the high-definition electrode stimulation sleeve that stimulates the proper muscles to execute his desired movements. Within a tenth of a second, Burkhart's thoughts are translated into action.





Jun 27 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Q & A - `Women suffer sanitation absence most ­ also impacts economy'





One month after the horrific Badaun gang rape exposed how gravely at risk women and minors lacking domestic toilets are, India's sanitation scenario remains dire. Social worker and Padma Bhushan awardee Bindeshwar Pathak is founder of Sulabh Sanitation Movement, an organisation that helps build low-cost toilets across the country. Speaking with Fozia Yasin, Pathak discussed the socio-economic costs of lacking proper sanitation, practical ways to correct this ­ and the best and worst performing states in providing basic facilities: Recent crimes highlight a lack of basic facilities ­ how do you evaluate the situation?
Well, women really suffer the most because of an absence of toilets in rural areas. They have to go to open locations only before sunrise and after sunset. Unlike men, they simply cannot do so during the day. Apart from a vulnerabi c lity to rape, they are also prone to animal attacks and snakebites.
s What's more, many girls aren't even going to school because of s the lack of toilets there.There are also around 50 dis eases caused due to poor sanitary practices. This directly impacts the larger economic situation t with a number of workdays rou tinely lost and with growing healthcare costs.
Why isn't providing basic sanitation a prio basic sanitation a priority for a country aiming to be a superpower?
The provision of toilets and the abolition of manual scavenging was a priority for the previous government ­ but it could not implement the programme satisfactorily. Many promises made were never achieved.
Today, funds allocated for the cause aren't enough. Billionaires should chip in for a new sanitation movement in India.
With the help of 690 rich people, we could cover all the 690 districts of India.
Until then, a World Bank report says over 600 million people are forced to use openair locations. How to deal with this situation?
It's a shame. The country needs about 120 million more latrines now. We need large-scale construction of public toilets and urinals across towns and cities. In urban slums, inhabitants have no right on the land, so they can't even construct toilets inside their premises ­ for them, public toi lets with urinals, bathing facilities, laundry spots and a small health centre should be construct ed. Such toilets should be main should be main tained by municipal corporations free of charge.
India has a strong demo graphic dividend ­ how can its young people help?
Well, in rural areas, to begin with, five boys and girls in each block should be trained in the construction and maintenance of toilets. There are 5,924 blocks or talukas in India. Therefore, 30,000 boys and girls should be trained in this procedure. In urban areas, such young people should also be allowed to charge some mon ey for their live lihood, so that they can sustain themselves and work as group motivators. They should go house to house and educate people about the health hazards of open defecation, helping make facilities.
Which are three best and worst states in providing basic facilities to people?
Goa, Maharash tra and Uttarakhand are the top three states with good sanitation coverage.
Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pra desh and Bihar are the worst.

Jun 27 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Row `unfortunate' & `unprecedented', say academics

Manash Pratim Gohain

New Delhi TNN





Eminent citizens, including former UGC chiefs, vice-chancellors and academicians, have termed the FYUP controversy “unfortunate“ and “unprecedented in the history of any Indian university“.Jawaharlal Nehru University's vice-chancellor, S K Sopory, and former UGC chairman Yashpal urged both parties on Thursday to sit down and “restore the admission process to safeguard students’ interest”.
Sopory said, “They should sit together instead of writing notes and resolve it. Autonomy is an issue, but we have to look at it from a broader perspective, not just in terms of FYUP.” On vice-chancellor Dinesh Singh’s silence, Sopory said: “Maybe he should have explained his position to UGC and students. Whatever is good for students should be done. All
stakeholders should have been consulted while introducing the reforms.” Yashpal, however, held Singh responsible for failing to deliver on his promises. “It sounded good when he spoke about the interdisciplinary approach, flexibility and employability. But he never kept his promises and, in fact, this is worse than what was in existence. We just can’t put students’ career at stake. This is not about breach of any administrative autonomy, students’ autonomy is supreme.” Experts and academicians are saying autonomy exists only if DU is fulfilling certain basic conditions. “There should have been proper preparation before rolling out such reforms as it has national impact. There should have been proper preparation at the national level.In England when Open University came, they had 10 years of preparation,” said Rajya Sabha member Mrinal Miri, who was a former member of Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), the highest advisory body on education for the central and state governments.Miri, who was also a member of UGC’s FYUP monitoring committee that had submitted its report last year, added, “It is sad that the university authorities are silent and UGC is trying to push things. Such a thing has never happened in the history of any Indian university.” On FYUP and its implementation, he added, “FYUP being a deviation from national education policy is a big issue and DU is not a standalone university.
Any reform in DU impacts other universities as well. Most importantly, all stakeholders should have been consulted.”

