Science
News this Week:
1)
Kepler’s surprise: Planet hunter also found supernovas:
Now-defunct
telescope captured five stellar explosions as they happened.OXON HILL, Md. —
NASA’s premier planet-hunting telescope had an unexpected talent: spotting the
cataclysmic demise of giant stars. The Kepler space telescope detected at least
five supernovas, giving astronomers a rare look at these calamitous explosions
from the start.
From May
2009 until May 2013, when a critical piece of equipment failed , the Kepler
telescope found at least 3,500 likely planets orbiting other stars. Kepler’s
planet-hunting prowess stemmed from doing one thing extremely well: measuring
the brightness of some 170,000 stars. For all four years, the telescope stared
continuously at a single patch of sky, collecting brightness measurements every
30 minutes. Occasionally the scope detected subtle dips in stars’ brightness,
revealing that planets had crossed in front of them and cast shadows.
2) Insect
queens sterilize workers with similar chemical:
Queen
ants, bees and wasps all release similar chemicals to quash the reproduction of
their workers.When exposed to chemicals called saturated hydrocarbons that
mimick the queen’s scent, the worker insects’ ovaries degraded. In the absence
of the queen's scent, the workers' reproductive organs developed quickly. A
closer look at the compounds suggests that insects may have been using them to
signal fertility for roughly 150 million years,
3) Plants’
ATP collector found:
The
molecule that pulls ATP — a universal compound used for energy inside and
signaling outside of cells — into plant cells has finally been found.
ATP
increases calcium inside plant cells, but how the compound is brought into a
cell was unclear. Working with the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana,
scientists identified two genes, dorn1-1 and dorn1-2, for molecules, or
receptors, that pull ATP into plant cells.
The ATP
plant receptor is structurally much different from those identified, and
well-studied, in animals and probably helps plants adapt to changing
environments, researchers report January 16 in Science.
4) A New
Toad from the 'Warm Valleys' of Peruvian Andes:
A new
species of toad was discovered hiding in the leaf litter of the Peruvian
Yungas. The word is used widely by the locals to describe ecoregion of montane
rainforests, and translates as "warm valley" in English. The new
species Rhinella yunga was baptized after its habitat preference.
The study
was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.
many
other toads of the family Bufonidae the new species Rhinella yunga has a
cryptic body coloration resembling the decaying leaves in the forest floor
("dead-leaf pattern"), which is in combination with expanded cranial
crests and bony protrusions cleverly securing perfect camouflage. The different
colors and shapes within the same species group however make the traditional
morphological methods of taxonomic research hard to use to identify the real
species diversity within the family. Nevertheless, Rhinela yunga is distinct
from all related species in absence of a tympanic membrane, a round membranous
part of hearing organ being normally visible on both sides of a toad's head.
"It
appears that large number of still unnamed cryptic species remains hidden under
some nominal species of the Rhinella margaritifera species group,"
explains Dr Jiří Moravec, National Museum Prague, Czech Republic.Among the
other interesting characteristics of the true toads from the family Bufonidae
are a typical warty, robust body and a pair of large poison parotoid glands on
the back of their heads. The poison is excreted by the toads when stressed as a
protective mechanism. Some toads, like the cane toad Rhinella marina, are more
toxic than others. Male toads also possess a special organ, which after
removing of testes becomes an active ovary and the toad, in effect, becomes
female.
5) Egypt:
Sarcophagus Leads to the Tomb of a Previously Unknown Pharaoh, from 3,600 Years
Ago:
Archaeologists
working at the southern Egyptian site of Abydos have discovered the tomb of a
previously unknown pharaoh: Woseribre Senebkay -- and the first material proof
of a forgotten Abydos Dynasty, ca. 1650-1600 BC. Working in cooperation with
Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, a team from the Penn Museum, University
of Pennsylvania, discovered king Senebkay's tomb close to a larger royal tomb,
recently identified as belonging to a king Sobekhotep (probably Sobekhotep I, ca.
