India to enter Mars orbit on September 24

An Indian spacecraft will enter Mars on September 24 for scientific exploration of the red planet after a 300-day voyage through inter-planetary space, an ISRO official said on Monday.

“After cruising through 666-million km across the solar orbit, for over nine months, our spacecraft will be inserted into the Martian orbit on September 24 at 7.30 a.m.," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientific secretary V. Koteswara Rao said here at a preview of the mission’s tryst with the celestial object.

The orbit insertion will take place when the spacecraft will be 423 km from the Martian surface and 215 million km away (radio distance) from the earth.

The ambitious Rs. 450-crore ($70 million) Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was launched November 5, 2013 on board a polar rocket from the spaceport Sriharikota off the Bay of Bengal, about 80 km north-east of Chennai.

“India will be the first country in the world to insert a spacecraft into the Martian orbit in its maiden attempt if the operation succeeds and also the first Asian country to reach the red planet’s sphere,” Mr. Rao said.

The ISRO will be the fourth space agency after National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the U.S., Russian Federal Space Agency (RFSA) and European Space Agency (ESA) to have undertaken a mission to Mars.

Incidentally, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Orbiter (MAVEN) will enter the red planet’s orbit Sep 22.

In the run-up to the D-day, the mission scientists will do course (trajectory) correction on September 22.

As on Monday, the 475 kg (dry mass) spacecraft is 13 million km away from Mars, having cruised 98 per cent (201 million km) of the radio distance from the earth and 653 million km of the sun’s 666 million km orbit.

“The course correction has been postponed to September 22 from Sunday (September 14) to conserve the precious liquid fuel weighing (852 kg) and ensure the orbital insertion takes place when the spacecraft is closer to Mars for smooth transition from the sun’s orbit,” Mr. Rao said.

Scientists at the spacecraft’s control centre have started uploading commands since Sunday and will verify them late Monday.

During the Orbiter’s long journey, mid-course correction was carried twice — Dec 11 and June 11 — but skipped in April and August as it was cruising in the solar orbit as intended.

“The liquid apogee motor (LAM) or fuel engine at the bottom of the spacecraft will be fired on September 22 for four seconds to enter the Martian sphere of influence and the course correction will consume about 500gm of fuel,” Mr. Rao said.

The speed of the spacecraft will also be reduced to 2.14 metre per second from 22.2 km per second for enabling smooth transition into the Martian orbit from the sun’s orbit Sep 24.

The insertion operation will begin at 4.17 a.m. by first activating the spacecraft’s three antennas for receiving and transmitting signals between earth and Mars.

At 6.56 a.m., the spacecraft will be rotated towards Mars and five minutes later when sunlight is not falling on the Martian surface causing eclipse, the thrusters beneath the engine will give the Orbiter altitude control.

“The liquid engine will start firing at 7.17 a.m. and at 7.21 a.m., Mars occult begins. A minute later at 7.22 a.m., telemetry (radio signals) will be off or out of receiving radars on the earth,” Mr. Rao pointed out.

Scientists at the space agency’s deep space network at Byalalu, about 40 km from Bangalore, NASA’s Earth station at Goldstone on the U.S. west coast, the ESA’s Earth station at Madrid will confirm the insertion into the Martian orbit 24 minutes later at 7.54 a.m.

“Telemetry signals resume and Doppler measurements will provide first signals about the successful insertion of the spacecraft into the Martian orbit,” Mr. Rao added.

The spacecraft, with five scientific instruments, will be placed in an elliptical orbit, with the nearest distance from the Martian surface being 423 km and the furthest 80,000 km, to rotate around it in a duration equivalent to 3.2 earth days.

Arundhati Roy gets wrongly listed as co-author with Ambedkar

A series of misleading author listings for B.R. Ambedkar’s seminal text The Annihilation of Caste on web portals has generated a lot of flak against writer and columnist Arundhati Roy and publisher S. Anand.

The webpage of VersoBooks.com, a U.K.-based publisher of the book advertised it as Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition by B.R. Ambedkar and Arundhati Roy.