Jun 26 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Slum redevelopment a CSR activity

Lubna Kably

Mumbai: TNN





Road Safety Awareness, Consumer Protection Services Also Eligible: Govt

Slum-redevelopment, road safety awareness and consumer protection services will be treated as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, according to clarifications issued by the ministry of corporate affairs in response to queries from stakeholders.BJP's election manifesto had promised to usher in a low-cost housing policy that would ensure every family in India a home by 2022. The ministry , in a circular, has clarified that slum-redevelopment or housing for economically weaker sections could be covered under the eligible CSR category of `measures taken for reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups'.
Activities relating to road safety promotion, which is a dire need in India, are also likely to get a major fillip as the ministry has clarified these would also be treated as eligible CSR activities. Promoting road safety awareness through print, audio and visual media would qualify as a CSR activity under the broad head of `promoting education'; providing trainers to drivers would fall under `promoting vocational skills'; and social projects like giving medical and legal aid, treatment to road accident victims would fall under the eligible category of `promoting health care', explains the circular.
Any project meant for development of rural India will be treated as a `rural development' project and will be an eligible CSR activity . Likewise, supplementing government schemes like mid-day meals would also qualify as CSR for alleviation of poverty and malnutrition. Renewable energy projects would be eligible for promoting `environmental sustainability'.
Responding to a query from the Consumer Education and Research Centre, the ministry has clarified that consumer education and awareness related activities would also be eligible as CSR towards `promoting education'. Likewise, donations to IIM (A) for renovation of classrooms would be an eligible CSR activity to promote education. While the ministry has provided various illustrative clarifications, it has also stressed that the 10 categories of eligible activities outlined in Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2014 `must be interpreted liberally'. Activities outlined in this schedule are wide ranging and include those relating to promoting education, promoting preventive healthcare, rural development and even protection of national heritage, art and culture.
Salaries paid by companies to regular CSR staff and volunteers can also be factored into the project cost as part of the CSR expenditure. However, one-off events undertaken by India Inc, such as sponsoring marathons, awards, sponsorship of TV programmes, will not qualify as eligible CSR activities. Expenses incurred by India Inc for fulfilment of any regulations such as Labour Laws and Land Acquisition Act also would not count as CSR expenditure, adds the circular.
Even sustainable urban development and urban public transport system are not eligible CSR activities.
Experts point out that India Inc should proceed with caution. “The final rules to the Companies Act are clear that CSR activities do not include normal business activities. Thus, even if slum redevelopment qualifies as a CSR activity , a grey area would crop up, if a slum area is taken up for construction of villas and these slum dwellers are rehabilitated by the builder.“
The CSR provisions contained in The Companies Act, 2014, requiring large companies meeting certain financial criteria to either comply with the CSR spend or report non-compliance kicked in from April 1. These companies are required to spend 2% of their average net profit of the last three years on CSR activities. Fillip to trusts, societies xpenditure incurred by a foreign holding company for CSR E activities in India, if routed through its Indian subsidiary, will qualify as CSR spend of the Indian subsidiary. In addition, while the Rules to the Companies Act, 2014 had permitted India Inc to carry out CSR activities through a trust, registered society or non profit company, the circular goes a step ahead. Contribution by India Inc towards the corpus of such a trust, society or towards the capital of the not-for-profit company will also qualify as CSR spend. The conditions prescribed are that these entities should be created exclusively for carrying out CSR activities or the corpus should be created exclusively for carrying out eligible CSR activities.

Jun 26 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Your friend's face can be your new password

London: PTI





A new authentication system that asks you to identify faces familiar to you could spell end of passwords. Decades of psychological research has found that humans can recognize familiar faces across a wide range of images, even when their image quality is poor. In contrast, recognition of unfamiliar faces is tied to a specific image -so much so that different photos of the same unfamiliar face are often thought to be different people.The new system, called Facelock, exploits this psychological effect to create a new type of authentication system whose details are published in the journal PeerJ.
Familiarity with a particular face determines a person's ability to identify it across different photographs and as a result a set of faces that are known only to a single individual can be used to create a personalized `lock'.
Access is then granted to anyone who demonstrates recognition of the faces across images, and denied to anyone who does not.
To register with the system, users nominate a set of faces that are well known to them, but are not well known to other people. The researchers found that it was surprisingly easy to generate faces that have this property .
For example, a favourite jazz trombonist, or a revered poker player are more than suitable -effectively one person's idol is another person's stranger. By combining faces from across a user's domains of familiarity -say , music and sports -the researchers were able to create a set of faces that were known to that user only . To know all of those faces is then the key to Facelock. The `lock' consists of a series of face grids and each grid is constructed so that one face is familiar to the user, whilst all other faces are unfamiliar. Authentication is a matter of simply touching the familiar face in each grid. For the legitimate user, this is a trivial task, as the familiar face stands out from the others. However, a fraudster looking at the same grid hits a problem -none of the faces stand out. Building authentication around familiarity has several advantages.
Unlike password or PIN-based systems, a familiarity-based approach never requires users to commit anything to memory .

Jun 26 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Beyond The Spoils System

Shailesh Gandhi





Why can't we select governors and key public servants on merit rather than patronage politics?

