Ahmedabad institute’s invention promises sun-like energy

Scientists at the Institute of Plasma Research were successful in confining plasma, the fourth state of matter, similar to creating sun-like energy in a laboratory.

A Gujarat-based research institute has claimed to have made a breakthrough in confining plasma, the fourth state of matter, in a Steady State Super Conducting Tokamak (SST-1).

A Tokamak is a device that uses a magnetic field to confine plasma.

The invention by Institute of Plasma Research will help in boosting energy generation, an official said.

“We have got a breakthrough in confining plasma many times during our experiments. We have produced and confined the high temperature plasma from hydrogen with the help of superconducting magnets inside the machine (Tokamak),” IPR director Dhiraj Bora told PTI.

It is similar to creating sun-like energy inside a laboratory, he said.

The plasma is confined and given heat inside SST-1. The most important source of energy for our earth is the sun which is a perfect spherical ball of hot plasma, the fourth state of matter, with internal convective motion and generates a magnetic field like a dynamo process.

Similar to that, the scientists at IPR, located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, have conducted a fusion experiment with a Tokamak and got a breakthrough in confining plasma which gives a hope to create a sun-like energy in near future.

“A microwave current is passed to keep the plasma hot and to confine it inside a Tokamak. A current of the order of 70,000 amperes is passed and plasma is heated to 200 to 300 million degrees. In such process, plasma gets confined inside it (device) and through that heat energy can be generated,” Bora said.

“We would like to heat plasma further, then we will be able to confine it for longer period of time. This heat can be extracted in the form of energy and can be connected to turbines,” said Mr. Bora.

Confining plasma is necessary for creating such an environment to simulate conditions for fusion reactions, similar to which takes place inside the sun, he said.

According to Mr. Bora, about 5,000 MW of thermal energy can be produced by using just 50 MW of electricity.

The IPR has been running such experiments for around 25 years with the contribution from nearly 50 scientists.

The IPR is an autonomous physics research institute. It is involved in research in aspects of plasma science, including basic plasma physics, research on magnetically confined hot plasmas and plasma technologies for industrial applications.

New York Times wins #Pulitzer for Ebola coverage

The Pulitzer board described it as 'courageous and vivid journalism that engaged the public and held authorities accountable.'

The New York Times won two prestigious Pulitzer prizes on Monday for coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, described by the Pulitzer board as courageous and vivid journalism that engaged the public and held authorities accountable.

The Pulitzer for Public Service, announced at Columbia University, went to Charleston, South Carolina's Post and Courier for its series on domestic violence.

The Pulitzers honour extraordinary work in U.S. journalism, literature, drama and other areas and bring welcome attention and recognition to newspapers and websites.

"Till Death Do Us Part" by the Post and Courier probed why South Carolina is among the deadliest states in the country for women. Doug Pardue, one of a four-person team that produced the series, said it pushed the state legislature to pursue greater protection for abused women.

"I'm glad to see that journalism is awarded for this type of reporting," said Pardue. "It's a story that touches so many people."

For its Ebola coverage, The New York Times staff won the prize for international reporting and freelancer Daniel Berehulak won for feature photography.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch won for photographic coverage of the Ferguson, Missouri, riots. Editor Gilbert Bailon said the staff had suffered emotionally and physically while covering the violence that followed the shooting death of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer.

"It's a very personal story. Some staff faced tear gas directly; some were deeply involved in efforts to get the community to heal," he said.

The Seattle Times staff won for coverage of a deadly landslide, and Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig won for coverage of security lapses at the Secret Service.

The Wall Street Journal won a prize in investigative reporting for "Medicare Unmasked," the first reporting Pulitzer for the newspaper since 2007, when it was purchased by News Corp.

New York Times reporter Eric Lipton won for investigative reporting on how lobbyists can sway congressional leaders and state attorneys general.

The Pulitzer for explanatory reporting went to Zachary Mider of Bloomberg News for showing how U.S. corporations dodge taxes. It is the first Pulitzer for the New York-based news agency.

Joan Biskupic, Janet Roberts and John Shiffman of Reuters were explanatory reporting finalists for their use of data analysis to illustrate the extraordinary access of an elite group of lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ned Parker and a Reuters team of reporters were finalists in international reporting for their work on the disintegration of Iraq and rise of ISIS.

The local reporting prize went to Rob Kuznia, Rebecca Kimitch and Frank Suraci of the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California, for their look at corruption in a small, cash-strapped school district.