1780 BC) of the 13th Dynasty.
The
discovery of pharaoh Senebkay's tomb is the culmination of work that began
during the summer of 2013 when the Penn Museum team, led by Dr. Josef Wegner,
Egyptian Section Associate Curator of the Penn Museum, discovered a huge 60-ton
royal sarcophagus chamber at South Abydos. The sarcophagus chamber, of red
quartzite quarried and transported to Abydos from Gebel Ahmar (near modern
Cairo), could be dated to the late Middle Kingdom, but its owner remained
unidentified. Mysteriously, the sarcophagus had been extracted from its
original tomb and reused in a later tomb -- but the original royal owner
remained unknown when the summer season ended.
In the
last few weeks of excavations, fascinating details of a series of kings' tombs
and a lost dynasty at Abydos have emerged. Archaeologists now know that the
giant quartzite sarcophagus chamber derives from a royal tomb built originally
for a pharaoh Sobekhotep -- probably Sobekhotep I, the first king of Egypt's
13th Dynasty. Fragments of that king's funerary stela were found just recently
in front of his huge, badly robbed tomb. A group of later pharaohs (reigning
about a century and a half later during Egypt's Second Intermediate Period)
were reusing elements from Sobekhotep's tomb for building and equipping their
own tombs. One of these kings (whose name is still unknown) had extracted and
reused the quartzite sarcophagus chamber. Another king's tomb found just last
week is that of the previously unknown pharaoh: Woseribre-Senebkay.
A Lost
Pharaoh and a Forgotten Dynasty
The newly
discovered tomb of pharaoh Senebkay dates to ca. 1650 BC during Egypt's Second
Intermediate Period. The identification was made by Dr. Wegner and Kevin
Cahail, Ph.D. student, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations,
University of Pennsylvania. The tomb of Senebkay consists of four chambers with
a decorated limestone burial chamber. The burial chamber is painted with images
of the goddesses Nut, Nephthys, Selket, and Isis flanking the king's canopic
shrine. Other texts name the sons of Horus and record the king's titulary and
identify him as the "king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Woseribre, the son of
Re, Senebkay."
Senebkay's
tomb was badly plundered by ancient tomb robbers who had ripped apart the
king's mummy as well as stripped the pharaoh's tomb equipment of its gilded
surfaces. Nevertheless, the Penn Museum archaeologists recovered the remains of
king Senebkay amidst debris of his fragmentary coffin, funerary mask, and
canopic chest. Preliminary work on the king's skeleton of Senebkay by Penn
graduate students Paul Verhelst and Matthew Olson (of the Department of Near
Eastern Languages and Civilizations) indicates he was a man of moderate height,
ca. 1.75 m (5'10), and died in his mid to late 40s.
The
discovery provides significant new evidence on the political and social history
of Egypt's Second Intermediate Period. The existence of an independent
"Abydos Dynasty," contemporary with the 15th (Hyksos) and 16th
(Theban) Dynasties, was first hypothesized by Egyptologist K. Ryholt in 1997.
The discovery of pharaoh Senebkay now proves the existence of this Abydos
dynasty and identifies the location of their royal necropolis at South Abydos
in an area anciently called Anubis-Mountain. The kings of the Abydos Dynasty
placed their burial ground adjacent to the tombs of earlier Middle Kingdom
pharaohs including Senwosret III (Dynasty 12, ca. 1880-1840 BC), and Sobekhotep
I (ca. 1780 BC). There is evidence for about 16 royal tombs spanning the period
ca. 1650-1600 BC. Senebkay appears to be one of the earliest kings of the
"Abydos Dynasty." His name may have appeared in a broken section of
the famous Turin King List (a papyrus document dating to the reign of Ramses
II, ca. 1200 BC) where two kings with the throne name "Woser...re"
are recorded at the head of a group of more than a dozen kings, most of whose
names are entirely lost.The tomb of pharaoh Senebkay is modest in scale. An
important discovery was the badly decayed remains of Senebkay's canopic chest.