The listing on Amazon.co.uk made no mention of the annotated version and simply announced the title as: The Annihilation of Caste (Hardcover – October 7, 2014) by Arundhati Roy (author), B.R. Ambedkar (author).

A similar version also appeared on the popular online shopping portal Home Shop 18. Not only did the site misrepresent the author, but a brief description of the book in its overview section said, “About the Author – Arundhati Roy’s books include, most recently, Listening to Grasshoppers.”

The Ahmedabad-based website Infibeam went a step further. Its listing made no mention of Dr. Ambedkar and mentioned Ms. Roy as the author with the original title, without even mentioning the annotated version.

Ms. Roy has written an introduction to the annotated version of the original 1936 text published by the Indian publishing house Navayana. The publisher has sold the publishing rights to Verso.

Ironically, the publisher’s website itself listed Ms. Roy as the co-author, without making any distinction between the author and the introducer.

A section of the online community cried foul over this misleading attribution of authorship to Ms. Roy, accusing her and the publisher of serious copyright violation and plagiarism.

“Arundhati Roy suddenly becoming co-author of AoC…What is colonization of Ambedkar? The process of appropriation through which the ‘introducer’ of Dalit writing becomes the primary author, for instance,” wrote Kuffir Nalgundwar (nom de plume), contributing editor on Round Table India, a platform for Dalit-Bahujan issues, who first posted these listings on Facebook.

When The Hindu reached Verso for a clarification by phone, it acknowledged the listing as a “mistake” and assured that it would be corrected on all websites, where the book was advertised.

In an email reply, Leo Hollis, editor at the Verso London office said, “These errors have resulted from a computer feed from our system to the U.S. Amazon information system. I fear that Amazon has inconsistencies which we will aim to rectify in the next 24 hours. We are publishing the Navayana edition of Annihilation of Caste by Ambedkar with an introduction from Roy. We have also acknowledged Mr. Anand as the editor. This is how the project was presented to us by Navayana and how we plan to proceed.”

Publisher Anand termed the listing “technical errors.” He said he was writing to the websites for correction.

“It’s a sensitive issue because factually it is wrong. In the book, the hierarchy has been maintained as to who is the author and the introducer,” he told The Hindu. Verso, Amazon and Infibeam have rectified their listings.

Mr. Nalgundwar, however, did not buy the argument. “How can this so-called error be on multiple websites? Even Mr. Anand’s website carries the same thing. The negligence is deliberate. The Annihilation of Caste is a major text of the oppressed classes, which provides substance to their politics.”

Keywords: The Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar, Arundhati Roy, Dalit writing

MHRD asks central univ to go digital

HRD minister Smriti Irani has asked vice chancellors of central universities (CU) to encourage digital initiatives to facilitate higher education.

This includes free online courses to citizens under the Digital India initiative of SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds). This is set out to be carried through the MOOCs platform created by IIT Mumbai.

The direction came at the end of the two day meeting in Chandigarh chaired by Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani.

In other measure conceptualised at the two day meet, the Campus Connect Program has been launched to ensure Wi-fi-enabled higher educational institutions. All CUs have been asked to ensure that their campuses and constituent colleges become fully wi-fi enabled as soon as possible.

Additionally, the central universities have been asked to display on their website, within a period of one month, all relevant information such as profile of teachers, calendar of activity of university, academic calendar, names of members of all statutory bodies alongwith their tenure, research output, information on budget, vacancy, tenure of Registrar, Finance  Officer etc.

The universities have also been asked to actively participate in National E-Library project.

- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/09/mhrd-asks-central-univ-to-go-digital/#sthash.P3TOpiWM.dpuf

First Oxford India Lecture highlights role of 'smart health' in improving access to healthcare

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Report by Rashmi Ranjan Parida, New Delhi: Mobile phones and smart devices will have a large role to play in improving access to healthcare and involving patients more in their own treatment, a leading Oxford University academic has said in a lecture in New Delhi.

Solving the large challenges facing healthcare systems around the world will require a huge shift in the way care for patients is provided, Professor Robyn Norton said in the first Oxford India Lecture on Monday 15 September.

