Dec/14/2011

Supreme Court tells Kerala, Tamil Nadu not to arouse people's feelings

There is nothing serious, grave or emergent about the safety of the Mullaperiyar dam warranting our interference at this stage, the Supreme Court observed on Tuesday and asked Tamil Nadu and Kerala not to arouse people's feelings and create a fear psychosis.

The Empowered Committee, headed by the former Chief Justice of India, A.S. Anand, was looking into all aspects regarding the safety of the dam and no order was required at this stage, observed a five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Justices D.K. Jain, R.M. Lodha, C.K. Prasad, Deepak Verma and Anil R. Dave.

The Bench, however, said the apprehensions of Kerala regarding the safety of the dam could not be brushed aside since the water level in the dam had gone up beyond 136 ft on four days from November 26 to December 2, coupled with earthquakes.

Rejecting arguments of senior counsel Raju Ramachandran, appearing for Tamil Nadu, that Kerala was creating fear psychosis and Tamil Nadu wanted to allay the apprehensions, Justice Jain said: “You can't say these apprehensions have no basis. Why did you [Tamil Nadu] allow the water level to go beyond 136 ft when our status quo order is in operation. You are obliged to ensure that the water level is maintained at 136 ft. May be the increase in water level, coupled with earthquakes is a cause of concern to Kerala.”

The Bench made it clear to Tamil Nadu that it should maintain the water level at 136 ft.

Mr. Ramachandran said there was a self-correcting mechanism. The sluices were kept open and water beyond 136 ft would automatically spill over; whether the level went beyond 136 ft on four days as claimed by Kerala had to be verified.

The Bench was hearing applications filed by Kerala, to reduce the water level in the dam from 136 ft to 120 ft, and Tamil Nadu for deployment of CISF for protection of the dam and to pass an order to restrain Kerala Ministers and officials from making statements creating fear psychosis among the people about the safety of the dam.

While dismissing as not pressed Kerala's application, Justice Jain told senior counsel P.P. Rao, appearing for Kerala: “The whole gamut of the controversy is before the empowered committee. The fact that the committee has decided to inspect the dam shows it is seized of the matter.”

Justice Lodha supplemented Justice Jain saying “if the situation is so grave and serious, the committee would have sought our intervention and sought an order from us. It shows that the situation at the ground level is not that grave as projected by you [Kerala].There is nothing serious or grave which requires modification in the order. Let the committee go into all aspects and submit its report to the court. We will not pass any order or give any direction now.”

Mr. Rao replied that the apprehensions “are genuine and not fanciful as made out to be.” Justice Lodha regretted that both the parties, instead of dousing the fire, were adding fuel to it.”

Manmohan allays fears over attack by China

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday refuted views that China is planning to attack India and maintained that the policy of both the countries is to engage in dialogue on the border issues though there has not been much progress in recent times.

Dr. Singh assured the Lok Sabha during Question Hour that India’s borders with China “by and large remain peaceful”.

“Our government does not share the view that China plans to attack India,” Dr. Singh said.

The Prime Minister’s response came after Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav claimed in the House that he has information that China has made preparations to attack India and has marked out areas near the borders for this purpose. He said the attacks were imminent.

Mr. Yadav maintained that the neighbouring country has also stopped flow of Brahmaputra river water to India.

The Prime Minister, however, maintained that he had assurance from the highest quarters that China has not stopped flow of Brahmaputra waters to India.

Dr. Singh accepted that there were intrusions from China into areas which India considers to be a part of its territory. However, China differs from India’s claim on this issue.

“These matters are sorted out by the area commanders of the two countries,” Dr. Singh said.

The Prime Minister stated that India has followed the policy of engaging in dialogue and good relations with China and underlined that the erstwhile NDA government had also continued with this policy.

India and China have been engaged in dialogue through its representatives on the border issue.

Dr. Singh said both countries had made some progress in talks in 2005 and thereafter, but in recent times not much has been made.

Manmohan to focus on global politics during Russia visit

Global politics will be high on the agenda of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coming visit to Russia in the context of shifting power equations in the world, said India’s envoy to Russia.

“The world is witnessing a profound transformation and a shift in the global balance of power,” Ambassador Ajai Malhotra said. “Our relationship serves as an anchor of peace and stability during this transitions phase.”

The international agenda of Dr. Singh’s talks with Russian leaders acquires special relevance in the light of India taking the Chair of BRICS in 2012 and hosting the group’s next summit in late March, Mr. Malhotra stressed speaking to the media ahead of the Russian-Indian summit in Moscow on December 15-17. It will be the 12th bilateral summit since 2000 when the two countries agreed to hold top-level meetings annually.