This chest was made of cedar wood that had been reused from the nearby tomb of
Sobekhotep I and still bore the name of that earlier king, covered over by
gilding. Such reuse of objects from the nearby Sobekhotep tomb by Senebkay,
like the reused sarcophagus chamber found during the summer, provides evidence
that suggests the limited resources and isolated economic situation of the
Abydos Kingdom which lay in the southern part of Middle Egypt between the
larger kingdoms of Thebes (Dynasties 16-17) and the Hyksos (Dynasty 15) in
northern Egypt. Unlike these numbered dynasties, the pharaohs of the Abydos
Dynasty were forgotten to history and their royal necropolis unknown until this
discovery of Senebkay's tomb."It's exciting to find not just the tomb of one
previously unknown pharaoh, but the necropolis of an entire forgotten
dynasty," noted Dr. Wegner. "Continued work in the royal tombs of the
Abydos Dynasty promises to shed new light on the political history and society
of an important but poorly understood era of Ancient Egypt."
6) Natural
3-D Counterpart to Graphene Discovered: New Form of Quantum Matter:
The
discovery of what is essentially a 3D version of graphene -- the 2D sheets of
carbon through which electrons race at many times the speed at which they move
through silicon -- promises exciting new things to come for the high-tech
industry, including much faster transistors and far more compact hard drives. A
collaboration of researchers at the U.S Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has discovered that sodium
bismuthate can exist as a form of quantum matter called a three-dimensional
topological Dirac semi-metal (3DTDS). This is the first experimental
confirmation of 3D Dirac fermions in the interior or bulk of a material, a
novel state that was only recently proposed by theorists.
A 3DTDS
is a natural three-dimensional counterpart to graphene with similar or even
better electron mobility and velocity," says Yulin Chen, a physicist with
Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS) when he initiated the study that led
to this discovery, and now with the University of Oxford. "Because of its
3D Dirac fermions in the bulk, a 3DTDS also features intriguing non-saturating
linear magnetoresistance that can be orders of magnitude higher than the
materials now used in hard drives, and it opens the door to more efficient
optical sensors."Chen is the corresponding author of a paper in Science
reporting the discovery. The paper is titled "Discovery of a Three-dimensional
Topological Dirac Semimetal, Na3Bi." Co-authors were Zhongkai Liu, Bo
Zhou, Yi Zhang, Zhijun Wang, Hongming Weng, Dharmalingam Prabhakaran, Sung-Kwan
Mo, Zhi-Xun Shen, Zhong Fang, Xi Dai and Zahid Hussain.Two of the most exciting
new materials in the world of high technology today are graphene and
topological insulators, crystalline materials that are electrically insulating
in the bulk but conducting on the surface. Both feature 2D Dirac fermions
(fermions that aren't their own antiparticle), which give rise to extraordinary
and highly coveted physical properties. Topological insulators also possess a
unique electronic structure, in which bulk electrons behave like those in an
insulator while surface electrons behave like those in graphene.
"The
swift development of graphene and topological insulators has raised questions
as to whether there are 3D counterparts and other materials with unusual
topology in their electronic structure," says Chen. "Our discovery
answers both questions. In the sodium bismuthate we studied, the bulk
conduction and valence bands touch only at discrete points and disperse
linearly along all three momentum directions to form bulk 3D Dirac fermions.
Furthermore, the topology of a 3DTSD electronic structure is also as unique as those
of topological insulators."The discovery was made at the Advanced Light
Source (ALS), a DOE national user facility housed at Berkeley Lab, using
beamline 10.0.1, which is optimized for electron structure studies. The
collaborating research team first developed a special procedure to properly
synthesize and transport the sodium bismuthate, a semi-metal compound
identified as a strong 3DTDS candidate by co-authors Fang and Dai, theorists
with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
At ALS
beamline 10.0.1, the collaborators determined the electronic structure of their
material using Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES), in which
x-rays striking a material surface or interface cause the photoemission of
electrons at angles and kinetic energies that can be measured to obtain a
detailed electronic spectrum.
"ALS
beamline 10.0.1 is perfect for exploring new materials, as it has a unique
capability whereby the analyzer is moved rather than the sample for the ARPES
measurement scans," Chen says. "This made our work much easier as the
cleaved sample surface of our material sometimes has multiple facets, which
makes the rotating-sample measurement schemes typically employed for ARPES
measurements difficult to carry out."
