Oct 18 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

CITIES IN FOCUS - Centre launches index to measure air quality

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





It Will Inform People About Pollution, Health Implications

The ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) launched the national air quality index (AQI) on Friday. AQI, a method of informing people about the air quality in their cities, has six categories—good, satisfactory, moderately polluted, poor, very poor and severe depending on concentrations of eight main air pollutants.The Centre’s move comes in the wake of international organizations, including the WHO, highlighting the poor air quality in India. The index will not only give people an idea of the air quality, but also the corresponding health impacts they are likely to face.
The index could also help rank how each city is doing in terms of air quality. This scheme, however, may take some more time to be operational. It will first be implemented in cities with more than a million population as well as state capitals in the next five years. Those with half million plus population will come under the AQI system in the second phase.
AQI is a method by which individual air pollution parameters of each pollutant can be translated into a single number or a set of numbers. For instance, an AQI of 301-400 denotes “very poor” quality and the corresponding PM 2.5 con centrations are 121-250 microgram per cubic metre. The scheme may initially kick off in 16 cities, which have automatic air quality monitoring stations. The rest may take longer.
The AQI doesn’t consider the total suspended particulate matter (TSPM) levels, which are basically all kinds of pollution particles in the air. Instead it considers only PM 2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres) and PM 10 (particles less than 10 micrometres).
Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar called AQI the “one number, one colour and one description” scheme that can be understood by people easily. He also claimed that AQI is a part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Javadekar said that to address the air pollution problem, he was considering if Bharat Stage (BS) fuel standards could be advanced and shifted to BS V norms. He said India needed to prepare for a vehicular popula tion of 32 crore by 2024. The current number is 16 crore. “ saw the smog in China once and thought that in 10 years In dia would face the same situa tion if we don't do anything about it,“ he said.
Centre for Science and En vironment welcomed the ini tiative of introducing a health advisory to inform people about the air quality and its impact on health. This can help people take precautions on days that have poor air quality.
However, the ministry has no other plans to deal with severe air pollution on certain days.
Many countries have their action plans for such days. Paris, for instance, recommends drivers to postpone trips to Paris or bypass Paris city, use public transport or organize carpooling. In Beijing, on red alert days, kindergartens and schools are closed; 80% of government-owned cars are taken off roads and private cars allowed on alternate days.

DUTA seeks probe into plagiarism charges against VC 

A probe initiated by the Ministry of Human Resource Development into charges of plagiarism against some teachers of the Delhi University has apparently irked the university’s teachers union which has now moved the ministry seeking investigations into similar allegations against the Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh.

“We have come to know that the MHRD has set up a committee to inquire into allegations of plagiarism regarding some professors at Delhi University. We wanted the MHRD to be aware that there is a pending case of plagiarism against Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh. The issue is part of the White Paper submitted by us, but since there is already a specific committee investigating charges of plagiarism, we have requested the Ministry to include this case too,” said Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) president Nandita Narain.

She alleged that the “case of Prof. Dinesh Singh’s suspected attempts to pass off five publications authored by someone else as his own,” was reported in December, 2012.

“The university had defended the V-C by claiming that his researcher profile on “ResearcherID”, a website maintained by a news wire, had been hacked and that a complaint had been lodged with the Delhi Police. However, its replies to RTI queries following the incident reveal glaring inconsistencies in the university’s claims,” she said.

The DUTA has also alleged that the university had remained silent on the details about the police complaint it had lodged.

- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/10/duta-seeks-probe-into-plagiarism-charges-against-vc/#sthash.OBkuXCD2.dpuf

Why should you know about 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine winners ‘Brain's Own GPS’

If you get up in the middle of the night, you can move around your house with considerable ease. It is not difficult for you to find your way from the kitchen to the bedroom even with your eyes closed. Is it because you are used to your house and are well versed with all the rooms and distances? Or do you leave a scent that navigates you to your destination? How do you navigate from one place to other?

Well, this decade old question just got a valid answer from the newest Nobel Prize winners John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard I. Moser. 

These three neuroscientists, discovered cells that form a positioning system in the brain and make sure that we are not permanently lost.   

The research dates back to 1971, when Dr. O’Keefe was studying the hippocampus, an area of the brain responsible for memory. He found out that damaging the hippocampus leads to amnesia in test patients. He was surprised when he confirmed that this area of the brain is in fact also a spatial system.

He connected electrodes to rat brains and let them move freely in a room. He observed that a certain nerve cells got activated when the rat was in a particular spot. To confirm this, he monitored the rat movement in a different part of the room where another set of cells got activated. When the rat circled back to the original position, the original set of cells was reactivated. These cells were not just registering the location but they were also mapping the entire place. Thus came into existence, the “place cells” where the memory of a place was stored as a specific nerve combination. 