Professor Robyn Norton is Principal Director of The George Institute for Global Health and James Martin Professorial Fellow at the University of Oxford.

This is the first time the University of Oxford has organised such an event in India, and is only the second time it has done so outside the UK following last year’s Oxford China Lecture in Shanghai. It reflects the strong ties the University has in India, particularly through world-class partnerships with many Indian research institutions.

Professor Norton’s lecture, ‘Mobilising healthcare: harnessing science, technology and entrepreneurship’, for an invited audience was introduced by the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, Professor Andrew Hamilton.

Professor Andrew Hamilton said: ‘We are delighted to be holding the first Oxford India Lecture in New Delhi. We want to celebrate the many links between Oxford and India that have existed for many years. Indeed, the large number of research partnerships that exist between Indian institutions and Oxford University is likely to surprise many people.

‘It is through top researchers working together across the world that we are most likely to gain insight and new knowledge in many of the challenges facing us in the 21st century. How best we deliver healthcare affordably to a global population facing increasing rates of common diseases like cancer, diabetes, dementia and heart disease is certainly one such challenge.’

Professor Norton believes that the transformative change needed in healthcare – the UK, in India and globally – will need to harness science, technology and entrepreneurship, and be based on the best medical evidence.

She used her lecture to look at how technology, together with cutting edge research and expertise from business, can ensure that many more people can access decent healthcare in the years to come. She gave a number of examples of medical research taking place in India through Oxford-India research partnerships and through the work of the George Institute for Global Health.

‘Currently 5 of 7 billion people on the planet do not have access to safe, effective and affordable healthcare,’ said Professor Norton. ‘Transformative change is required if the healthcare needs of the world are to be met. Healthcare services must move away from their reliance on expensive hospital care to a greater focus on primary care and preventive health services. Patients and populations must also be more actively engaged in their healthcare, and mobile technologies will be part of the solution.’

In the UK, there is increasing demand for care but also increasing pressures on the NHS’s finances, coupled with a need to move away from hospitals to care provided in people’s homes and communities. In India, there is a great challenge for healthcare systems and infrastructure to achieve universal health access, reach large rural areas, and cater for the growing middle classes without the increase in health spend breaking the bank.

‘Both countries face a similar problem for different reasons,’ said Professor Norton. ‘They both need to move to affordable new systems capable of satisfying growing healthcare demands. This is where we see technology having a huge amount to offer.’

‘Mobile phone ownership in India means they have more reach than the health infrastructure,’ Professor Norton pointed out. ‘Even if individuals don’t have a phone, someone will have in any village.’

Digital and mobile phone technologies can help in diagnosing patients with disease or at high risk of disease, increase the role of healthcare workers other than doctors in clinical decision making, and enable patients to monitor their own condition or manage their own treatment.

One example is a ‘smart health’ project being trialled in India by The George Institute for Global Health, with the support of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Oxford University. Health workers in rural areas are being trained to use a smartphone programmed with custom-designed software, to help them identify and manage people with heart problems.

Evidence-based guidelines for heart disease have been incorporated to enable health workers to obtain the right information from patients about their symptoms, to then determine the condition an individual has, and then to assist them in determining the way treatment should be provided. The system also allows doctors centrally to monitor the decisions being made.

The research is showing that the lower-level health workers in the field are identifying health problems and recommending the best treatments equivalently to highly-trained doctors in more well-equipped clinics.

With there being many times fewer doctors per head of population in India than in the UK, approaches like this could make a significant difference in improving access to the best healthcare.

Professor Norton said: ‘Science has to underpin all of this. We need to know that health outcomes using new technologies are as good or better than what went before. We need to know how patients and doctors will use the technologies, and how new systems can be implemented.’