Sodium
bismuthate is too unstable to be used in devices without proper packaging, but
it triggers the exploration for the development of other 3DTDS materials more
suitable for everyday devices, a search that is already underway. Sodium
bismuthate can also be used to demonstrate potential applications of 3DTDS
systems, which offer some distinct advantages over graphene."A 3DTDS
system could provide a significant improvement in efficiency in many
applications over graphene because of its 3D volume," Chen says.
"Also, preparing large-size atomically thin single domain graphene films
is still a challenge. It could be easier to fabricate graphene-type devices for
a wider range of applications from 3DTDS systems."In addition, Chen says,
a 3DTDS system also opens the door to other novel physical properties, such as
giant diamagnetism that diverges when energy approaches the 3D Dirac point,
quantum magnetoresistance in the bulk, unique Landau level structures under
strong magnetic fields, and oscillating quantum spin Hall effects. All of these
novel properties can be a boon for future electronic technologies. Future 3DTDS
systems can also serve as an ideal platform for applications in
spintronics.This research was supported by the DOE Office of Science and by the
National Science Foundation of China.
Movie
Release This Week:
Jack
Ryan, as a young covert CIA analyst, uncovers a Russian plot to crash the U.S.
economy with a terrorist attack.
After a
mysterious, lost night on their honeymoon, a newlywed couple finds themselves
dealing with an earlier-than-planned pregnancy. While recording everything for
posterity, the husband begins to notice odd behavior in his wife that they
initially write off to nerves, but, as the months pass, it becomes evident that
the dark changes to her body and mind have a much more sinister origin.
In
animated 3D, The Nut Job is an action-packed comedy in fictional Oakton that
follows the travails of Surly (voiced by Will Arnett), a mischievous squirrel,
and his rat friend Buddy, who plan a nut store heist of outrageous proportions
and unwittingly find themselves embroiled in a much more complicated and
hilarious adventure.
Based on the
true story of teenager James Burns (Spencer Lofranco) who goes from a suburban
street gang to a maximum-security prison cell surrounded by hardened criminals.
He turns his life around in prison thanks to the unexpected friendship he forms
with a convicted murderer (Ving Rhames) who becomes his mentor.
Life of a
King is the true story of one man's mission to give inner city kids of
Washington DC something he never had - a future. After being incarcerated for
eighteen years, Eugene Brown established the Big Chair Chess Club to get kids
off the streets and working towards lives they never believed they were capable
of. This is his inspirational story.
Political
News This Week:
1) Assam:
NDFB-S ultra attack again; 2 more killed, 3 injured:
Suspected
militants from the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Sangbijit)
killed more two persons and injured three others in two separate incidents of
shootouts on Saturday in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas
in Assam.
According
sources one person was killed and three others including a woman seriously
injured when militants opened indiscriminate fire at a market place about two
kilometers away from Panbari police outpost in Chirang district of BTC at
around 7.30 pm on Saturday night.The seriously injured were rushed to a
hospital in Bongaigaon.
All the
victims belonged to a religious minority community.In another incident
militants shot dead a barber at Udalguri in the BTC area on Saturday evening.
The two
incidents occurred close on the heels of five killing of bus passengers hailing
from Bihar by the NDFB-S ultras on Friday night on the national highway in
Kokrajhar district of Assam.The army and police have geared up vigil in BTC
areas with the show of belligerence by the NDFB-S ultras.The NDFB-S had broken
away from the parent NDFB headed by Ranjan Daimary after the latter decided to
opt for peace dialogue with the government of India.The NDFB-S has been on an
rampage in the BTC area by resorting to unabated extortion and abductions
especially in areas close to Arunachal Pradesh border and India-Bhutan border.
2)
Sunanda's death unnatural, some injuries found: Doctors:
Doctors
at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, who conducted autopsy on the body
of Sunanda Pushkar, today said it was a case of "sudden, unnatural
death" but ruled out poisoning even as police investigated various angles
into death of Union Minister Shashi Tharoor's wife.
Injury
marks were also found on the body of 52-year-old Pushkar, who was last night
found dead in mysterious circumstances in luxury LeelaPalace hotel in South
Delhi.
The head
of the three-member panel of doctors that conducted the autopsy on Pushkar,
said, "We have conducted the postmortem examination... It is a case of
sudden, unnatural death" but ruled out poisoning.