The feature writing prize went to Diana Marcum of the Los Angeles Times for drought coverage.

The commentary prize went to Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chronicle. Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times won for criticism and the editorial writing prize went to Kathleen Kingsbury of The Boston Globe.

The editorial cartooning prize went to Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News.

The fiction award went to Anthony Doerr for "All the Light We Cannot See," published by Scribner, and the drama prize went to Stephen Adly Guirgis for "Between Riverside and Crazy."

The history prize went to Elizabeth A. Fenn for "Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People," published by Hill and Wang, and David I. Kertzer won the prize for biography for "The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe," published by Random House.

Gregory Pardio won the prize for poetry for "Digest," Elizabeth Kolbert won in general nonfiction for "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History" and the music prize went to Julia Wolfe for "Anthracite Fields."

25 years of the #HubbleSpaceTelescope

It has brought about a paradigm shift in our understanding of the universe

The Hubble Space Telescope — a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) — was launched in its orbit 552 km above Earth on April 24, 1990 by the space shuttle Discovery. It has provided breathtaking images, produced fundamental discoveries and brought about a paradigm shift in our understanding of the universe. Hubble has unlocked the wonders of the universe and “placed our world into a context of 100 billion stars in 100 billion galaxies.”

If the spotting of the Hubble variable number one, or V1 star in 1923 in the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy permanently altered the course of modern astronomy, the Hubble Telescope has done it even more dramatically.

The Hubble, which has so far travelled more than 3 billion miles, has made more than 1.2 million observations since 1990 by completing an orbit around the Earth every 97 minutes at a speed of about 8 km per second.

A household name today, it was an instrument that “much of the astronomical community didn’t want!” Worse, it almost turned out to be a dud soon after the launch.

Catastrophic

The bad news came a few weeks after its launch. The very first image taken by it was fuzzy. The primary mirror of the telescope had a flaw called spherical aberration.

“We put a telescope in space and it could hardly see. I felt terrible. I felt like a dog wouldn’t take a bone from me,” Jean Olivier, former Hubble chief engineer told Nature.

“They’ve had 10 years to put this together. They’ve spent $2.8bn to be able to get it right and now we find that the Hubble Telescope’s got a cataract,” Barbara Mikulski roared at the time,” The Independentrecalled in a recent article. Ms. Mikulski was a senior U.S. senator who fought hard to get NASA the funding for the development of the telescope.

Though there was no way to rectify the problem from the Earth, scientists found a way to fix it — placing “small and carefully designed mirrors in front” of the original Hubble instruments, much like placing eyeglasses to restore the vision.

In December 1993, seven astronauts spacewalked from the shuttle Endeavour to fix the telescope in space, a mission that was never attempted before. Only the first image from the corrected telescope could tell if the problem was indeed rectified.

“We were all huddled around a little screen, waiting for the first image to come down. It probably only took five seconds but it seemed like six hours.

“First we saw a little dot in the centre, but it was a really well-focused dot. And then we saw the faint stars. You just knew, right then, that we had nailed it. The trouble with Hubble was over,” Edward Weiler, former Hubble chief engineer told Nature.

And months after it was repaired, the Hubble recorded the first major celestial event — the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaking into fragments and plunging into Jupiter.

The 1993 mission to fix the spherical aberration problem was only the first of the five missions to service the instrument. Subsequent servicing missions to repair the telescope and to upgrade it occurred in February 1997, December 1999, March 2002 and May 2009.

During the 1997 service mission, a spectrograph and an infrared camera were added to the telescope. In 1999, an emergency mission was undertaken to repair three of the six gyroscopes. Gyroscopes keep the telescope pointing correctly. The 2002 mission was to replace a camera and solar panels and finally the 2009 mission was to install a new spectrograph and camera (Wide Field Camera 3). Since its launch, astronauts have also replaced the mechanical tape recorders with solid-state memory drives, and upgraded the solar arrays.

With its higher resolution and larger field of view, the Wide Field Camera 3 provides the telescope greater power to image the Universe. Today, the Hubble Telescope has the ability to see in multiple wavelengths — near-infrared, visible light and near-ultraviolet.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, a snapshot of the famous “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula was taken last year. The first time the “Pillars of Creation” was snapped was in 1995. Hubble’s instruments that have been upgraded during the 19 years after the original image was taken helped astronomers see more details in the image than was previously possible.

