Nobel Literature prize for Mo Yan

Oct. 11: Chinese national television today broke into its tightly scripted newscast to make a highly unusual announcement: Chinese writer Mo Yan has won the Nobel Prize in literature.

For a government that had disowned the only previous Chinese winner of the award — an exiled critic — today’s choice appeared to be a cause of pride.

Some of the books of Mo, who was once so destitute he ate tree bark and weeds to survive, have been banned as “provocative and vulgar” by Chinese authorities but he has also been criticised as being too close to the Communist Party.

While users of a popular Chinese microblogging site offered their congratulations, dissident artist Ai Weiwei said he disagreed with giving the award to a writer with the “taint of government” about him.

The Swedish Academy, which selects the winners of the prestigious award, praised Mo’s “hallucinatory realism” saying it “merges folk tales, history and the contemporary”.

“Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition,” the citation declared, striking what seemed a careful balance after campaigns of vilification against other Chinese Nobel laureates.

Mo, born Guan Moye in 1955 to a farming family in eastern Shandong province, chose his pen-name while writing his first novel. Garrulous by nature, Mo has said the name, meaning “don’t speak”, was intended to remind him to hold his tongue lest he get himself into trouble and to mask his identity since he began writing while serving in the army.

Read more: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1121012/jsp/frontpage/story_16081696.jsp#.UHfq2G93bp8

Good heavens! A U-turn - Doctor changes his belief after out-of-body experience

New York, Oct. 11: A prominent scientist who had previously dismissed the possibility of the afterlife says he has reconsidered his belief after experiencing an out-of-body experience which has convinced him that heaven exists.

Dr Eben Alexander, a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon, fell into a coma for seven days in 2008 after contracting meningitis.

During his illness Dr Alexander says that the part of his brain which controls human thought and emotion “shut down” and that he then experienced “something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death”. In an essay for American magazine Newsweek, which he wrote to promote his book Proof of Heaven, Dr Alexander says he was met by a beautiful blue-eyed woman in a “place of clouds, big fluffy pink-white ones” and “shimmering beings”.

He continues: “Birds? Angels? These words registered later, when I was writing down my recollections. But neither of these words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher forms.” The doctor adds that a “huge and booming like a glorious chant, came down from above, and I wondered if the winged beings were producing it. the sound was palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but doesn’t get you wet.”

Dr Alexander says he had heard stories from patients who spoke of outer body experiences but had disregarded them as “wishful thinking” but has reconsidered his opinion following his own experience.

He added: “I know full well how extraordinary, how frankly unbelievable, all this sounds. Had someone even a doctor told me a story like this in the old days, I would have been quite certain that they were under the spell of some delusion.

“But what happened to me was, far from being delusional, as real or more real than any event in my life. That includes my wedding day and the birth of my two sons.”

He added: “I’ve spent decades as a neurosurgeon at some of the most prestigious medical institutions in our country.

“I know that many of my peers hold as I myself did to the theory that the brain, and in particular the cortex, generates consciousness and that we live in a universe devoid of any kind of emotion, much less the unconditional love that I now know God and the universe have toward us.

“But that belief, that theory, now lies broken at our feet. What happened to me destroyed it.”

By: MARK HUGHES, The Telegraph, Friday , October 12 , 2012

Link: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1121012/jsp/foreign/story_16081617.jsp#.UHhEsm93bp8

Engineering the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony

The London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony required a great deal of innovative — but hidden — engineering to make it work. Stephen Harris spoke to the engineers behind the spectacle.

The London 2012 Olympic Games showed off British engineering at its best, from the sweeping designs of the Olympic venues to the rising importance of sports technology in training. But engineering was also vital in bringing to life an opening ceremony that blew away the nation’s cynicism and set the mood for what some international commentators around the world have called ‘the best Olympics ever’.

The Olympics were a chance for a prominent British team of experts who have worked on opening ceremonies across the globe, from Athens in 2004 to last year’s Pan-Arab Games in Doha, to make a triumphant homecoming. ‘The UK is the home of large event production, particularly for ceremonies,’ said the ceremony’s technical director Piers Shepperd. ‘To do it in London in front of a home audience was obviously really good. There was a massive trepidation after Beijing, which was obviously a spectacular and huge ceremony, and we were very keen to try and do something different.’

