Daily News Notes: 8th March, 2012 (Including: Weekly SCI-TECH & AGRI)

• ·         New Chief Minister of the states: (1.) Goa, Manohar Parrikar; (2.) Punjab, Prakash Singh Badal.
• ·         The government will introduce a bill during the Monsoon Session of Parliament to give legislative powers to the Unique Identification Authority of India, UIDAI to facilitate its work relating to collection of biometric data of residents. The Planning Commission, which is providing administrative support to the Authority, has been asked to draft the Bill that would provide legal sanctity to the UIDAI. The Authority is currently working under an executive order.
• ·         In a case based only on circumstantial evidence, motive cannot take the place of conclusive proof that the person concerned was the author of the crime, warranting his conviction, the Supreme Court has held. Writing the judgment and ordering the acquittal of three appellants convicted to undergo life imprisonment, Justice Thakur said: “Witnesses are classified into three categories, namely, (i) those wholly reliable, (ii) those wholly unreliable and (iii) who are neither wholly reliable nor wholly unreliable. In the case of the first category, the courts have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion either way. It can convict or acquit the accused on the deposition of a single witness if it is found to be fully reliable. In the second category also, there is no difficulty in arriving at an appropriate conclusion for, there is no question of placing any reliance upon the deposition of a wholly unreliable witness. It is only in the case of witnesses who are neither wholly reliable nor wholly unreliable that the courts have to be circumspect and have to look for corroboration in the materials.”
• ·         Noted musician Ravi Shankar Sharma, popularly known as Ravi, passed away due to cardio-respiratory arrest. The 86-year old music maestro composed music for several Hindi and Malayalam films.
• ·         A young Slow Loris, an endangered primate, was recovered by the villagers in Tripura. Commonly known as Bengal Slow Loris, the animal generally lives in a group of five or six and is an omnivore which survives on insects, small birds, eggs and foliage.
• ·         The world-famous Jallikattu cattle is among the ten livestock breeds indigenous to Tamil Nadu selected for a conservation project being funded by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). A study was conducted by SEVA (Sustainable agriculture and Environmental Voluntary Action) – an institution specialising in conservation of native cattle breeds – that had been roped in for the project. Through the study, SEVA found that Jallikattu cattle were contributing significantly to organic farming of coconut, grapes, banana and spices crops of the area through manure and draft power. They were more resistant to communicable and parasitic diseases as compared to the crossbreds in that area under hot and wet conditions.
• ·         Despite India's “impressive'' rise, its ambition to be a superpower may remain just that — an ambition, according to an authoritative new study by the London School of Economics (LSE). It pointedly dismisses what it calls the State Hillary Clinton's “unequivocal verdict” during her India visit in 2009 that “India is not just a regional power, but a global power.” The study, ‘India: the Next Superpower?' acknowledges India's “formidable achievements” in fostering democracy, growth and cultural dynamism but concludes that these are nullified by its structural weaknesses, widespread corruption, poor leadership, extreme social divisions, religious extremism and internal security threats. However it adds by saying that “India has been one of the world's best-performing economies for a quarter of a century, lifting millions out of poverty and becoming the world's third-largest economy in PPP [Purchasing Power Parity] terms. India has tripled its defence expenditure over the last decade to become one of the top-ten military spenders. And in stark contrast to Asia's other billion-person emerging power, India has simultaneously cultivated an attractive global image of social and cultural dynamism.”
• ·         India is still to take a stand on the resolution backed by Norway and western countries, besides the U.S., at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Pakistan, along with the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), Russia and China, has supported Sri Lanka.
• ·         International Women's Day is being observed today across the world to create awareness about anti-social practices against women and strengthen their rights. This year the theme is 'Connecting Girls - Inspiring Futures'. It aims to raise voices for equal opportunity of women in all walks of life. The day is an occasion to highlight the achievements of women in the society. For the women of the world, the day is an occasion to review how far they have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development. In India, gender inequality and violence against women is a serious problem. But, with increasing public awareness campaigns, the fight against the evils has intensified. Women's Reservation Bill to effectively empower the women has already been passed in the Lok Sabha. Meanwhile, as the world is celebrating Women’s day today, only 8% women have been elected in recently held UP Assembly elections. However, the number has increased by ten as compared to 2007 Assembly elections. In 2007, only 27 female candidates were elected while in the present elections, 37 candidates made it to the state Assembly.
• ·         The Hindu community in Pakistan, Dubai etc. is celebrating the festival of Holi with traditional fervor today. Different cultural programs have also been arranged on the occasion.
• ·         For the second successive year, India has emerged the second best source market (first is Saudi Arabia) for tourism industry in Dubai. The reasons for the second highest footfalls by the Indian tourists include the proximity, accessibility, cost effectiveness, feeling of not being far away from home, cultural linkages and a large Indian diaspora in Dubai. Britain and Iran came third and fourth respectively.
• ·         Pakistan had 110 nuclear weapons and spent $2.2 billion on its atomic weapons arsenal last year, according to a report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, an NGO. Islamabad, however, termed the claim “highly exaggerated.”

