Bharat Rakshak

Raghavendra wrote:Delhi is also PhD capital of the Country http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 521400.cms

Rahul M wrote:

Raghavendra wrote:Delhi is also PhD capital of the Country http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 521400.cms

most of them in 'evil India studies' I guess ?

Researchers Develop Protein-Packed Potato in India

One of its genes, Amaranth Albumin 1 (AmA1), is regarded as agriculturally important because it endows the plant and its seeds with high protein levels and higher concentrations of several essential amino acids.

Led by Subhra Chakraborty at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research in New Delhi, the scientists inserted the gene into seven types of potatoes and then grew the transgenic potatoes over two years.

They found that the transgenic potatoes contain between 35 and 60 percent more protein than unmodified potatoes. They also contain increased levels of amino acids, notably lysine, tyrosine and sulphur, which are usually limited in potatoes.

Pupils at a north London primary school have been improving their maths - thanks to the internet which has put them in touch with teachers thousands of miles away in India.

vish_mulay wrote:http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=11683537

Researchers Develop Protein-Packed Potato in India

One of its genes, Amaranth Albumin 1 (AmA1), is regarded as agriculturally important because it endows the plant and its seeds with high protein levels and higher concentrations of several essential amino acids.

Led by Subhra Chakraborty at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research in New Delhi, the scientists inserted the gene into seven types of potatoes and then grew the transgenic potatoes over two years.

They found that the transgenic potatoes contain between 35 and 60 percent more protein than unmodified potatoes. They also contain increased levels of amino acids, notably lysine, tyrosine and sulphur, which are usually limited in potatoes.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/superspud-c ... 15k0c.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... otein.html

I know GM food is "hot potato" issue and some BRF members might take exception to this development but i think this might be a good way to reduce malneutrition in India.

naren wrote:UK school enlists Indian maths tutors online

Pupils at a north London primary school have been improving their maths - thanks to the internet which has put them in touch with teachers thousands of miles away in India.

Who's teaching who now, biatch

"Agreement on IMF reforms has been reached. There will be a shift in quota shares to dynamic EMDCs (emerging market developing countries) and to underrepresented countries of over 6 per cent while protecting the voting share of the poorest," finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said here.

With this, India's rank in International Monetary Fund (IMF) will improve to the 8th position from the current 11th in terms of quota, he told reporters after a meeting of finance ministers of G20 nations.

Construction of approach roads, tunneling work to get boost as INDIAN AIR FORCE airlifts machinery to toughest terrain of railway line
Indian Air Force (IAF) today begun airlifting of heavy machinery to the intricate terrain in the Reasi district to pave the way for construction of road and subsequent start of work on most difficult section of the Katra-Qazigund Railway Line.

Indian Air Force’s MI-26 helicopter took off from the Technical Airport Jammu this morning with Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of the Northern Railways, R K Gupta and senior officers of the Konkan Railways Corporation Limited (KRCL) on board and airlifted heavy machinery like dozer, tipper and excavator etc in two sorties to Surukote area of the Reasi district where the Northern Railways has already constructed a helipad with the assistance of local populace.

This was for the first time in the history of the Indian Railways that Indian Air Force help had to be sought to airlift machinery for the construction activities.

Infosys prize for Chandrashekhar Khare, the maths wizard
The Infosys Award carries the highest cash prize for scientific research in India — Rs 50 lakh for each of the winners. The award is an annual feature that recognises outstanding contributions by scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists in India. By recognising and rewarding extraordinary accomplishments, the award aims to elevate the prestige of pure and applied sciences research in India.

ramana wrote:Good move if you consider both Ramayana and Mahabharata were written by non-Brahmins.

National Authority for Chemical Weapons Convention gets ISO 9001 Certification
Commended by OPCW
The National Authority for Chemical Weapons Convention (NACWC), a part of Cabinet Secretariat has been commended by the premier world body, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on getting ISO 9001:2008, Certificate. The award is in recognition of the highly successful performance of the National Authority. India’s Ambassador to Netherlands Ms. Bhaswati Mukherjee presented a copy of the certificate to the Director General Of the OPCW at a function in Hague on Thursday. The Director General of the OPCW, Mr. Ahmad Uzumen said that the Indian example is a role model for other countries. Australian representative Josey Meyers lauded India’s role and said it will ensure high quality outputs from the National Authority. US Ambassador and Permanent Representative to OPCW ,Dr. Robert Mikulak has hailed it as an impressive achievement.

At a function organized on the sidelines of the 15th Conference of the States Parties, the Chairman of National Authority and other members of the Indian delegation made a presentation on the aim, objectives and process for obtaining the ISO 9001 certification by Bureau Veritas, world’s leading certification body based in France. It was very well attended by over 70 participants from different Regional Groups including those from Africa . At least 15 Ambassadors including the Ambassadors from Netherlands, United States, Italy, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and several African countries were present. Indian embassy in Netherlands has already received may requests already regarding future technical assistance that can be provided by National Authority.

The ISO 9001 Certificate makes the National Authority for Chemical Weapons Convention (NACWC) the first among all 188 member nations of OPCW to attain this distinction

Ameet wrote:In India, the World's Largest School Lunch Program

Prasad wrote:I thought it was MGR who started it. Kamaraj? Hmmm. wonderful scheme if I may so.

Since 2001 all Indian primary schools have provided pupils with a free midday meal. Seven years on truancy rates have been slashed, and child health is soaring. Western governments are taking note.
"Compared to ours, today's generation is better off," explains a cook at one school we visited. Vijay Bhaskar agrees, he is the food administrator in Karnataka, and reveals, "the number of children out of school has reduced from 1 million to 70,000." The scheme has also seen off the junk food industry, as Bhaskar comments, "any person who has seen children eating a hot meal knows that no cookie can substitute."