In 2005, this discovery inspired the Moser’s research greatly. The team of husband and wife was conducting similar experiments on rats. Along with nerve cells, the entorhinal cortex, a part of the rat brain was found to be activated when the animal passed by a known place. These cells together formed a grid that enabled the rat to navigate spatially and remember and register locations; thus forming a positioning system in its brain. 

Device-led distraction

Do not let your mobile phones, tablets or laptops take control of your life.

In the past few weeks, I’ve come across more than one article discussing the presence of mobile devices in the classroom. Some teachers have very clear rules about switching off mobile phones in the classroom, and some do not allow devices of any kind to be used when a lecture is in progress. But there are also quite a few teachers who have a more open attitude to device use in class, as long as it is not disruptive to the group as a whole.

The disturbance

Clay Shirky, who teaches the theory and practice of social media at New York University, talks about how he recently decided to impose a complete ban on laptops and other devices in his classroom. He found that the level of distraction from the use of laptops, tablets and mobile phones was becoming difficult to control. He notes that the quality of engagement and conversation in the class become much higher once the phones and tablets were put away. It was, in his words, “as if someone had let fresh air into the room.” He further describes the challenges faced by the teacher who is competing against an entire machinery — hardware and software — that is “designed to distract” because “attention is the substance that makes the whole consumer Internet go”.

Losing concentration

The distraction-by-device factor may be somewhat possible to control inside a classroom, where the teacher’s orders rule, but what about other places — in our hostel rooms, at our study tables and in discussion groups at the canteen? How do we draw ourselves away from those flickering screens, the beeping mobiles, the pings on our tablets and the status updates on open Facebook and Instagram feeds? Most of us keep our browsers open while we are working on documents or reading a soft copy of a document. We open the laptop in complete earnestness, planning to finish an assignment, and before we know it, we’ve allowed our fingers to click here and there, scrolling down a dozen screens in pursuit of a momentary interest and a whole hour has just vanished! (Confession: I found myself going off to check various open windows no less than five times between the start and end of this paragraph!)

It takes a lot of discipline to put our devices away when we are by ourselves — or even when we are with others. And then, it takes even more discipline to stay on one screen when we’re immersed in our computers. It may begin with a valid reason — that you need to check something periodically for your assignment. But then it turns into a search without purpose, where you flit from site to site for no reason other than idle curiosity.

The lurking danger

The most dangerous aspect of all this is that we do not even realise we are being distracted. When there is noise or physical discomfort, we find ways to deal with it so that we can continue our work. But when the distraction comes from inside our heads, it’s much, much harder to control. It takes us a while to even recognise it as distraction, as taking us away from something. Sometimes, it seems as if being distracted has become the normal state. It’s common to find people checking their messages or answering their phones right in the middle of a conversation. When we are working on our computers too, we routinely “multitask” across several open windows.

By focusing on several different things at the same time, we fail to give our full attention — and, therefore, our best — to the main task at hand. While multitasking may be useful and even necessary at times, it is not something that is desirable when we are doing a task that requires concentration. Reading class notes, listening to a lecture, writing a paper, taking part in discussions that lead us to understand challenging concepts — these are activities that demand our full attention and intellectual engagement.

Finding focus

Distraction is hard enough to fight even without our electronic devices. All of us know how difficult it is to keep our minds on something that we are not very interested in, or that we are forced to do (like listening to lectures!). But maybe this natural inclination to let our minds wander is being fuelled by the presence of these digital devices that pull our attention away from the here and now? This is a distraction we can work to fight, if we become conscious of it. Once we are aware of it, we need to ask ourselves some simple questions: What is it that we need to be focusing on right now? Why do we need to check our messages every few minutes? What will we really gain by staying online during the time we are working on something?

The answers to these questions are (usually) surprisingly simple.

I’d suggest that even if you have a teacher who does not ban laptops, tablets and phones from class, you do it yourself. And when you’re alone, working on that assignment that refuses to get done, try finishing your reading, gathering your notes together, and then consciously shutting down all windows but one — the one you actually need to be working on!

The author teaches at the University of Hyderabad and is the editor of Teacher Plus. Email: usha.raman@gmail.com

Keywords: studying, concentration, distraction, mobile phones, Usha Raman

A commendable effort

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), with the consummate ease that has become the rocket’s hallmark, placed the third Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) spacecraft into orbit in the early hours of Thursday. Over the years, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has steadily enhanced the capabilities of this rocket, which was originally developed to put remote sensing satellites into orbits so that it could carry heavier satellites than before, inject them into orbit with greater accuracy and take on a range of missions including launching the lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, as well as theMars Orbiter Mission. Its record of 27 consecutive successful flights is a tribute to the meticulous preparations and attention to every tiny detail that goes on behind the scenes before each launch. Indeed, the latest launch was postponed by almost a week in order to attend to a technical glitch that had cropped up.