There is considerable debate underway on whether various statutory heads n the country should be replaced because of a change in political dispensation at the Centre. It is therefore the right time to discuss whether these highly paid public servants deliver significant value and how their selection process could be changed to enhance their value.While there is an active debate about whether present governors selected by the UPA government should be retained or pushed out, we hardly discuss whether they perform any useful functions. It is an accepted fact that most members and heads of various commissions and corporations are appointed as a consequence of their closeness to political leaders in government, and not because of their suitability for the job.
Governors and lokayuktas among many others, who head regulatory functions, are beholden to political masters who have gifted these jobs to them.
There is rarely any evaluation about their merit or suitability for the job.
Democracy operates at various levels and in a wide variety of ways. Apart from the legislature, executive and judiciary, it is felt necessary to have various other institutions to take care of special needs and to act as checks and balances in the system.
Most of these, whether created by the Constitution or by statute, have very important functions to perform. But the majority of those appointed to these positions are retired senior citizens who are physically and mentally incapable of working even 40 hours a week. They do not feel the need to be accountable and look at their jobs as sinecures and rewards, for having served some political masters and keeping them happy .
We have a peculiar situation where a police constable, driver or peon is employed by a due process of selection and evaluation for the job. When these are violated and selection is done arbitrarily we protest and sometimes get courts to intervene. On the other hand, at the highest levels of public office, jobs are doled out based on arbitrary political recommendations.
This writer's selection as a Central Information Commissioner was a random occurrence rather than a consequence of any process or evaluation. If some governors, lokayuktas, regulators, commissioners are good it is by chance rather than by design.
There are many senior bureaucrats and other power brokers who spend considerable time and effort to get the right recommendation to bag these jobs. Usually on offer is significant proof of personal loyalty in addition to political loyalty , as well as an implied promise of being willing to do the master's bidding when required.
Under such circumstances, these institutions have become largely ineffective. Even bright or honest people capable of working hard do not deliver because they have often been rewarded with a position for which they are not suitable.
It is time to demand a transparent process of selection for such high positions. It should generally start six months before a vacancy arises and should be an invitation for applications/nominations of persons along with a set of criteria for the relevant job.
Drawing up a list of requirements and suitability for different jobs ­ including that of governor ­ is not a very difficult task. Candidates could be shortlisted by a panel based on seeing which of them meet the objective criteria which are laid down. Such a shortlist of persons should be interviewed before people and media by an eminent pre-selection committee.
If this is done citizens would be able to see if the persons were basically competent, suitable and committed to the job they wanted to take up. It would act as a check on completely arbitrary choices made on the basis of patronage politics.
The pre-selection committee would recommend a panel which could be three times the number of persons to be selected.
The final selection from this panel could be done by the same political system which now operates. If this is done properly those occupying such positions would draw respect from every one and also have the required moral authority .
Besides a transparent process of selection it should be incumbent for all such bodies to display the work done by them on their websites. Citizens should be able to evaluate whether the various statutory bodies are delivering meaningful results in a satisfactory and time-bound manner.
This could be achieved by having a satisfaction evaluation of those who have approached these bodies every six months.
We must get the right persons willing to be accountable at the highest levels of public service.
Concurrently , distribution of plum jobs as political largesse must stop.
Once we do this we won't have the unholy spectacle of our governors and other authorities being shunted out whenever there is a change of the party serving at the Centre. The present practice is a reminder that these positions have been given as largesse and do not deliver any significant value to citizens and democracy .
The writer is a former Central Information Commissioner .

Jun 26 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

60% of NREGA work must be agricultural

Subodh Ghildiyal

New Delhi:





The Centre is likely to make it mandatory that 60% of work in a district under the job guarantee scheme, MGNREGA, should be linked to agriculture.The rural development ministry will incorporate the mandatory clause in Schedule-1 of the MGNREGA so that every state has to follow the norms designed to give a fillip to agriculture through labour-intensive work under the job scheme.
Rural development secretary LC Goyal said, “The proposal has been sent to the states for comments. It would be decided soon.” The move would inextricably bind MGNREGA with farm activities, thereby focusing the creation of assets in the farm sector. According to the plan, a minimum of 60% of work in a district should be “in the nature of productive assets linked to agriculture through the development of land, water and trees”.
The fine-print suggests that if it is implemented, it could push overwhelming activity under the job scheme towards agriculture. The 60% floor limit is “in terms of costs”.
Given that many works permitted under MGNRE
GA, like road construction, are capital-intensive because of the material costs, the stress on 60% minimum expenditure on farm-related activity would compel the authorities to discourage other work. According to estimates, construction of roads forms 37% of works done under MGNREGA, with Rs 8-10 lakh spent on every km of road.The refocusing of the job scheme towards farming marks a new chapter in the chequered history of the pro-poor scheme that was brought in by UPA to provide distress labour to the poor.
Over last seven years, the scheme was found to be riddled with corruption and inefficiency while also failing to creating durable assets.
The BJP was widely perceived to be in favour of disbanding the scheme. But after coming to power, it seems to have steered clear of any drastic action, possibly because of the negative message it would send to the vast section of the rural populace. Instead, redirecting the scheme towards boosting the farming activity seems to be an acceptable improvisation.
“The shift would lead to better community assets and also provide employment to the needy,” Goyal said.

Jun 26 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

France to salute SRK with its highest honour

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





France has decided to honour Bolly wood actor Shah Rukh Khan with Legion of France, its highest distinction civilian or military. Sources here said French foreign minister Laurent Fabius will travel to Mumbai next week to confer the award of Officier de la Legion d'Honneur (Officer of the Legion of Honour) on Khan for his contribution to cinema. The only Bollywood actor to have received the same honour was Amitabh Bachchan in 2007. The “Légion d'Honneur“ is the highest distinction that can be conferred in France on a French citizen as well as on a foreigner. Lata Mangeshkar and Satyajit Ray are other notable winners of the honour from India.Fabius will start his three-day visit to India on June 30. His meeting with his counterpart Sushma Swaraj will be the first high-level interaction between the two countries since the NDA government assumed power. “After his meetings in Delhi on June 30 and July 1, the minister will travel to Mumbai for business meetings and give the highest French honour to the actor,“ said a source.
Fabius had earlier called up Swaraj to congratulate her after she took charge as external affairs minister. During his stay in India, Fabius will also participate in a discussion on “Sustainable Growth in Response to Climate Change“ along with environment minister Prakash Javadekar.
For India, France remains one of its most cherished strategic partners. It was the first country with which India entered into a civil nuclear cooperation agreement following the waiver given by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, enabling India to carry out nuclear commerce despite not having signed NPT.