April 2008
Produced by SBS Dateline
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Vasu wrote:In independent India, it was Tamil Nadu, when K. Kamaraj introduced it in the sixties.

And yes, Kerala, Gujarat and Pondicherry were next to adopt it in the 1980's.

A draft Right to Service Bill has been put on the anvil by the government that envisages a stipulated timeframe for delivering important services to its citizens including birth and death certificates. This would mean any government official sitting inordinately long over a file for issuing a birth certificate, a ration card or power connection, could land himself in jail.

kmkraoind wrote:The Right to Service Bill can create wonders if implemented by all states.

PERSPECTIVE
RETROSPECTIVE
Veronica Rodrigues (1953–2010)
K. VijayRaghavan1 and Michael Bate2
+ Author Affiliations

1National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, India.
2Department of Zoology, Cambridge University, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]

With the death of Veronica Rodrigues on 10 November, India has lost a leading figure in the resurgence of research and teaching in the biological sciences in the subcontinent. Her scientific influence was widely felt, but she was also intimately connected with fostering and advancing research in molecular biology and developmental genetics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, and more recently in the inception of the landmark center of excellence at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore. Her leadership was particularly apparent in Indian developmental biology and was especially inspirational to women scientists.

Veronica Rodrigues was born in 1953 in Nairobi, one of 10 children of Goan immigrants of very modest means. She entered Makerere University in Kampala but then, in the turmoil surrounding the regime of Idi Amin, moved to Trinity College, Dublin, where she earned an undergraduate degree in microbiology in 1976. Stimulated by the pioneering studies of the neurogeneticist Obaid Siddiqi on bacterial genetics, Veronica applied to work with him at the Tata Institute in Mumbai. In 1976, she landed in India (stateless, but carrying a singular British passport of the time that barred entry into Britain), a country about which she later confessed she had a somewhat naïve view as a cultural paradise. By this time, Siddiqi had shifted his interests to neurogenetics, and Veronica was recruited to investigate olfaction in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. So important was her contribution to the study of olfactory mutants that while she was a Ph.D. student, she was offered a permanent faculty position at the TIFR. She spent 3 years on leave from the institute (1982 to 1984) to work at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, where she performed a landmark study of odor coding in the antennal lobe of the fly.

On returning to the TIFR, Veronica combined her experience in neurobiology and behavior with her expertise in genetics and development and forged an influential group of researchers and students to study the formation of olfactory circuitry. She and her collaborators pioneered research into chemosensory biology. Her standard behavioral and electrophysiological assays for adult and larval responses to olfactory and gustatory cues are still widely used in the field, and variants of these assays have seen a major revival with the advent of new genetic and molecular tools for studying the neuronal circuitry underlying patterns of behavior. Her work and expertise ranged from genes and molecules to behavior, showing how each step in the assembly of the olfactory neuronal network is related to the emergence and maintenance of function. In daring to take on such ambitious projects, Veronica often started with students who were completely inexperienced in experimental biology. Under her tutelage, these raw recruits blossomed into self-confident mature researchers, setting out to become part of a worldwide network of scientists who began their careers in the Rodrigues lab.

Perhaps her greatest achievement was fostering young scientific talent not only in Mumbai, but more widely through her leadership in creating and running an influential biennial course in neurobiology at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. Through this course, which she led for the past 9 years, she inspired a new generation of students from countries as far apart as Iran and Cuba and more especially from Africa. In parallel with her research and teaching, Veronica gently assumed the leadership of the Molecular Biology Unit in the TIFR, later to become the Department of Biological Sciences. Over 25 years, the department grew in its research scope and capacity, nurturing high-quality scientists who can now be found in laboratories worldwide. It also spawned, in 1988, the NCBS, as a separate TIFR center. In 1992, the NCBS moved to a new campus in Bangalore. There, Veronica continued to act as a responsible steward, navigating the transition through tense situations that might otherwise have prevented the formation of strong bonds between geographically distinct parts of the TIFR. Despite this commitment to launching the NCBS in Bangalore, she chose to remain in her beloved TIFR campus in Mumbai. However, the diagnosis of her cancer led to an eventual move to Bangalore where the management of her health was easier.

Veronica's direct influence on the entire academic community in Bangalore and Mumbai was enormous. Although she was a tough scientific critic and always spoke openly and honestly (she held nothing back), Veronica inspired loyalty and affection because she was usually right. She was keenly aware of India's male-dominated scientific environment, yet still achieved great success as a scientist, mentor (particularly of women scientists), colleague, and leader. She was proud of other contributions to Indian science on all these fronts.

To many Western scientists, Veronica Rodrigues was their gateway to India, her care and her generosity smoothing the path for their first stumbling steps in very unfamiliar surroundings. To know Veronica was to enter a world of very particular places and occasions, where the pursuit of science was indissolubly linked to the enjoyment of good conversation, food, and drink. A tea stall on Colaba Causeway, a bar in the shadow of the Taj Hotel, an ice cream parlor in Trieste were the inescapable backdrops for discussion, the development of new ideas, and the simple celebration of life.

Stylish without effort and full of impish fun, her premature departure leaves her wide network of friends bereft. Her imprint on Indian science will endure, and the story of the stateless woman from Africa whom chance brought to Mumbai will be an inspiration to all who follow her.

Rahul M wrote:

Raghavendra wrote:Delhi is also PhD capital of the Country http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 521400.cms

most of them in 'evil India studies' I guess ?

However, the discussions at the State Department over the next two days will be exclusively with India, and according to sources, Washington does not want to be left out in terms of working out a modus vivendi with New Delhi, especially since French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's visits to New Delhi last week where they strongly endorsed India's candidacy for the UNSC and agreed to launch a concerted effort for UNSC expansion.