The states' race to spend

Indian states are preparing for a Rs 1.9 lakh crore tax windfall this fiscal year. It's an unexpectedly generous bounty from New Delhi, and not many of the 29 sub-national governments know exactly how to spend the funds. Eventually, though, a healthy cheque-writing contest will begin, giving a durable boost to the broader economy.

The states' collective share of taxes collected by the Union government has gone up to 42 per cent starting this month, according to a new formula for fiscal transfer. Previously it was 32 per cent. The difference works out to Rs 1.9 lakh crore this fiscal year alone. In addition, municipalities and villages will get Rs 2.85 lakh crore more from New Delhi over five years. The net gain is smaller. While New Delhi is empowering states to spend more on their own priorities, it is also scaling back support to some federally sponsored welfare programmes where the Centre gives money to states but with strict conditions on how it is to be used.

Nevertheless, states will still have an extra Rs 1.39 lakh crore of spending power this year. And this doesn't even include the funds some of them will soon start receiving from recently auctioned coal blocks. Indian states will spend 60 per cent more this year than the federal government, according to Credit Suisse. Just five years ago, that gap was six per cent.

Considering that the Constitution makes the states responsible for executive action in everything from power and irrigation to education and healthcare, the shift is overdue. It's also healthy. A 2013 central bank study found state expenditure to have a far bigger beneficial impact on growth than spending by the Union government, which is much more likely than states to use borrowed funds to make payments. But borrowing by the government tends to push up interest rates and reduce private investment and consumption. The net benefit for the economy is, thus, smaller when New Delhi is in charge of most spending decisions.

Restoring the federal balance in resource-sharing is, therefore, one of the more important achievements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, which completes its first year in office next month. Giving states a fatter wallet is also necessary because they are about to forgo most consumption taxes from April 2016, when India introduces its central goods and services tax. That switch, which will help to usher in a seamless, nationwide market, requires a quid pro quo.

By passing more tax collection to states, Mr Modi has also opened up the possibility for a much-needed fiscal boost to gross domestic product (GDP). It would have been almost impossible to dispense a large fiscal stimulus using the Union government's Budget. The central authorities can only ratchet up spending on rail, roads, defence, telecommunications and banking. Mr Modi has already announced large increases in rail and road investment. Telecom firms are now mostly private, and state-dominated banking needs less government involvement, not more. Supporting large defence-related investment is still problematic because of technology gaps. India's recent order for 36 Rafale fighter jets came after years of trying to persuade France's Dassault to manufacture in India. Those negotiations went nowhere, and the armed forces suffered from having to make do with obsolete, inadequate equipment. The Union government's ability to prime the fiscal pump is also limited by its chronic and large deficit.

By comparison, states are more prudent and can easily do more with the money they will now get from New Delhi. To see how greater spending by India's sub-national governments could be an important catalyst for private investment, consider the possibility that they spend a part of the windfall on capitalising their bankrupt electricity boards. It's an urgent priority. These state-run electricity buyers lost an estimated Rs 31,600 crore last year, most of it in just six states. All of them pay far higher interest rates than the national average. If an equity infusion could halve the Rs 24,000 crore in annual interest that these six utilities currently pay, almost two-fifths of the commercial losses of India's power business would disappear. That, in turn, would make new power plants by private investors more viable.

Fiscal devolution could also lift public investment. Credit Suisse equity strategist Neelkanth Mishra cites the example of a Rs 2,527-crore state-funded project to pump river water to arid regions of Gujarat using pipelines. Currently, the water flows via canals, and is exposed to theft and evaporation losses. Not only will 29 per cent of the state's population benefit from more assured water supply, the young girls who spend large parts of the day fetching water for their families would be able to go to school instead.

Projects like these are still the exception. Credit Suisse's analysis of recently announced state Budgets in India shows that most of the spending plans are heavily tilted toward paying salaries and pensions of teachers, policemen and health workers. States are bracing themselves for the wage shock that's going to hit them after government workers get their once-in-a-decade pay boost from January 2016.

That could end up disturbing Mr Modi's calculations. If states shy away from making new capital investments, the economy won't receive the full advantage from the prime minister's bet on "cooperative federalism". That would add to pessimism about Mr Modi not being the pro-business messiah that corporate India had hoped for. Earnings are still lacklustre, investment impulse is still weak and real interest rates are still too high. Rural incomes have been hurt by Mr Modi's anti-inflation campaign, which has sharply squeezed the prices the government pays for crops. Foreign investors, meanwhile, are upset over tax bills on past profits from buying and selling Indian shares. The opposition Congress party is trying to make a political comeback by mobilising farmers against acquisition of agricultural land for large infrastructure projects.