Jun 26 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

JNU's iconic eatery also a cultural institution

Avijit Ghosh

New Delhi TNN





Shutting Down Ganga Dhaba Akin To Killing Part Of JNU's Glorious Heritage Ganga dhaba was synonymous with JNU's nightlife, its cultural ecology. It was a place where the political types decided on the text and tenor of the next pamphlet. Ask anyone to name one place in JNU; a majority would say Ganga dhaba. Why kill your best-known imprint?

In the life of any institution, some places become cultural markers. In collective memory and popular perception, they gradually attain the sanctity of a heritage site. For JNU, that's what Ganga dhaba perhaps is.To equate it with any other eatery in the campus and initiate moves to shut it down not only means the university's lack of appreciation of its own tradition but also an inability to see the importance and strength of its own most instantly-recognizable brand.
Ask anyone to name one place in JNU; a majority would say Ganga dhaba. Why kill your best-known imprint?
Till the mid-1980s, the Nilgiri dhaba, poised between Periyar and Godavari hostels, was a hotter nightspot than Ganga. But within a few years, the latter overshadowed the former by a mile. Even a suicide committed by one of the dhaba owners did nothing to dimin ish its popularity .
Those days when most eateries--and there were hardly any in the campus--shut down early , Ganga dhaba's nimboo-paani and bunomlettes served as late as 1.30pm were lifesavers for hundreds who had missed their dinner for one reason or the other.
But more importantly, Ganga dhaba was synonymous with JNU's nightlife, its cultural ecology . It was a place where the political types--and there were so many--decided on the text and tenor of the next pamphlet and mapped the strategies of the forthcoming campus agitation. Late night, the civil services types would also emerge from their rooms and fill in their thermos flask with over-sweetened tea which helped them get through the night.
At the dhaba, only a handful indulged in deep and mea ningful conversation on Marxism. This is one of the most enduring mythologies of JNU which many of us are guilty of having perpetuated.
Most boys and girls chatted deep into the night over anything and everything under the stars because it just felt so good to do so. The place was a comfort pillow. It was also an addiction.
And yet depending on the quality of the students involved, there was often something meaningful in those avante-garde conversations. One never realized it back then but those were takeaways that enabled you to negotiate life.
To be fair, the importance of Ganga dhaba is certainly not the same today as it was back in the 1980s and 1990s. Nowadays, eateries abound in the campus and home delivery of dinner to hostels is common.
But to look at Ganga dhaba as just another cheap open-air eatery would be erroneous. It gives the university a sense of history and adds to its character. It is a signpost of what the institution once was. If there are issues related to hygiene or anything else with regard to its running, they need to be sorted out rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Any campus is always a work in progress. The university authority is entitled to ring in positive changes. But the intelligent changemaker always preserves the best of the past. Ganga dhaba links JNU's past to its present. To shut it down would mean the end of JNU as we prefer to remember it. It would be both a mistake and a tragedy .

Small states perform well again in education development index - 

Small states and Union territories like Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh continued to perform well in the latest education development index on learning outcome and quality of teachers, a government study said.

While Puducherry occupied the pole position, Lakshadweep was at the second place and Sikkim occupied the third position in the study based on four constituents such as access, infrastructure, teachers and outcomes.

The flash statistics 2013-14 for elementary education in India, prepared by National University of Educational Planning and Administration, were released by HRD Minister Smriti Irani.

Lakshadweep had occupied the first position in the last report followed by Puducherry while Sikkim was at the fourth place.

The educational development index of the states took into account the progress made both at the primary and upper primary level.

Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Kerala and Punjab also figured in the top 10 list compiled annually. Delhi was ranked sixth.

The report covered 1.45 million schools spread over 662 districts across all states and UTs.

Uttar Pradesh was at the bottom of the education development index at the 35th place while Bihar was ranked 34th, Jharkhand 33rd and West Bengal at the 32nd place.

Among the big states, Madhya Pradesh was ranked 31st, Rajasthan 23rd and Maharashtra 13th place.

-Source: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/06/small-states-perform-well-again-in-education-development-index/#sthash.DMyBleNk.dpuf

Jun 25 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

15 WAYS THE WORLD WILL BE AWESOME IN 2050





When you consider the ongoing social and economic progress and the coming innovations in science and technology, there's plenty of room for optimism