Weekly SCI-TECH & AGRI

• ·         During an expedition in 2010 off Costa Rica, scientists found hot hydrothermal vent systems intersecting cold seeps of methane, which is extremely rare.
• ·         For the first time in the country, 14,000 pregnant women will be screened for gestational diabetes (GDM), and equal number of women with and without gestational diabetes and children born to such mothers would be followed up for 15 years. This study will be the first to provide long term data of factors that cause diabetes in children even when they are born to women whose gestational diabetes has been controlled. In this programme, the glucose level of all women with gestational diabetes will be controlled either through diet manipulation or insulin. This becomes essential as gestational diabetes can be detected as early as at 16 weeks of gestation and even in those who have normal glucose level in the first and second trimester can turn up positive for gestational diabetes during the third trimester. Though some studies show that children born to mothers with gestational diabetes are more prone to developing diabetes, there is no hard data to support this. Gestational diabetes hovers at around 16 per cent in India. Studies have shown that children born to women with uncontrolled gestational diabetes are more prone to suffer from childhood obesity and have a higher risk of developing a metabolic syndrome like diabetes during their adulthood. Similarly, women with uncontrolled gestational diabetes also stand to suffer from diabetes at a later point in their life.
• ·         Water falling from a height appears white due to a phenomenon called non-selective scattering. When water falls from a height with high velocity, lot of tiny water droplets are formed around the falling mass of water due to the bombardment of water with the rocks. These tiny droplets are about 100-1000 times bigger in size when compared with the wavelength of visible light which human eyes can see. (The visible range to which human eye is sensitive is about 0.4-0.7 micro metre, 1 micro metre = 10 raised to the power -6 metre).The light coming from the sun which the humans can see has three primary colours red, green and blue mixed in it. When light rays are incident over the water droplets, they scatter the entire visible range equally in all directions. When the three primary colours red, green and blue are mixed in equal proportions, they produce white colour. Hence, the colour we see after scattering by the water droplets is white. When water falls with a low velocity, very less or even no such tiny droplets are formed around the falling water and hence no scattering takes place. Hence we do not see white falling water at those times.
• ·         Clouds may reflect radiation from the sun back into space, and they may be a blanket sealing in the heat from Earth. Studying their formation and dispersion may be a key step in climate research.
• ·         A paper exploring nitrogen dynamics found that untangling climate impacts from other factors such as logging, can be difficult. This, even with access to decades of data on a forest's environmental conditions.
• ·         Diverting crops to produce fuel will limit food resources and drive up costs. Marine macroalgae — common seaweed — can be grown more quickly than land-based crops and harvested as fuel without sacrificing usable land.
• ·         India has an estimated 11.2 million people suffering from glaucoma and, of them, 1.1 million are already blind. 90 per cent of glaucoma cases in India and some other countries remain undiagnosed while even in advanced countries the figure was 50 per cent. Half of the cases were simply ‘missed' by eyecare professionals. In most cases, even grandmothers and auxiliary nurse midwives handling deliveries in remote areas could make out that all was not well with a newborn's eyes. Immediate surgery could make a world of difference in such cases.