Working on a home Olympics also enabled an unprecedented level of co-ordination between the ceremony’s technical team and the Games organisers from the very start. Shepperd was brought on board back in 2006 — several years before the stadium was even designed — to advise on what was needed to make the ceremony a success. He then worked closely with the engineers at Sir Robert McAlpine and Buro Happold to ensure that the stadium would be ready for whatever demands the artistic team came up with. In particular, this led to a roof design that could support a huge cable-net system (see box), which allowed the ceremony team to fly in scenery, lighting and performers with ease and saw the introduction of panels of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) behind each seat in the stadium, which turned the audience into a giant display screen with greater resolution than ever seen before.
Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/the-big-story/engineering-the-london-2012-olympics-opening-ceremony/1013640.article#ixzz290VFn9WG

Einstein quotes

The world is a dangerous place not because of people who do evil, but because of good people who look on and do nothing about it.
                       -- Albert Einstein

Jharkhand Judicial officers face termination

Ranchi, May 28: The state government has decided to terminate the services of 10 judicial officers of various ranks through compulsory retirement on the recommendation of Jharkhand High Court for their “doubtful integrity and inefficiency”.

Chief minister Arjun Munda today approved the high court’s recommendation in anticipation of cabinet approval. The officials facing compulsory retirement will receive three months’ salary in lieu of prior notice.

This is the second time that the high court has embarked on a major “cleansing exercise” since coming into existence in 2000. Around 25 judicial officers were given marching orders in 2002. Thereafter, two to four officers have been axed annually over the years.

Last year, the government terminated four judicial officers.

Those facing termination now are principal judge of the family court in Dumka Mahesh Prasad Sinha, additional law adviser Indradev Mishra, civil judge, Ranchi, Murari Prasad Singh, secretary, District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) in Jamshedpur, Brijesh Bahadur Singh, special secretary, cabinet (vigilance) department, Pradeep Kumar Singh, chief judicial magistrate of Seraikela Kharsawan Indrasan Yadav, district and additional sessions judge of Giridih Nirmal Kumar Agarwal, secretary of DLSA in Sahebganj Ashok Kumar, additional chief judicial magistrate of Godda Sayed Mohammad Wasim, and subdivisional judicial magistrate, Deoghar (Madhupur), Radha Bhatnagar.

According to sources, the high court move was prompted by a letter from the Chief Justice of India in 2010, prompting an exercise of screening and weeding out deadwood as recommended by the Shetty Commission, which was implemented in the state in 2006. The recommendations guide the pay, perks and service conditions of judicial officials.

The Shetty Commission recommendations stipulate that judicial officers have to undergo three layers of screening after they attain the age of 50, every year. The first level of screening will be done annually for those between the ages of 50 and 55, the second level for those aged 55 to 58 and third for 58 to 60 years.

Jharkhand Service Rules section 74 (B) also states that any judicial official can be compulsorily retired on reaching 50 years of age or after completing 20 years of service if their service record is not up to the mark.

Around 130 of 410 judicial official across all ranks — from magistrates to district judges — fell under the bracket of 50 to 55 years when the high court began the exercise after constituting a committee of three judges in January this year. The high court sent the recommendations to the state government on May 17.

Sources said the disturbing feature was that some of the officers had faced serious charges from the very beginning of their service as was evident from their files and yet they continued in office.

Meanwhile, the chief minister also approved the transfer of two judicial officers — additional judicial commissioner (CBI court), Ranchi, Dinesh Chandra Rai, who has been transferred to Bokaro as family court principal judge and civil judge Ranchi Satya Prakash, who has been transferred as deputy registrar, Jhalsa.

(By: SUMAN K. SHRIVASTAVA, Source: The Telegraph 29 May 2012, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120529/jsp/frontpage/story_15544253.jsp#.UHF3R5h3bp8)

NTPC world's 6th-largest CO2 emitter: Survey

New Delhi, August 13, 2012: India’s state-owned NTPC Ltd is the world’s sixth-largest polluter among a total of 40 large power generating companies, according to the Centre for Global Development (CGD), a Washington-based think tank. Also, NTPC has moved up the list of highest carbon dioxide (CO2)-emitting companies globally from seventh position in 2004 to sixth now.