CHILD MORTALITY Between 1990 and 2012, the number of under-5 child deaths went from 90 deaths per 1,000 live births to 48 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to a 2013 report from UNICEF .The Copenhagen Consensus on Human Challenge report ex pects the rate dropping to 31 per 1,000 live births in 2050.
VACCINES AND CURES Researchers are confident that within 20 years they can design a vaccine to stop the spread of HIV , which currently kills anywhere from 1.5 million to 2 million people per year. A US vaccine already exists for meningitis. A rheumatoid arthritis drug recently cured a young child's leukemia.
A modified measles vaccine put another woman's cancer into remission.
LIVE FOREVER In the coming decades, scientists hope to upload the contents of human brains into computers, allowing people to live forever. Neuroscientist Randal Koene and Russian financial-backer Dmitry Itskov are trying to transfer human consciousness and brain functions to an artificial body by 2045 by “mapping the brain, reducing its activity to computations, and reproducing those computations in code,“ according to Popular Science.
FEWER POOR “By 2035, there will be no more poor countries,“ Bill Gates wrote earlier this year. The global poverty ratio will fall from about 21% in 2005 to less than 2.5% in 2050, and the number of people living in absolute poverty will decline by another billion, according to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organizations.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute predicts that by 2050 freely moving robots that outperform humans both physically and intellectually will run entire businesses by themselves. That could allow humans to “occupy their days with a variety of social, recreational and artistic pursuits, not unlike today's wealthy leisure classes,“ he wrote in Scientific American.
CLEAN ENERGY If the world invests enough in clean energy , we will be able to rely almost entirely on renewable energy by 2050 -cutting energy sector greenhouse gas emissions by 80%, according to a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report.
SELF-DRIVING CARS In the next decade, major car makers expect to release cars with self-driving features, such as steering, parking, gear-shifting, and braking, the Milken Institute predicts. Experts say most driverless cars will operate entirely without a human occupant's control by 2035.
Driverless cars will be safer because they eliminate human error, which causes 90% of car accidents, according to the Institute. Electric cars will also be widespread by 2050 -a tremendous benefits for the environment.
GENDER EQUALITY The rising participation of women in the workforce will continue to change dynamics at home. In 2050, men and women in much of the developed world will do an equal share of childcare and housework, according to an Oxford University study of 16 European and Bloomberg North American countries, in addition to Australia and Israel.
GLOBAL LITERACY Currently , 23.6% of the global population can't read, costing about 7% of worldwide GDP , according to “ A Scorecard for Humanity ,“ a report from the Copenhagen Consensus Center.
By 2050, experts estimates that illiteracy rates will fall to just 12% and cost only about 3.8% of GDP .
FEWER WARS From 2009 to 2050, the number of countries involved in internal armed conflicts will decrease by more than 50%, according to a report from International Studies Quarterly . The study predicted that, in 2050, 7% of countries will be embroiled in internal conflicts, down from 15% in 2009. Reasons for the decline of violence include more education and the high cost of war. “It has become too expensive to kill people,“ the report's co-author University of Oslo Political Science Professor Håvard Hegre told Apollon. “Modern society is dependent on economic development. It is too expensive to use violence to destroy this network.“
INTERNET EVERYWHERE In “The World We Made,“ Forum for the Future founder Jonathon Porritt predicts that by 2050, more than 8 billion people will go online, 97.5% of the population then. Currently , about 40% of the globe has internet access, with 78% of users in developed countries and 32% in developing countries. That's about 2.85 billion people, many of whom get internet access from mobile phones.
ORGAN TRANSPLANTS Technology is unlocking ways to prolong life while people wait for transplants. Dialysis replaces kidneys for people who need a transplant, and, more recently , artificial hearts have been able to keep some patients alive while they wait for a new one. In the next 35 years or so, artificial and lab-grown organs will create a more permanent solution for patients, who won't have to wait for another person to die before getting a life-sustaining organ. We are already implanting lab-grown bladders and vaginas. Other organs -from hearts and lungs to skin -are on their way .
REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY These days, women only have a very general sense of when in their lives they'll stop being fertile, but in the future, women will have more “personalized“ biological clocks so they'll know exactly when they'll stop being able to make babies, Alexis Madrigal has written in The Atlantic. Couples of the future will also have a better idea of when they should try to conceive. Personal hormone trackers that detect bodily changes through the skin could become a normal part of tracking our fertility .
DESIGNER BABIES Scientists are currently working on genetic engineering to help make sick children healthy by removing or replacing diseased genes. This could later be used to perfect children by genetically engineering away crooked teeth or bad eyesight, improve IQ. “[I] n a couple of decades, and certainly by 2050 ... we'll choose its sex and its appearance and stuff like that, but we can bump up his IQ by 10 points, or by really giving the very latest technology , you get 15 points more of IQ,“ Yale professor and computer scientist David Gelernter told Big Think.
UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR The “universal translator“ -an imaginary device that lets people who speak different languages communicate instantly -has been featured in sci-fi shows like “Star Trek.“ The Economist noted last year that it may not be long before automatic simultaneous translation becomes the norm in the real world, too. In the future, you may be able to go to a foreign country and speak fluently with the locals just by wearing a pair of special goggles or using a phone app.
Business Insider Illustrations: ANIRBAN BORA

Jun 25 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

All Ideas Must be Free

Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar





NGOs and their ideas seen as hurting development should be countered, not banned Many foreign-funded NGOs are focused on GM foods and carbon emissions, but the biggest causes of death are unclean water and indoor cooking fire pollution