The IRNSS constellation will give India guaranteed access to what has become a critical service in the present day – navigation satellite signals. America’s Global Positioning System (GPS), with worldwide coverage, is the leader in the field. Russia, for its part, established a similar capability with the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS). But others worry about becoming wholly dependent on them for a service that is vital for military operations as well as in many civilian sectors. Europe is therefore in the process of putting its own constellation of Galileo navigation satellites in place. China is likewise creating the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System; a regional service has already been launched and it intends to achieve global coverage by around 2020. Using its seven satellites, the IRNSS system will beam accurate navigation signals over India and up to 1,500 km from its borders. Three of those satellites have already been launched and ISRO plans to have the remaining satellites in place by the middle of next year. By adding four more satellites, India has the option to extend the area covered by its navigation system. Meanwhile, ISRO’s Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad has undertaken the development of receivers that can utilise the IRNSS signals and is also helping industry do the same. Early trials using these receivers are going to get under way. Efforts are also going into chipsets for portable devices that will utilise those signals. A market assessment carried out by a well-known consultancy company indicates that there is potentially a huge market available in the subcontinent. Turning this potential into reality is going to be a challenge, and ISRO will necessarily have to play a leadership role here.

Oct 17 2014 : Mirror (Pune)

MY BAD - How shameful nobody knew Kailash Satyapati!





In which Aakar Patel locates his `humerus'Likedhated his column? Write to
Aakar Patel at aakar.patel@gmail.com aakar.patel@gmail.com

The thing that shocked me most about the Nobel Peace Prize for Kailash Satyarthi was how unknown he was in his own country.Journalists, politicians, filmstars, nobody knew about him.
Why do we not appreciate our own talent? Why should it require the outside world to tell us about our hidden gems? It has always been like this, I am sorry to say. We are ignorant of their work and their quality and even of their name till a foreigner tells us they are good.
The whole Bachpan Bachao Andolan name was a total secret till it was pronounced in foreign accents. How awful Kailash Satyapati would have felt, just think, on the most important day of his life with nobody even recognising his name. His own relatives were like “Who?“ when they heard the announcement on Times Now.
I was, of course, always familiar with Shailesh's work. I have long followed closely the doings of the Bachchan Bachao Andolan (I think it has to do with rescuing Abhishek's career, though frankly I do not know if it was worth a prize). But the rest of the media? What can I say? Shameful. Where I think the committee was spot on was Kamlesh’s work in illegal trafficking. If there is one problem we have in India it is trafficking and, as anyone who has driven on our roads will know, most of it is illegal.
The other field he has spent a lot of time on was bonded labour, which, the ignoramus media has doubtless not informed you, is about Fevicol and carpenters. There is no respect for labour in this country and it is shocking that a global prize should be needed to inform people about this sticky issue.
Anyway, so I am totally delighted that Kailash Kher should have been finally recognised. He was only the second Indian to get this particular prize after Teresa, who you will remember from her modeling days when she posed for Raghu Rai and M F Husain.
And finally, it is not just about the individual. It is the noble cause that the Nobel prize has made everyone aware of. Definitely the Narmada Bachao Andolan is going to benefit from being associated with this award.
I would be remiss at the end in not mentioning the other awardee, merely because she is a citizen of the enemy nation.
It was a joint prize and not only was Puttaparthi’s work honoured but also that of Malai Yousufzai (is she that Amul girl? She’s very cute). Anyway they said she was campaigning against the Tali-ban and I have always been on her side. What is wrong with that part of the world that they should even prohibit applause?

ct 17 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Guj teen world’s mental math champ

Yagnesh Mehta

Surat





Two years ago, Granth Thakkar had floored all when he won the world's fastest num ber game, Flash Anzan, by adding 15 numbers flashing past very quickly on a giant screen in Turkey.Now, this mathematics wizard from Vapi has been crowned the world's fastest mental calculator. Granth, achieved this feat at Junior Mental Calculators World Championship 2014 (JMCWC-2014) held in Dresden in Germany.
Around 40 people from 18 countries participated. Granth, son of a clerk in Vapi municipality, also won the mental calculation world cup.
“Granth scored 1,547 points out of 1,600, which is the 13, highest in the of the competi the tion. His hard work and dedica tion helped him win,” said his father Rakesh.
A class XI student Asha Dham School, Granth aspires to be an astronaut. “I wish to become an astronaut and work in Nasa. I am yet to finalize the courses to pursue after class XII and I am focusing on school studies right now,” he told TOI.
Granth gathered the points in 23 different types of mental arithmetic tests.
A participant takes tests like addition, multiplication, square root and others.