The findings are part of CGD’s latest database on global carbon emissions, called Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma). Four Chinese companies are among the top polluters, followed by a South African company at the fifth place. Carma clarified to Business Standard that while its database lists 20,000 corporate entities generating power globally, most of these small companies owning a single plant, NTPC should be compared only with the 40 large similar-sized companies.

The previous updated version of the database, when made public in 2008, had fuelled angry reactions from NTPC, with the then chairman, R S Sharma, rejecting the findings and threatening action against Carma.

The database says NTPC’s 27 power plants puffed out 191 million tonnes of CO2 to generate 209.7 billion units (BUs) of electricity in 2009, the latest year for which data has been considered by Carma. More, 20 of the 27 units run by NTPC have been included in the ‘Red Alert’ category, signifying a ‘dirty’ plant for high CO2 emission.

NTPC, as expected, has again rejected what Carma has said. “NTPC does not agree with the understanding that NTPC is the sixth-largest polluter, as absolute emission cannot be a criteria for any conclusion related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, as different companies across the globe have different portfolio mix,” the company said in response to a detailed questionnaire from Business Standard.

The company argues that according to Carma’s own database, NTPC is the only company among the top 10 power producers with a 100 per cent fossil fuel-based portfolio. It also says when compared with other companies on the basis of emission intensity (quantum of CO2 emitted per unit of power generated), NTPC stands out as most efficient among the top 10 generators, with a more than 90 per cent fossil-fuel mix.

The Carma database, in fact, shows that in terms of intensity, NTPC ranks eighth among the top 40 power producing companies globally. NTPC emitted 915 kg of CO2 per megawatt hour (MwH) of power produced. China Resources Power Holdings tops the list as least efficient generator with 1,010 kg of CO2 emission per MwH of power production.

Carma says for India, most of its reported data represents publicly disclosed figures by the government. Data on Indian power plants has been sourced from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) under the power ministry.

NTPC, however, alleges that Carma’s emission figures for NTPC plants do not match with the CEA statistics. The company expects its carbon footprint to come down, due to use of super-critical power plants and advanced gas turbines. It is also working on readjusting its fuel mix by adding green energy capacity, it said.

Overall, India is found to be the world's third-largest CO2 polluting nation, after China with annual emission of 2,838 mt and the US with 2,315 mt. India emitted 699.4 mt of CO2 in 2009. Carma has put 568, or 27 per cent, of India’s 2,109 power plants in the ‘Red Alert’ category. After India, Russia and Japan occupy the fourth and fifth places.

Among Indian states, Uttar Pradesh tops the list with annual CO2 emission of 84.3 mt, followed by Maharashtra with 70 mt, Andhra Pradesh with 65.8 mt, Chhattisgarh with 61 mt, Orissa with 61 mt and Gujarat with 59 mt.

Among Indian cities, Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh is the largest polluter, with 60 mt of CO2 emissions, followed by Renukoot and Obra in Uttar Pradesh, and Korba, Raigarh and Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh. Among power companies in India, NTPC tops the chart, followed by the state power utilities of Maharashtra and Gujarat at second and third place.

(By: By: Sudheer Pal Singh Source: http://www.toxicslink.org/?q=media/news-alert/ntpc-worlds-6th-largest-co2-emitter-survey )

Parents keep 17-year-old alive through book of poems

Sumati Yengkhom, TNN Sep 11, 2012

KOLKATA: Rhiju Basak had promised to present his parents with the first copy of his book of poems. Rhiju's dream of having his works published will be fulfilled on September 12, his birthday, but his parents will never get his signature on it. The 17-year-old's lifeless body was found floating at Rabindra Sarovar on February 10 this year.

"A bunch of lies" is how the young poet described his writings, arguing that writers rarely reflected the reality in their works, recall his parents. So, that is what the collection of 158 poems written by the La Martiniere for Boys (LMB) student has been titled. It will be launched on Wednesday at Oxford Book Store by Sunil Gangopadhyay. The foreword has been written by none other than Amitav Ghosh.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-09-11/kolkata/33761711_1_poems-frankfurt-book-fair-darkness