Free access to ideas of all sorts is a fundamental right.Many ideas may be terrible,but battles against them should be fought in the high country of the mind, not through censorship or bans. Caveat: ideas accompanied by or leading to violence are subject to reasonable restrictions. Yet, such restrictions need to be minimal. We do not, for instance, ban Marxist schools of thought although they seek to overthrow democracy and liquidate class enemies.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) seems unaware of or opposed to a free flow of ideas.
In a report leaked to the media, it alleges that Greenpeace and other NGOs are using foreign money to launch anti-nuclear, anti-coal and antiGM food agitations, thus reducing India's GDP growth by a whopping 2-3% per year. The report expresses outrage that one NGO has got funding for criticising the Gujarat model of development. The IB suggests screening and stopping all foreign funding of NGOs that support such “antinational“ activities.
This is plain wrong. Every human being has a right to her own concept of what is good or bad for development. I disagree strongly with many NGOs on some issues, while agreeing with them on others. To oppose nuclear power, e-waste, large dams or carbon emissions can, in some cases, be called misguided. But it is not anti-national. It is a rival view of what development should be about.
No thinking person views GDP as the only measure of development.
If you go by GDP alone, Mahatma Gandhi was far more anti-development than Greenpeace. He believed that happiness lay in reducing one's wants, not in consuming more. This would be devastating for GDP growth, of course, but the Mahatma did not think that mattered. He opposed modern machinery , swore by handspun cloth, and wanted India to be a collection of self-sufficient village republics. If implemented, these ideas would have slashed GDP growth by much more than the 2-3% than the IB complains about.
Call the Lie But what is the basis for the IB's estimate anyway? The 2-3% of GDP it claims as the annual loss is around . 2,00,000-3,00,000 crore. Has it cited ` any respectable economist in this matter? Does it have a peer-reviewed model? Not at all. Worse, the sums received from abroad by the “anti-development“ NGOs have averaged barely `. 50 crore or so per year. The government can easily spend 10 times as much on exposing the falsity of NGO claims (there is indeed much falsehood around). If at the end of it all, the NGOs carry more credibility than the government or IB, the reason cannot be that dollars are somehow more convincing than rupees.
I would agree with the IB that some foreign-financed NGO crusades and agitations are based on halftruths and plain falsehoods. But that is equally true of agitations by Indian organisations and political parties. Many agitations claiming to promote the public interest actually harm it. Yet, these notions must be combated in public debate, not by executive fiat. Alas, bad ideas are so widely supported by purely desi lobbies in India that foreign money is just the icing on the cake. Blame the cake, not the icing.
Many foreign-funded NGOs are indeed trying to impose their own priorities on India. Their top priorities are carbon emissions and GM foods. But in India, the biggest causes of death are unclean water and indoor pollution from smoky cooking fires. We need every sort of agricultural research, including GM research, to boost farm incomes and reduce poverty . Perhaps the greatest Indian environmental problem of all is free electricity for farmers, which leads to overpumping, and hence to the destruction of acquifers.
Funds Skew Priorities Alas, you will not find Indian NGOs agitating against free farm electricity. You will not find them agitating in favour of GM crop research. Without doubt, foreign funding has skewed their priorities. But why blame foreigners for that? It's only natural for crusaders to have their own priori ties. It is up to Indians to resist false priorities, and establish their own.
Running an NGO I need to make some disclosures about my own possible biases. I run my own NGO, the Mukundan Charitable Trust. I am associated with NGOs like the Centre for Civil Society and Centre for North-Eastern Studies (for whom I have a financed a fleet of medical ships taking doctors to three million people living on islands in the Brahmaputra). I have helped finance tribal land rights, micro-housing, micro-pensions, microfinance and vocational training schemes.
In sum, I am squarely in the NGO business myself. But hopefully , I can claim to be bias-free in this matter since I use only my own funds, and accept nothing from Indian or foreign donors. Also, I strongly oppose Greenpeace and other foreign-funded NGOs on many development issues.
Nevertheless, I support their right to spread ideas freely , regardless of whether these are financed by dollars or rupees. I agree with Voltaire's quote, “I do not agree with what you say , but I will defend to the death your right to say it.“

Jun 25 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

All-India Service likely to Run Subordinate Judiciary

GANGADHAR S PATIL

NEW DELHI





Proposal to come up for law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's consideration in a couple of days

The disparate lower judiciary of varying abilities may be transformed into a national body of professionals along the lines of the Indian Administrative Service, if the government agrees to take up a long-pending proposal for the creation of an all-India judicial service to run the subordinate judiciary.The proposal, kept in the cold storage by the UPA for long, is expected to come up for law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's consideration in a couple of days. Law ministry officials told ET that they have prepared and will soon send a detailed note on the objections and views of state governments and chief justices of all the high courts during various meetings held on the issue.
“After the last attempt to reach a consensus in the conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high court in April, 2013, the government has not taken any major decision.
We will apprise the new minister on the status of the scheme,“ said a senior law ministry official.
The recruitment to the lower judiciary is now done by the respective high courts. The two routes to the service are the lower subordinate entry level of magistrates and the higher one of additional session judges, recruited and administered by the high courts, which have the authority to promote, punish and transfer these judicial officials. Once they become district judges they are eligible to be considered for positions in the high courts as well. The new scheme provides for centralised, direct, recruitment of judicial officers. So, instead of the high courts recruiting courts recruiting and administering them, AIJS provides for a centrally administered exam and monitoring by a central administrative authority, which could even be the Supreme Court.
The union government has been working with the state governments and chief justices of various high courts to push through the AIJS. Article 312 of the Constitution was amended in 1977 to provide for AIJS, but because of concerns like the issue of litigation in local languages raised by some state governments and high courts, successive governments at the Centre could never implement the scheme.
“States and high courts are apprehensive of the scheme because, if implemented, it would take away their powers to appoint and administer subordinate judges,“ said the senior law ministry official.
The Supreme Court had in 1991 endorsed the creation of an AIJS.