Professor Robyn Norton, Principal Director of The George Institute for Global Health and James Martin Professorial Fellow at the University of Oxford, will give the Oxford India Lecture at 18:30 on Monday 15 September 2014 at the Leela Palace Hotel in New Delhi.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Sep 16 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

India Missing in Top 200 Global Varsity Rankings

Mumbai: Our Bureau





IIT-B pips Delhi counterpart at No. 222 on list; does better on `Employer Survey'

India still does not feature among the Top 200 world universities in the new QS rankings. Just like last year, the top-placed Indian institution is 222nd in the world, but this year the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) has overtaken its counterpart in Delhi for the first time.IIT Delhi has been the leader in India throughout the first 10 editions of the QS rankings, but has slipped to 235th this year, virtually exchanging positions in the table with IIT-B.
IIT Bombay has moved up from 233rd to 222nd and IIT Delhi from 222nd to 235th. While IIT Bombay has done better in the `Employer Survey' a component that accounts for 10% weightage in the World Rankings, IIT Delhi's performance has dropped. This could also be read as IIT Bombay receiving a better score or more responses in the `Employer Survey' than IIT Delhi. Also, IIT Delhi’s decline in the Citations Per Faculty Indicator which accounts for 20% weightage in the World Rankings has been far greater than its peers. While in the regional rankings such as Asia and BRICS the emphasis is also on quantity of research papers published, the World Rankings only focuses on the quality of papers published by taking into account the citations, thereby making it more rigorous and globally competitive “With the increasing globalisation of higher education, Indian universities need to compete to attract the best intellectual students, as well as best qualified faculty from across the world. Globally, students continue to use rankings as one of their decision making tools to choose their destinations. The prestige associated with higher ranks also drives universities to benchmark themselves globally. It’s time Indian universities embraced global rankings and put their best foot forward,” Dr Karthick Sridhar, Vice Chairman, Indian Centre for Assessment & Accreditation, said.
Parameters where Indian universities are weak in comparison to global peers are quantity and quality of research (as represented by number of papers and their citation counts) ; surveys of academic peers and employers (a representation of the perception of the quality of the university and outgoing students); and internationalization (as represented by num ber of international faculty and students).
“These have to be addressed through reorientation of Institutional priorities; focused deployment of human and financial resources; enhancement of global reputation and prestige through academic excellence; and national higher education policy reforms,” said Sridhar.
IIT Bombay now stands amongst the Top 60 in the World in the QS International Survey of Employers. In comparison to the previous year, IIT Bombay has risen 23 places to occupy the 160th position in the QS International Survey of Academicians. Both the surveys put to er international comparisons,“ a release said.
The global rankings are, for the third year, led by MIT, which increased year-on-year citations per faculty by 14%. Imperial College London (UK) also reported a 14% increase in this metric compared to 11% by The University of Cambridge (UK) and 2% by Harvard. Caltech remains the world's top university for research citations.
A total of 31 countries are represented in the Top 200. The US remains the dominant nation with 51 institutions, 11 of which are in the Top 20. The US dominates also for research impact with seven of the 10 top spots in the citations per faculty indicator.

Sep 16 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Rights Issue: India to Counter Charges

BhavnaVij Aurora

New Delhi





SETTING RECORDS STRAIGHT Security and intelligence establishment working on funding NGOs abroad to argue India's case on human rights violations