However,
he said the team has preserved certain "biological samples for
toxicological analysis as well as visco-pathological examination.""We
have completed the whole procedure. Samples for toxicological analysis means
ruling out any poison. Some pathology of the heart has been preserved by
us," he said.
Pushkar
was found dead in her suite at the hotel and the body was shifted to AIIMS at
around 3:30 am for post-mortem. The police is also expected to record statement
of Tharoor, who was admitted to AIIMS following complaints of chest pain and
was discharged later.
Pushkar
and Tharoor were at the centre of a raging controversy when reports emerged
that she was upset over reported text and tweet messages between her husband
and Mehr Tarar, a Pakistani journalist.Gupta, who is head of forensic sciences
department at AIIMS, said the autopsy report would focus on investigating from
a medical angle the sudden unnatural death.He said the final autopsy report
will be prepared within next couple of days after receiving reports of
toxicological analysis and visco-pathological examination."After receiving
all these reports in the next couple of days, we will finalise the postmortem
report and we will give our opinion in the case," he said.
When
asked about the injuries on the body, he refused to give details saying as
police was working on the case, certain issues cannot be revealed.
"There
were certain injuries on the body. I cannot reveal the details of the injury.
Basically in medico-legal cases, the number of injuries does not matter.
Whether these injuries were related to fatality or not matters," he
said.Asked whether the injury caused death, he refused to give a direct answer.
Pushkar
and Tharoor had checked into the hotel on Thursday as their home was being
painted. A joint statement from the couple on Thursday said that they were
"happily married" but distressed by "some unauthorised
tweets".Pushkar had accused Tarar of "stalking" her husband and
trying to "break" her marriage when she was away for medical
treatment.She had told a couple of newspapers that she was considering divorce
from Tharoor in the wake of the alleged extra-marital affair.The Pakistani
journalist rubbished the charges of having any relationship with Tharoor.
Shashi
Tharoor suffers 'cardiac condition', admitted to AIIMS:
Union
Minister Shashi Tharoor, whose wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead on Friday
night, was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences after he
suffered a "cardiac condition" in the wee hours on
Saturday.Fifty-seven-year-old Tharoor was rushed to the hospital at around 3 am
after he complained of severe chest pain, anxiety and palpitation, sources at
the AIIMS said. The Union minister was admitted to the ICU of the
cardiothoracic centre of the AIIMS and a number of investigations including ECG
have been carried out on him.Doctors said he was brought to the hospital with a
"cardiac condition" but he is stable now. A team of doctors are
monitoring him at the ICU, the sources said.
Sunanda,
who was upset over an alleged extra-marital affair between her minister husband
Tharoor and a Pakistani journalist, was found dead in a five-star hotel room on
Friday night.The body of 52-year-old Pushkar, a woman entrepreneur who married
Tharoor in August 2010, was found in mysterious circumstances in luxury
LeelaPalace hotel in South Delhi.Police sources speaking on condition of
anonymity said they suspect it could be a case of suicide. Delhi police
spokesman Rajan Bhagat had said inquest proceedings have been initiated by the
sub-divisional magistrate of the area. Any death within seven years of marriage
is legally required to be investigated by the sub-divisional magistrate.Pushkar
and Tharoor were at the centre of a raging controversy in the last two days
when reports emerged that she was upset over reported text and tweet messages
between her husband and Mehr Tarar, Pakistani journalist.Tharoor had to attend
two sessions and to launch a book during the Jaipur Literature Festival.He was
one of the prominent personalities to watch out during the fest.
"It
is sad but Tharoor won't be able to attend the festival," festival
producer Sanjay Roy said. The minister had two sessions in the fest named The
Paradoxes of Growth and Development on Saturday at 3.30 pm and History strikes
back and the Collapse of Globalism on Sunday at 10 am.Besides these, he had to
launch a book authored by Louise Khurshid, wife of another Union Minister
Salman Khurshid. In his last Twitter
post on Friday, the Union minister had also said that he would not have been
able to attend the festival due to illness of his wife."My wife's illness
means i need to be with her & will miss all 5 events of #JaipurLitFest
2014." This was the last tweet posted by the Union Minister last evening
before her death later on Friday night.