Jun 25 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

TOI delivery boy cracks IIT-JEE with 255th rank

Mysore: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





C Prashanth of Mysore is now closer to realizing his dream of studying engineering in an IIT. He cracked the IIT-JEE (Advanced) with 255th rank (ST category). Prashanth, 18, is from a poor family as his father Chandra Nayak is a construction labourer. To supplement the family's finances, he delivered the Times of India newspaper to homes in Mysore when he was in high school.“I was not expecting the 255th rank. It's a wonderful feeling. All credit goes to my family and Rashtrothana Parishat and Base institutions which encouraged and gave me education free of cost,“ Prashanth said, adding that he couldn't afford to buy a newspaper, but while selling them, he managed to read them and that helped him crack the exam.
Till SSLC, Prashanth did not know what IIT meant. “Initially , it was very difficult to follow the IIT subjects, but hard work and my teachers' interest made things easy for me,“ he added. He wants to pursue electronics, mechanical or civil engineering. His father and mother Jyothi saw to it that poverty didn't come in the way of providing education to their three children.
Prashanth's elder brother C Vasanth Kumar is pursuing BA in My sore and sister C Chandana finished her SSLC this year with 87%.
His maternal uncle, Gopala, who is in the police department, ensured that once he finished schooling, he came to a Bangalore college. “I was scared of Bangalore as it's a big city . But my uncle forcibly brought me to Bangalore to study ,“ he said. Tapas, coaching centre of Base institutions, provides free education for economically weaker students who are keen on studying in the IITs.





Jun 25 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

`University painted a rosy picture but first year was a mess'

Anahita Sagar





People reading this might call it overly critical, but studying for a year un der the FY UP pro gramme has been nothing but a waste of time. After successfully making it through a highly unproductive first year of college, I haven't a clue as to what degree I am pursuing. When I enrolled for a degree in journalism and mass communication a year back, FYUP was talked up as this great new idea. Students were made to believe this was the programme that could change our lives. It has, but not for the better.The idea, we were told, was to align DU with the American system of education. Officials painted a rosy picture of how it would be so simple to get into a university abroad (read: the US), and how we'd have a double degree, which obviously has more value than a simple honours degree. The idea behind the foundation courses was to make our college-level education more holistic. All this sounded so promising on pa per that, despite my scepticism, I decided to accept this new system with bucketloads of enthusiasm. However, there seemed to be a vast difference between what was promised and what ensued. I remember the first two months of college as utterly chaotic. Not only did the new system lack direction, its structure would also keep changing every two weeks. I think I finally lost faith in it once I started studying the foundation courses. Weeks went by with all of us struggling to complete gazillion assignments, projects and presentations for these courses.
However, if someone would ask me what exactly I learnt from these subsidiary courses, it would seem like a cat has bitten my tongue.
All right, maybe I brushed up my mathematical skills by learning about prime numbers for at least four hours every week. Oh, and I may also have learnt I must never write an email without a `subject'.
Sounds ridiculous? At 18 years of age, when the Constitution deems me capable of voting and driving, I am studying about ways to integrate my mind, body and heart. It probably sounds amusing when I describe the situation, but in reality it was far from funny . It was disappointing to see a university of this calibre and reputation making a fool of itself and of the 60,000-odd first-year students.
The only aspect of the programme that most students got attracted to was the prospect of studying a minor subject, that is, the discipline course-II. For students like me, it was a boon because it let us study a second subject of our choice. This meant I could study political science alongside my journalism degree.
Now, we were told we had the freedom to study any subject we wanted. Little did we know there was a catch. To wards the end of the first year, the university randomly announced that we would get our DC-II subjects on the basis of our FC marks of the first semester.
Obviously , we were stunned. Simply because we couldn't fathom how our knowledge of internet etiquette or polymers decided whether we had the ability to study English or political science or even economics. The UGC is now talking about FYUP being a hasty move. The only question on my mind is: where were these so-called academics when teachers and students had vehemently opposed this system? All this makes me wonder if there will ever be any accountability in our education system. Our policymakers are taking haphazard decisions and here we are, wondering about our future. Amid all this cacophony , the only reassuring thing is that someone has finally woken up to the reality--even if a year too late. I sincerely hope FYUP is scrapped. Having spent an entire year wandering around like a headless chicken, it would be nice to have some clarity on what I am actually supposed to be studying.
(A second-year DU student offers a student's perspective on the furore over FYUP)

Jun 24 2014 : Mirror (Pune)

Scientists explain stress-heart attack link

PARIS AFP





Scientists may have unravelled how chronic stress leads to heart attack and stroke: triggering overproduction of disease-fighting white blood cells which can be harmful in excess. Surplus cells clump together on the inner walls of arteries, restricting blood flow and forming clots that block circulation or break off and travel to other parts of the body.White blood cells “are important to fight infection and healing, but if you have too many of them, or they are in the wrong place, they can be harmful,” said study co-author
Matthias Nahrendorf of the Harvard Medical School in Boston. Doctors have long known that chronic stress leads to cardiovascular disease, but have not understood the mechanism.To find the link, Nahrendorf and a team studied 29 medical residents working in an intensive care unit. Their work environment is considered a model for chronic stress exposure given the fast pace and heavy responsibility they carry for life-and-death decisions.
Comparing blood samples taken during
work hours and off duty, as well as the results of stress perception questionnaires, the researchers found a link between stress and the immune system. Particularly, they noticed stress activate bone marrow stem cells, which in turn triggered overproduction of white blood cells, also called leukocytes. White blood cells, crucial in wound healing and fighting off infection, can turn against their host, with devastating consequences for people with diseases like atherosclerosis ­ a thickening of artery walls caused by a plaque buildup.