Civil society groups in India may brace up for harsher times as the security establishment, wary of any sustained global campaign against the country and its human rights records, puts in place an aggressive strategy for `setting the record straight'.The top leadership of India's security establishment suspect that local NGOs are supplying international donors and mother NGOs with exaggerated figures of communal flare-ups, crimes against women, and other `perceived' human rights violations. Each incident with a communal hue reported from any remote corner of India, each news report of any crime against women all are being meticulously filed away to be compiled into various annual reports of agencies like the US State Department, Euro Parliament, UK Parliament and UNHRC, to be used against India, said a top official requesting anonymity .
The political leadership has been warned of the possibility of such international dossiers in the making that could be used to arm-twist India during crucial international negotiations, and the security apparatus is readying its counter measures now.
“A thorough scrutiny of our own NGOs and their foreign donors is required. Most of these foreign agencies depend upon statistics provided by the organisations working here. We need to ensure that they work in a fair manner,“ another senior government officer told ET.
Indian security and intelligence establishment is also working on aggressive funding of select foreign NGOs that will argue India's case in global civil rights fora. “There are several NRI-driven organisations abroad that are working to promote interests of the Diaspora there. From time-to-time, they oppose anti-India resolutions or debates in Parliament of their countries,“ the officer said.
Government sources disclosed that the intelligence agencies noticed international civil rights organisations were increasingly publishing reports questioning India's track-record of handling communal flare-ups, crimes against women and human rights violations, many of them linked to land agitations.
The latest International Religious Free dom Report (IRFR) of US State Department and that of the US Commission on Ins ternational Religious Freedom (USCIRF), for instance, are extremely critical of Ins dia's track-record regarding minorities.t The IRFR quotes figures provided by an Ahmedabad NGO, Janvikas, to show that s the Muslim community in Gujarat lack ac cess to socio-economic infrastructure. The report mentions in detail about the August-September 2013 communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, and how human rights NGOs and Muslim groups expressed dissatisfaction with relief efforts of the government. The report also lists other incidents involving minority communities in various parts of India, including Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. “It is on basis of such reports that MPs in UK hold debates to discuss the political and humanitarian situation in Kashmir. Can Indian Parliament debate Scotland referendum,“ questioned another senior government officer.
Officials in Indian security establish ment say that it does not end with the reports. Agencies like USCIRF are also on Twitter and regularly tweet articles that show India in a poor light. It tweeted an article, as late as September 11, comparing the Sangh Parivar to the terror group ISIS, claiming that it is “seeking to cleanse Christian presence from India.“
Civil society activist Harsh Mander said that there are problems in India like communal violence and caste-based discrimination especially in J&K and northeast.“But my point is, do these agencies use the same standards to evaluate western democracies? There are human rights issues involving US and other countries. There are race-related issues. Profiling of certain communities is done,“ Mander told ET talking about the “double-standards“ of international organisations.
Mandar felt that instead of being defensive on this count, India should display the confidence to stand up to public scrutiny .He said that it should not translate into clamping down on Indian NGOs. “One can debate facts and figures that they put out but the government should not cast aspersions on them, with the sub-text of being anti-national just because they receive foreign funds,“ he said.

Sep 16 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Indian first non-European law lecturer at Cambridge

Swati Deshpande

Mumbai:





Mumbai-born Antara Haldar has breached tradition to become the first non-European lecturer of law at the University of Cambridge. At 28, she is also among the youngest, and the only Indian, to get the tenured position in the top-ranking law faculty that traces its origins to the 13th century when ancient Roman and Canon law was taught.Haldar was in Mumbai recently before beginning her tenure in the UK. In a whirlwind line-up, she met with policymakers, top bankers and industry bigwigs to discuss her first project in India.She is all set to study the Gujarat development model.
“The focus would be on textiles as a case study ,“ was all she said about it when TOI caught up with her in an exclusive chat. She exuded a confidence at the challenge her new role may hold. The same courage with which she climbed as a full-time lecturer into a venerated bastion where very few women, and certainly no Indian, had treaded before.
Cambridge was where she studied for her law degree in 2006 and where in 2010 she got a doctorate in law. It was economics which she majored in at St Stephen's College in Delhi in 2005. The confluence of her law studies at Cambridge -which she describes as the reference point for legal doctrine -she says, inspired much of her research in “inclusive finance“ and her extensive study and collaboration on the `relationship between formal and informal law' with leading American economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.Her work has been an overlap of development, law and economics with a focus on gen der too. “I am happy and also excited about being on the faculty... It is a triumph and recognition for the work that I have done. There have been other Indians appointed to other faculties but never in the field of law,“ says Haldar.“Cambridge law is not only academically significant, now competing for the top position with Harvard, it is also a culturally unique place.What is particularly significant is that a university that the leaders of our nation went to study law, now for the first time in history has appointed an Indian woman or rather the first non-European to teach there. Also, for the first time, development is being taught at Cambridge Law,“ she said.
Cambridge boasts of 90 Nobel laureates more than any other university in the world. It gave 15 British Prime Ministers and had 23 heads of state, including Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, as students.
Haldar, an Indian passport holder, whose mother tongue is Bengali, says her formative years of schooling were in India.