Noting that India and Russia have “identical, close or common” perspectives on a wide range of international issues, the Indian envoy urged the two countries to step up cooperation on the global stage.

“Global challenges make it imperative that we further intensify our dialogue on issues such as the need to revive the world economy, the situation in West Asia and North Africa, challenges in neighbouring Afghanistan, cooperation within BRICS, as well as new threats posed by climate change and piracy.”

Indo-Russian cooperation can push global changes in the right direction.

“Together India and Russia can help shape global responses,” Mr. Malhotra said. “The changes underway offer an opportunity to bring about an international order that is democratic, inclusive, based on the supremacy of international law and consistent with the objectives and principles contained in the U.N. Charter.”

During his talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister is expected to discuss bilateral cooperation in defence, space, atomic energy, hydrocarbons, and science and technology, Mr. Malhotra said.

He pointed out that the ongoing protests that have held up the commissioning of the first of two Russian-built nuclear reactors at Kudankulam will not impact on collaboration with Russia in nuclear energy.

“We will fulfil our commitments as regards Indo-Russian cooperation in atomic power energy.”

It is understood that a contract for the construction of two more reactors of the Russian design at Kudankulam has been finalised but may not be signed at the Moscow summit.

“Both sides understand that we need to proceed with due care and caution” in regard of the Kudankulam protests, the Indian envoy said.

The upcoming summit is expected to emphasise opportunities for broader trade and economic links between India and Russia. The two countries hope to double bilateral trade to touch $20 billion by 2015 and diversify their economic cooperation.

“In particular, there are ongoing efforts to strengthen bilateral linkages in sectors such as steel, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, coal, diamonds, telecommunications, oil and gas, and IT,” Mr. Malhotra said.

The outgoing year has seen an encouraging growth in people-to-people contact between the two countries, with the Indian embassy in Russia issuing 25 percent more tourists, business and conference-linked visas compared with last year, the Indian envoy said. India has liberalised visa rules for Russian visitors since June, and Russia reciprocated the move on December 1.

Alexander Graham Bell recordings played from 1880s

Alexander Graham Bell foresaw many things, including that people could someday talk over a telephone. But the inventor certainly never could have anticipated that his audio-recording experiments in a Washington, D.C., lab could be recovered 130 years later and played for a gathering of scientists, curators and journalists.

“To be or not to be...” a man’s voice can be heard saying in one recording as it was played on a computer at the Library of Congress on Tuesday. The speaker from the 1880s recites a portion of Hamlet’s Soliloquy as a green wax disc crackles to life from computer speakers.

The early audio recordings which revealed recitations of Shakespeare, numbers and other familiar lines had been packed away and deemed obsolete at the Smithsonian Institution for more than a century. But new technology has allowed them to be recovered and played.

The technology reads the sound from tiny grooves with light and a 3D camera.

The recordings offer a glimpse into the dawn of the information age, when inventors were scrambling to make new discoveries and secure patents for the first telephones and phonographs, even early fiber optics.

A second recording, on a copper negative disc, played back Tuesday reveals a trill of the tongue and someone reciting the numbers 1-2-3-4-5-6.

A third recording catches perhaps the first sound of disappointment as Bell’s recording device seemed to hit a technical glitch.

“Mary had a little lamb and its fleece was white as snow,” a voice says. “Everywhere that Mary went Oh no!”

On Nov. 17, 1884, Bell’s lab recorded the word “barometer” several times on a glass disc with a beam of light. It and about 200 other experimental records were packed up and given to the Smithsonian, seemingly never to be played again.

The recordings date back to the 1880s. Bell had moved from Boston, Massachusetts, to Washington after obtaining a patent on March 10, 1876, for his invention of the telephone, which occurred when his employee Thomas Watson heard him shouting over a wire in the next room. He joined a growing group of scientists who made the nation’s capital a hotbed for innovations.

Bell partnered with his cousin Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter to create Volta Laboratory Associates in Washington in the early 1880s.

During this time, Bell sent the first wireless telephone message on a beam of light from the roof of a downtown Washington building, a forerunner to modern fibre optics. He and other inventors also were scrambling to record sound on anything they could find, including glass, rubber and metal. One early sound record looks like a smashed soup can.

Inventors at the time were in intense competition. Bell, Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison, who invented the phonograph to record sound on tin foil in 1877, each left objects and documentation with the Smithsonian to help prove their innovations were first.