Pushkar
and Tharoor were at the centre of a row in the past two days when reports
emerged that she was upset over reported text and tweet messages between her
husband and Tarar.Tarar, the mother of a 13-year-old son, had denied having an
affair with the suave thrice-married Tharoor. She also shot off uncharitable
barbs at Pushkar and defended herself.Asked if she knew Tharoor, Tarar said on
Thursday, "I met him in April last year for an interview in India. Then I
met him in June in Dubai in a social gathering. Yes, I have been in touch with
him once in a while on Twitter and email."
Sunanda
Pushkar’s shocking and ‘unnatural’ demise has brought Union minister Shashi
Tharoor’s political career under the scanner, and with no leniency being shown
by the Congress party, it seems the flamboyant MP will have to fight his own
battle, reports Renu Mittal.
3) Author
Cyrus Mistry wins $50,000 DSC Prize for 'Chronicles of a Corpse Bearer':
Reticent
author Cyrus Mistry on Saturday beat off stiff competition from five other
writers to become the fourth winner of the $50,000 DSC prize for South Asian
literature for his book "Chronicles of a Corpse Bearer".The prize is
given to the best work or translations of a work on or about the South Asian
region. Last year the award was won by Jeet Thayil for his debut novel
"Narcopolis".Mistry was presented with the award at a ceremony at the
Jaipur Literature Festival on Saturday evening by Gloria Steinem.
"I
have tried to keep myself as detached as possible with the possibility of
winning this prize, so am not so enthusiastic but happy about the win,"
Mistry said after receiving the award.Other books in the running were
"Anand: Book of Destruction" (Translated by Chetana Sachidanandan) "Benyamin:
Goat Days" (Translated by Joseph Koyippalli), Mohsin Hamid: "How to
Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia", "Nadeem Aslam: The Blind Man's
Garden" and Nayomi Munaweera: Island of a Thousand Mirrors.
Noted
writer, editor and literary critic Antara Dev Sen chaired the five member jury
which first announced a long list of 15 names and then came up with a shortlist
of six from which Mistry was chosen.Mistry's book is a story of marginalised
community and looks at larger questions about life and death, which makes it a
different read.
Set in
the city of Mumbai, it revolves around the lives of a hardly heard of and
rarely-seen set of people, corpse bearers or Khandhias within the Parsi
community. Their job is to carry bodies of the deceased to the Towers of Silence.The
jury comprised of Arshia Sattar, Ameena Saiyid, Rosie Boycott, and Paul
Yamazaki.
The
shortlist was announced in November last year.Playwright, journalist and author
Cyrus Mistry dedicated the award to his sister. "I would like to dedicate
the award to my sister Feroza Mistry who is in US and is very ill. I am certain
that she will recover soon but she has always believed in my capabilities, so I
would dedicate this to her," said the author.The $50,000 DSC Prize along
with a unique trophy was awarded to Mistry who is the second Indian to win the
award.
4) Fight
polls unitedly if Cong is to win: Rahul to state leaders:
Rahul
Gandhi on Saturday did some plain speaking as he slammed infighting among
Congress leaders and asked them to maintain unity during his first meeting with
state leaders after being formally assigned to lead the party's campaign for
Lok Sabha polls."There may be differences among you on certain issues but
you have to fight the polls unitedly to ensure the party's victory," Rahul,
the Congress vice-president, said at the meeting with PCC chiefs and AICC
delegates.During his interaction with leaders from Madhya Pradesh, where
Congress suffered a humiliating defeat, Rahul said he knows that the party
"lost due to infighting among senior leaders".Rahul separately met
AICC delegates from each state and sought to learn of the issues which are
likely to be prominent for the Lok Sabha polls. He also sought to find out
about the strength of the Congress organisation in each of the states.
Rahul was
also told by leaders from some states, including Chhattisgarh, that those
constantly creating trouble within should be thrown out of the party.Delegates
from Uttar Pradesh complained to Rahul that central ministers remained mostly
inaccessible to them but, when available, did not do their work.Some delegates
urged Rahul to go for a roadshow on the lines of those undertaken by Rajiv and
Sonia Gandhi to connect with the ordinary party workers.