Mr Modi can only hope that the fiscal transfer to states ends up stimulating more than government servants' wages, and that sub-national executives line up enough shovel-ready projects to give growth a push. The sooner the states join the race to write cheques, the better it will be for both India's economy and its prime minister's reformist credentials.

Silence on core #legalreforms

These are trying times for the apex judiciary. The National Judicial Appointment Commission is set to replace the collegium of judges, which had so far kept out the executive from the selection process. The law is under challenge before a constitution bench and till the validity of the new mechanism is upheld, the appointments of judges of the high courts will hang fire. It will aggravate the situation as there are already hundreds of vacancies in the 24 high courts. Arrears of cases are mounting. The recent conference of chief justices of high courts and chief ministers has not come up with even a small step to hold back the dismal trend.

The Supreme Court had publicised a detailed agenda of the conference held earlier this month, but after the meeting there was little information about the discussions that took place or the resolutions passed on core issues. What has fallen out in drips refers to the long list of demands to hike judges' salaries, perks and retirement benefits apart from better facilities at tourist and pilgrim centres.

Another bit of information from behind the curtains that has slipped out also avoids the main issues. It is said that the conference has re-issued the 1999 "in-house" procedures for taking "suitable remedial action" against judges accused of misconduct and impropriety. This is again a self-serving measure as several judges are facing sexual harassment and corruption charges.

The agenda consisted of some vital issues that concerned the functioning of the courts, like setting up committees to study and remedy swelling arrears, uniformity and clarity in the data about them, financial independence for the judiciary, strengthening computerisation and implementation of the National Court Management System. Some other important issues, among 24 listed, referred to filling up of high court vacancies, uniform procedure for appointment of district judges, strengthening of the alternative disputes resolution mechanism and building court infrastructure.

However, what happened in the closed-door meeting lasting three days is still a matter of conjecture. This is true to the opaque nature of the judiciary, which earlier resisted disclosure of their income. The public is justified in concluding that no decision worthwhile has been taken on the crucial questions.

A lay person is bound to ask why the court is not taking the easy step by clearing the arrears of cases chronologically. There are cases two decades old and forgotten by the registry and the petitioners. In a recent case involving the Rs 630-crore penalty imposed on DLF Ltd, the presiding judge wondered why the registry put it up for early hearing. They asked, when people are rotting in jail for years, how can a corporate appeal of last year be taken up so soon?

The court has taken judicial notice of this phenomenon. As early as in 1987, in the case of D Navinchandra vs Union of India (1987), the then chief justice wrote: "My conscience protests to me that when thousands of remediless wrongs await in the queue for this court's intervention and solution for justice, petitions at the behest of diamond exporters and dry fruit exporters where large sums are involved should be admitted and disposed of by this court at such quick speed."

Another phenomenon that would mystify a visitor is the adjournments granted so easily, most often to suit the convenience of the lawyers. Again, in the words of the Supreme Court itself, "it is distressing to note that despite a series of judgments of this court, the habit of granting adjournment, really an ailment, continues. How long shall we say, "Awake! Arise!" (Vinod Kumar vs State of Punjab).

Yet another glaring practice that would baffle a visitor is the apparently interminable arguments taking the precious time of the court. Strolley-loads of old judgments are brought to the court by all sides and they are read in the droning voice of the aged counsel. It is said that the US Supreme Court allows only half an hour for each side and the Common Law countries draw up a tight schedule for arguments. Any reasonable person, if admitted to the august judicial conference just concluded in Delhi, could have given some common sense advice as jotted down above to improve the working of the court.

The final push to end extreme #poverty

For global development, 2015 is the most important year in recent memory. In July, world leaders will gather in Addis Ababa to discuss how to finance development priorities in the years ahead. In September, heads of state meet at the United Nations to establish the Sustainable Development Goals - a group of targets and goals set for 2030. And in December, countries again will gather in Paris to work out an agreement on climate change.

This year has also seen the emergence of a major new player in development - the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bankled by China, with more than 50 countries and regions signing on as members. With the right environment, labour and procurement standards, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank - and the New Development Bank, established by theBRICS countries - can become great new forces in the economic development of poor countries and emerging markets.

We hope these new institutions will join the world's multilateral development banks and our private sector partners on a shared mission to promote economic growth that helps the poorest. The decisions we make this year, and the alliances we form in the years ahead, will help determine whether we have a chance to end extreme poverty by 2030, the central goal of the World Bank Group.