Bell went so far as to seal some devices in tin boxes for safekeeping at the Smithsonian. Edison’s earliest recordings are thought to have been lost.

“This stuff makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck,” said curator Carlene Stephens, of the National Museum of American History, before Bell’s recordings were played Tuesday. “It’s the past speaking directly to us in a way we haven’t heard before.”

The museum’s collection of about 400 of the earliest audio recordings, including 200 from Bell’s lab, probably will become an important resource for new research on communications and early technology now that they can be played back, Stephens said.

“These materials have been in a cupboard and virtually unknown for decades,” she said. “The collection has been silent.”

The Library of Congress partnered with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, to offer the first listen of these early recordings Tuesday. Scientists have spent the past 10 years and about $1 million to develop the technology to create high-resolution digital scans of the sound discs.

This year, scholars from the Library of Congress, the Berkeley Lab and the Smithsonian gathered in a new preservation lab at the Library of Congress and recovered sound from those early Bell recordings. A $600,000 three-year grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Sciences funded the pilot project, and the Smithsonian hopes to continue the work if future grants can be secured.

Advances in computer technology made it possible to play back the recordings, said Carl Haber, a senior scientist at the Berkeley Lab. He noted that 10 years ago specialists would have struggled with computer speeds and storage issues. The digital images that now can be processed into sound within minutes would have taken days to process a decade ago.

Many of the recordings are fragile, and until recently it had not been possible to listen to them without damaging the discs or cylinders.

So far, the sounds of six discs have been successfully recovered through the process, which creates a high-resolution digital map of the disc or cylinder. The map is processed to remove scratches and skips, and software reproduces the audio content to create a standard digital sound file.

Haber, senior scientist at the Berkeley Lab, said Bell’s recordings and others in the fierce competition of the 1880s marked the start of the information age as we know it.

“The whole idea that you could capture the world as it exists” in a recording, he said, “they got that in this period.”

100 years — Amundsen's dash to immortality

This day (December 14) 100 years ago, Norwegian Roald Amundsen became the first explorer to reach the geographical South Pole — the southernmost tip of the Earth. If his ambition to be the first man to ever set foot on the North Pole was scorched by Robert Peary in 1909, he immortalised himself by being the first to arrive at the South Pole.

“So we arrived and were able to plant our flag at the geographical South Pole. God be thanked!” wrote Amundsen in his diary soon after reaching the Pole.

The British team led by Robert Scott managed to arrive at the South Pole only on January 17, 1912, 33 days after Amundsen had hoisted the Norwegian flag.

DISAPPOINTMENT

Scott's entry in the diary reveals his great disappointment. “The worst has happened… All the daydreams must go…Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority,” the diary entry reads.

While Amundsen and his men safely and victoriously returned to civilisation, Scott and his team, caught in a terrible blizzard — which lasted for five days — were unable to reach even their base camp.

“There has been nothing to eat for the past three days. Now, I am not even able to write. End is not far. For God's sake, take care of our families.” This was Scott's diary entry on March 29, 1912. Their bodies were discovered eight months later.

The reason why Amundsen reached the Pole earlier than Scott is not difficult to figure out. Their goal was the same, but their priorities were vastly different.

Amundsen was focussed, planned meticulously, and was fully geared for the challenge. Unlike Scott, the Norwegian had a team that had no scientists. Instead there were two expert dog-handlers — Helmer Hanssen and Sverre hassel, and one skiing expert (Olav Bjaaland) in his team.

He did not indulge in any scientific work and wasted no time taking a detour to studying Antarctic animals or collecting samples.

SPECIAL DOGS

Even the choice of animals was strikingly different. Scott took more ponies than dogs, Amundsen had special dogs to pull the sledges.

Worse, Scott sent his dog teams back to the base camps and men pulled their heavy sledges. If Amundsen had no hesitation killing the dogs that had weakened, and eat their meat, Scott believed that using man-harnesses was less cruel than using dogs!

The Norwegians used hermetically sealed cans to store fuel. The British team used washers, which failed in extreme cold. Similarly, Scott's motor sledges failed in the weather.

Even the choice of clothing was different. Living with the Inuits in the Arctic, the Norwegian learnt a great deal on how to handle all kinds of contingencies.

He had seen them eat meat diet. Unaware to themselves, the fresh seal and penguin meat that they ate helped keep vitamin C deficiency at bay.

In the end, the focus and clear priorities meant that Amundsen reached the coveted place weeks before the British team.