Meanwhile,
with the focus now on finding new allies for the party ahead of the upcoming
general elections, he also made it clear during his interaction with leaders
from Bihar that any alliance would be formalised keeping in mind the party's
interests.
If a
respectable number of seats was not offered to Congress, it may even go it
alone for the polls in the state in question, he added.Congress had fought the
2009 Lok Sabha elections alone after breaking off from an alliance with RJD and
LJP. The party had followed that course after it was offered only three seats
by RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.Congress, on its own, had then won two seats
while RJD could muster four seats out of the 28 contested. LJP had failed to
open its account on the 12 seats it fought.In that regard, a member from Jammu
and Kashmir said that Congress should fight the elections on its own and not as
part of an alliance with National Conference.
5) Reach
out to booths and households: Modi to BJP workers:
Bharatiya
Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Saturday asked the
party rank and file to concentrate on running a grounded election campaign
focusing on booths and households as he said polls are not won through rallies
and TV debates.Addressing the BJP national council in New Delhi, Modi gave
simple, commonsensical suggestions to the party cadre ahead of the Lok Sabha
elections.
Striking a note of sarcasm, the Gujarat chief
minister said, "We cannot beat Congress in their way of running a
campaign. We do not have the ability to spend such money, misuse state
machinery or resort to any dirty tricks. The power we have is the power of
organisation."
He asked
party workers to touch an emotional cord with people when they go on a
door-to-door campaign. "When you go to collect 'one note' for the party to
10 crore families, you should ask them what they want from their government,
ask them don't you want change. Talk to them about issues they are emotional
about," he said.
Modi, a
former general secretary (organisation) of BJP, said he is speaking as a party
organisation man and not as the PM candidate of the party.
"The
more grounded our campaign is, the greater will be its benefit. A poll victory
takes birth in a polling booth and not in public rallies, TV debates, posters
or through magazines... Losing in a polling booth does not win you
elections," Modi said.
He told
party workers that in each booth, which has around 700 votes, they should try
to ensure that 350 votes are cast for BJP. "This means you have to reach
out to 100 families per booth," he said.Some of the suggestions which
struck an instant cord with the cadre was to get BJP symbol lotus applied in
henna on the palms of 10 crore women across the country by February end, show
BJP videos to groups of 25-30 women in different places every day, and touching
an emotional cord with people.
6)
Legendary Bengali actress Suchitra Sen dies in Kolkata hospital :
Legendary
actress of yesteryears Suchitra Sen died in a Kolkata hospital, aged 82. She
breathed her last on Friday morning, though neither the hospital authorities
nor the doctors would confirm the time. The immediate reason of her death was
believed to be cardiac arrest. Over a span from the fifties to the seventies
Sen had teamed up with matinee idol Uttam Kumar to create one of the most
famous pairs of Indian films.
For the
past three decades since she quit the world of films, Suchitra Sen led the life
of a recluse, and never seen in public. Her family also did not want her death
to be publicised.Showing respect to that wish, neither the doctors attending on
her, or the hospital authorities, would comment on the death of Sen.
But the
word went out unofficially that the actress is no more and all television
channels began airing the news, and film veterans also started offering
condolences.
West
Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee rushed to the hospital as the news of her
death broke"An era has ended," remarked veteran actress and film
director Aparna Sen.
"Her
death marks a great loss to Bengali films. I pray so that her family can
overcome the grief," said Biswajit Chatterjee, himself a star of Bengali
films and a contemporary of Sen."None had the ability to step in her
shoes," commented veteran actor Dipankar Dey."Her works will live
with us forever," said Madhabi Mukherjee, one of teh finest actresses of
Bengali films and a favourite of Satyajit Ray.She was admitted to Belle Vue
Clinic on December 23 with severe lung infection. Sen is survived by her
daughter Moon Moon Sen and two granddaughters, Raima and Riya Sen.During the
past 26 days, she has been frequently in and out of the danger zone. Chief
minister Mamata Banerjee visited her seven times over the past few days.
7) Open
rebellion: Andhra CM Kiran Reddy stays away from AICC meet:
By
staying away from Friday’s All India Congress Committee meeting in New Delhi,
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy has openly revolted against the
party. Although publicly Reddy has said he won’t be attending the AICC meet due
to the ongoing assembly session, in reality he wants to express his
displeasure.