Jun 24 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

PUBLIC HEALTH - The Ageing Imperative: India Needs to Act Now

Jack Watters





An Indian born in 1950 could expect to live for a mere 37 years. Today, India's life expectancy at birth has risen to 65 years and is projected to be 74 years by 2050. Indians are living longer -that's the good news. The bad news is the number of older Indians who will be affected by long-term, chronic conditions will increase, leading to serious economic, social and healthcare policy consequences.By 2030, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) will account for almost three-quarters of deaths in India and the years of life lost due to coronary heart disease will be greater than in China, Russia and the US combined.
In a study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, the economic burden of NCDs in India will be close to $6.2 trillion during 2012-30.
Rapid urbanisation in India, associated with unhealthy nutrition and physical inactivity , may also contribute to the increase of age-related, infectious diseases such as pneumonia and influenza, as well as non-infectious chronic diseases such as stroke, cardiovascular ailments, diabetes, mental illnesses, cancers and respiratory infections, adding to healthcare costs and impacting productivity and the need for support. The disquieting feature of population ageing in a place such as India is that ageing is taking place at lower levels of socioeconomic status, and the gap in health-related outcomes between the rich and the poor is widening.
This will result in greater demand for healthcare, but older Indians may not be generating as much income as before to support it, leading to greater pressure on the working-age population to support senior members of the family financially and through care. This phenomenon puts added pressure on India's healthcare systems. So, how do we ensure the healthcare system can cope with the extra burden an older society poses?
Much is being done through civil society and institutions but more is needed. India as a nation needs to find ways to approach healthy and active ageing by promoting a healthy life course. With Indians living longer lives and India being the secondmost-populous nation in the world, the future of the country depends on healthy , active and productive ageing of its people. First, there is a greater need to educate citizens about preventive measures such as optimal nutrition, regular exercise, screenings and vaccinations.
A public health imperative to focus on preventive care and managing lifestyle factors should be the need of the hour for the new government. This will address some of the psychosocial factors and the productivity of ageing societies. For example, in the US, strategies to reduce salt intake to help address obesity and to control tobacco use cost as little as $1-2 per person and avert millions of deaths and billions of dollars of loss in economic output. Second, preventive care programmes must be supported by all stakeholders and integrated into national healthcare systems to be successful. The work by institutions such as the Public Health Foundation of India, among others, is key .
There needs to be an industry-wide coalition of governments, care providers and businesses to create methods to promote wellness and enable healthy living. India should encourage research to translate knowledge into innovative and effective products, strategies, interventions and services that help prevent disease and improve well-being while being cost-effective. For example, this could include tackling communicable diseases through new prevention frameworks, including immunisation programmes for children and adults.
If the needs of older people are properly recognised, this newly-burgeoning population need not be a demographic catastrophe, but can become a demographic dividend. Everyone should collaborate to ensure that barriers to the healthy ageing of society are eliminated. The clock is ticking.
Western and developed nations are preparing for the demographic transformation; and India, as one of the world's fastest-growing economies, can't afford to fall behind.
Ageing and prosperity can go hand in hand and a life-course approach to healthy ageing is the most reliable way to ensure that India takes its rightful place in the world.
The writer is vice-president for external medical affairs, Pfizer

Jun 24 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

How Leaders Need to be Lifelong Learners, Too

JEAN-FRANCOIS MANZONI





Execs need to develop new responses & capabilities to stay ahead of the curve ON IMPLEMENTATION Today's executives know much more than they act on. Knowing something doesn't guarantee that you can implement it

Leaders need to continue learning throughout their careers. About 50 years ago US president John F Kennedy argued that, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other,” and soon afterward Alvin Toffler became famous by saying that tomorrow’s illiterate people will be not the ones who haven’t learned to read, but rather the ones who have not learned how to learn.This has become ever truer in the modern world, which is as complex and ambiguous as it ever has been and even more volatile and uncertain. It,
therefore, is necessary for leaders to continue developing new responses and capabilities. Years of leadership research have shown that it is indeed possible for senior executives to learn new capabilities. Their personalities do not change, but they don’t need to.Despite being armed with greater access to knowledge and training than ever before, executives still need to be able to integrate that knowledge into their behaviour.
There are 3 steps to doing that.
You must begin by identifying a need for improvement. Next, you must achieve an initial competence in the new skills. Most of us have been here before. When learning to ride a bike, this was the point at which we took off our training wheels and realised that we couldn’t balance. We then had to master staying upright. This requires a tremendous amount of attention, practice and persistence. Finally, you must reach a stage at which your new
competence is unconscious, rather than conscious. When practice makes perfect, it's exactly like riding a bike: Once you know it, you always will be able to do it without thinking. Unfortunately, for senior executives learning new capabilities is more complicated than learning to ride a bike. My research during the past 25 years has led me to identify four major obstacles: The Knowing-Doing Gap Today's executives tend to know much more than they act on. Knowing something doesn't guarantee that you can implement it. Executives sometimes confuse understanding a concept with implementing it. When they understand a concept, when the whole thing makes a great deal of sense, it seems as though that box has been checked -at least until they get a strong feedback that their behaviour doesn't really measure up. Insufficient Investment Too often today's senior executives underestimate how much effort is required for them to learn new leadership knowledge in a way that will be helpful. They are quickly satisfied with a vague understanding, so often they underinvest in developing a more granular understanding of a concept. If it's not in your head, you can't use it under real-time conditions. If you want the knowledge to be in your head and usable, you must take notes and re view them regularly.Insufficient Persistence If you want to behave differently from a habitual response and more consistently with a new objective, you need to intercept the habitual response before it is produced, search your mind to identify a more appropriate response and produce that more appropriate re sponse -all of this in real time and under pressure.
s s Insufficient Support When executives manage to become t conscious of their shortcomings y and invest enough time and energy to develop and practice new beha viours, often they are tripped up by their environment.
(Writer is a professor of manage ment practice at Insead.) e d NYT News Service