advanced version of low-cost Aakash-2 tablet
National:
National:
Pranab
launches advanced version of low-cost Aakash-2 tablet
The advanced
version of low-cost tablet Aakash was launched by President Pranab Mukherjee on
National
Education Day. The
new version ‘Aakash 2’ - which will be made available to students of
engineering
colleges and universities
to begin with is now powered by a processor running at 1 GHz, has a 512 MB, a
7-
inch capacitative
touch screen and a battery working for three hours of normal operations. It has
been
developed under
the aegis of IIT Bombay with the active support of Centre for Development of
Advanced
Computing (C-DAC).
Datawind is rolling out the device. “The government subsidises it by 50 per
cent and it
will be
distributed to students at Rs. 1,130” said Datawind CEO Suneet Tuli. The first
one lakh devices will be
provided to
students of engineering colleges and universities and subsequently these will
be distributed to
others. About 22
crore students will get the device across the country in the next five to six
years. The
National Education
Day was being celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of the first Education
Minister of
Independent India,
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
Second
phase of emergency ambulance service launched
Uttar Pradesh
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav launched the second phase of the “Samajwadi
Swasth Seva”
(Samajwadi Health
Service) emergency medical transport system by flagging off 300 ambulances. The
system in the
second phase would be available in 21 districts. The ambulance service would be
available
within 20 minutes
on dialling the toll free number 108 and the patient will be shifted to a
hospital free of cost.
The service was
launched by the Chief Minister on September 14 when he flagged off 133
ambulances for
13 districts.
Thirty four districts have now been covered under the scheme and there are 433
ambulances.
Bhimbetka-like
prehistoric settlement found near Srikakulam
The rocky
landscape near Srikakulam may not boast of the richness and the depth of the
rock paintings of
Bhimbetka in
Madhya Pradesh that fetched it international recognition but several
prehistoric rock shelters of
four 3.8 metre
high rocks leaning inwards and forming a polygonal chamber found on Sailada
hill-top and
Chittivalsa area
in the recent past are equally significant. The recently found round-shaped
dolmen like
formation with a
stone roof, stands on a circular rock bed of 13 metre radius on the top of the
Saidala hill.
Like others, this
rock shelter too has post holes around it in two rows meant for installing
wooden posts that
served as props to
supported a canopy. There are many caves, caverns and shelters of different
shapes in
the hillocks in
the region but not as huge as this one that too with a rock bed inside. Even
now the place
continues to be
known as “Pandiri Rallu” a shelter made of rocks. The rock shelter has enough
place to
accommodate 10 to
15 people inside. A petroglyph of serpent was found on the western side of the
shelter, a
common feature on
prehistoric dolmens in Europe.
250
million-year-old ‘Tree Fossil’ region unearthed in Chhattisgarh
A
team of State Forest Research and Training Centre, Raipur have discovered a
massive ‘Tree
Fossils
Region’ in North Surguja’s Raghunath Nagar region in the Chhattisgarh. The
region is situated
in a forest 155
kms from Ambikapur and was explored in joint association with the prestigious
Birbal Sahni
Institute of
Paleobotany, Lucknow under a project to explore the ‘Geo Heritage’ sites in
India. The exploration
assumes
international significance as this is the first time such an area had been
discovered in the State. In
the first
instance, the tree fossils included in the ‘Gondwana Time Scale’ are estimated
to be 250 million
years old. During
the exploration, the team found a trunk of a fossil tree of 18 feet height with
a 10 feet
diametre with its
six other parts also found another tree trunk of 43 feet in length and six feet
in diametre with
many other fossils
in huge quantities safely excavated from the site.
International:
Raj
Shah could be first Indian-US Cabinet Minister
USAID’s
Indian-American head Raj Shah, who has established himself as one of the most
successful
administrators
of the agency, is being seen as a strong contender for a Cabinet position as President
Barack
Obama prepares for his second-term and forms a new team. Raj
could well be poised for one of
the Cabinet
positions in particular that of Secretary of Health and Human Services;
Secretary of Agriculture
and Secretary of
Education.
Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak gets Kyoto Prize
Renowned literary
critic and educator Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak was awarded the prestigious
Kyoto Prize
in Kyoto.
Instituted by the Inamori Foundation, the prize honours those who have
contributed significantly to
the scientific,
cultural and spiritual betterment of mankind. Ms. Spivak, professor at Columbia
University in
the U.S., won the
award in the Arts and Philosophy category for her “deep thinking on humanities
against
intellectual
colonialism in relation to globalisation”. U.S. computer scientist Ivan
Sutherland, regarded as a
father of computer
graphics, won the Advanced Technology Prize while Japanese molecular biologist
Yoshinori Ohsumi
was awarded the Basic Sciences Prize. Each laureate received a diploma, a 20K gold
Kyoto Prize medal
and a cash gift of ¥50 million ($630,000).
Technology:
Scientists
decode why love makes us nervous, unstable
Researchers
have mapped the chemical changes that occur in a person’s brain when he falls
in love
and
discovered the areas that activate and shut down during the heady days of
courtship. Scanning
technology allows
neurologists to unravel the mystery of why love can turn us giddy, irrational
and even
ridiculous and
make us nervous and unstable. Researchers found the frontal cortex, vital to
judgement, shuts
down when we fall
in love. MRI scans show this de-activation occurs only when someone is shown a
photo
of the person they
adore, causing them to suspend all criticism or doubt. Studies have shown brain
chemical
dopamine is at higher
levels in those in love. Dopamine is key to our experiences of pleasure and
pain,
linked to desire,
addiction, euphoria, and a surge may cause such acute feelings of reward that
it makes love
hard to give up.
Tests show that taking opioid drugs such as cocaine have a similar effect on
dopamine as
love. A side
effect of rising dopamine levels is a reduction in another chemical, serotonin,
a key hormone in
our moods and
appetite. Serotonin levels may fall in a similar way to those seen in people
with obsessivecompulsive
disorder,
explaining why love can make us feel anxious and jittery.
Business & Economy:
Apple,
HTC settle patent battle
Apple Inc and HTC
Corp have announced a global patent settlement and 10-year licensing agreement
that
ends one of the
first major conflagrations of the smartphone patent wars. Apple sued HTC in
2010, accusing
the Taiwanese
handset company of infringing on the iPhone maker’s patented technology. It was
Apple’s first
major legal salvo
against a manufacturer that used Google’s Android operating system. Apple and
HTC did
not disclose
specific terms of the deal.
Sport:
Elina
Svitolina wins Royal Indian Open
Kimiko Date-Krumm
(Jap) would not go quietly but Elina Svitolina (Ukr) delivered yet another
commanding
performance to run
away with the Royal Indian Open title. The 18-year-old held too much for the
veteran
Japanese, crushing
her 6-2, 6-3 to claim a maiden WTA title (the Royal Indian Open is part of the
$125,000
Challenger
series).
Manassero
wins $1 million cheque
Italian teenager
Matteo Manassero rode a slice of luck to overcome a resurgent Louis Oosthuizen
in a
dramatic play-off
to win the $6 million Barclay’s Singapore Open. Manaserro who had carded a 69
in the final
round became the
youngest ever winner of the tournament. Eleven Indians took part in this cash
rich
tournament, which
Jeev Milkha Singh had won in 2008. Gaganjeet Bhullar (280) placed 17th with
Shiv Kapur
and S.S.P Chowrasia
(281) were placed at 22. Adam Scott, a three-time winner of the Singapore Open,
failed to reverse his fortunes in a
winless year with an impressive but insufficient eight under.
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