The good news is that the world has made substantial progress already. Over the past 25 years, we've gone from nearly two billion people living in extreme poverty to fewer than one billion. But that means we still have nearly one billion people living on less than $1.25 a day.

We know it's possible to end extreme poverty in the next 15 years, in part because of this past success, and because we have learned from years of experience about what has worked and what has not. As a result, our advice to governments has evolved over time. Our strategy to end extreme poverty can be summed up in just three words: Grow, invest, and insure.

First, the world economy needs to grow faster, and grow more sustainably. It needs to grow in a way that ensures that the poor receive a greater share of the benefits of that growth. We can reach the end of extreme poverty only if we mark a path toward a more robust and inclusive growth that is unparalleled in modern times.

The World Bank Group will continue to support governments and make investments in a broad variety of areas in the fight against extreme poverty. In most of the developing world, though, efforts to end extreme poverty will require us to focus on boosting agricultural productivity.

Helping farmers improve yields requires increasing access to better seeds, water, electricity and markets. According to one study in Bangladesh, six years after constructing 3,000 km of roads to connect communities to markets, household incomes increased by an average of 74 per cent.

That's the growth part of the strategy. The second part of the strategy is to invest - and by that, I mean investing in people, especially through education and health.

The opportunity to get children off to the right start happens just once. Investments made in children early in life bring far greater returns than those made later on. Poor nutrition and disease can have life-long implications for mental and physical health, educational achievement and adult earnings.

The final part of the strategy is to insure. This means that governments must provide social safety nets as well as build systems to protect against disasters and the rapid spread of disease.

Ebola revealed the shortcomings of international and national systems to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks. Ebola also taught us that the poor are likely to suffer the most from pandemics. The World Bank Group has been working with partners on a new concept that would provide much needed rapid response financing in the face of an outbreak, where countries would receive rapid disbursements of funding, which would, in turn, help contain outbreaks, save lives and protect economies.

We know that ending extreme poverty will be extraordinarily difficult - in fact, the closer we get to our goal, the more difficult it will be.

Governments of the world must seize this moment. Our private sector partners must step up. The World Bank Group, our multilateral development bank partners, and our new partners on the horizon, must all seize this moment. We must now collaborate with real conviction and distinguish our generation as the one that ended poverty.

We are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty. This is our great challenge, and our great opportunity. The final push must begin right now.

Issuance of #MNIC

The Citizenship Act, 1955 provides the Central Government to compulsorily register every citizen of India and issue Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC) to him. It has been decided that National Population Register (#NPR) should be completed and taken to its logical conclusion, which is the creation of National Register of Indian Citizen (NRIC) and National Identity Cards would be issued to Citizens by verification of citizenship status of every usual resident in the NPR. The proposals for the same are under consideration of the Government.

The process of social vetting by Gram Sabha and Ward Committees is one of the steps in the creation of National Population Register (NPR) in the country. The first step involves the collection of information on specific characteristics of all usual residents by Government servants duly designated for this purpose. The second step involves the creation of a digitised database of each resident. Next, photographs, 10 finger prints and IRIS of all usual residents who are of age 5 years and above is collected with reference to the digitised database and in the presence of designated Government servants. After this, the database is sent to the UIDAI for de-duplication and generation of Aadhaar numbers. This ensures that the database does not contain any duplicates. Following this, the details are printed out in the form of Local Register of Usual Residents and displayed in the local areas for scrutiny by the public and invitation of claims and objections for a period of 21 days. All claims and objections are to be heard by the local officials designated for this purpose. There is also provision of appeal to higher level officials. Thus, the claims and objections would be looked into by revenue officials like Patwari or Talati who have been designated as the Local Registrars, Tehsildars, who are designated as Sub-district Registrars and the Collectors/ DMs who are designated as District Registrars. Simultaneously, the LRUR is also placed before the Gram Sabhas and Ward Committees for vetting. Instructions have also been issued that the lists should be scrutinized by the local police and revenue officials. The LRURs duly authenticated and de-duplicated when aggregated at the National level forms the National Population Register. This process has been evolved after extensive consultation and discussion with all stake holders including the State Governments. Thus, the process involved in creation of NPR is comprehensive and includes verification at several stages.

The National Population Register (NPR) is a Register of Usual Residents. It would contain citizens as well as non-citizens. The objective of creating a NPR is to net all usual residents of the country at a given point of time. This would serve as the mother database for creating the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) by verifying the citizenship status of each and every resident.