Reddy’s
supporters say that since the Congress has made it clear that the Telangana
issue will not be raised there is no point in the chief minister attending the
AICC meet.
Kiran
Reddy feels that all issues should be allowed to be raised at the AICC
meeting.There were clear orders that nobody would be able to question the
decision of the Congress Working Committee that took a major decision to
bifurcate Andhra Pradesh.
Also, the
Congress has been very clear about its intention on Telangana.Anyone who has
raised the Telangana issue strongly has been kept away. The six MP’s who had
moved a no confidence motion against the Union government were denied passes
for the AICC meet.
For Kiran
Reddy it was better to stay away. He has been under pressure to oppose the
Telangana formation. Had he gone to Delhi, he would have been forced to raise
the issue which could have led to a major showdown.However, several Congress
leaders from Rayalseema are attending the AICC meet.
Congress
MP from Andhra Pradesh, Subbirami Reddy, who is sharing the dais with Congress
president Sonia Gandhi, was also told to instruct the rest of the leaders not
to speak anything on the Telangana issue.
Sport News
This Week:
1) Fit
Federer, rusty Sharapova into second week:
Roger Federer boasted of his fitness, Maria
Sharapova felt a bit rusty and Andy Murray berated himself but all three eased
into the second week of the Australian Open with third round victories at
Melbourne Park on Saturday.
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While
there was relief all round at the cooler temperatures after four days of
stifling heat, Milos Raonic and Caroline Wozniacki both felt the stinging burn
of an upset when they failed to reach the last 16.
World
number one Rafa Nadal was in action later on Saturday against Gael Monfils
after Victoria Azarenka continues her quest for a third straight women's title
against Yvonne Meusburger.
Federer
looked at his imperious best as he dismantled Teymuraz Gabashvili 6-2 6-2 6-3
to reach the fourth round at a grand slam without giving up a set for the 27th
time.
"I'm
happy that from my side I'm winning my matches in straight sets," the
17-times grand slam champion said.
"It's
been different conditions every match. The heat first, and the indoor match and
now normal conditions today with a bit of wind."
2) New
Zealand v India 2014: First ODI Preview – Napier all set for a high scoring
affair:
India’s
cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (front R) smiles after a press conference
following the team’s arrival at Auckland International Airport for the cricket
series against New Zealand on January 13, 2014. New Zealand and India will play
five one-day internationals between January 19 and 31, followed by two Tests in
Auckland and Wellington in February.
With the
BCCI, the ECB, and Cricket Australia in talks about taking control of the ICC,
this could well be India’s last full tour to an ICC member country, excluding
Australia and England. With the talks about the FTP being scrapped in favour of
the ‘big three’, New Zealand would like to send out a message, saying that they
will be no pushovers, and that they can give the big boys a run for their
money.
For that
to happen. New Zealand will need a dramatic change in their home record. Since
2009, they have only beaten Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in a home ODI series, and
if they manage to somehow turn the tides over, it would be a huge boost to New
Zealand cricket as a whole.India, on the other hand, could lose their no.1 ODI
ranking, if they lose the series. The Indian batsmen could enjoy the small
boundaries that most grounds in New Zealand have in offer. However, New Zealand
are still toying with the idea of playing an all-seam attack, to exploit chinks
in the Indian armour that were harshly exposed by Dale Steyn and co. in the
recent ODI series in South Africa.
3) India’s
biggest running event: All you need to know about the Standard Chartered Mumbai
Marathon:
Mumbai
might be known for its heat-killing monsoons, historic underworld, Sachin
Tendulkar and much more, but all that is going to take a back seat on Sunday as
the city is all set to host the largest marathon in Asia.More than 40,000
participants will graze the roads of Mumbai this time around, with some looking
to get a share of the whopping $360,000 which is up for grabs while others will
sweat it out just to be part of the grand event.
Book Of
This WEEK:
Life at
the Speed of Light:by J. Craig Venter:
From the
Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life by J. Craig Venter. Biology has come a
long way from the days of mixing things in petri dishes and hoping something
interesting happens. In his new book, Venter introduces readers to a future of
precise biological engineering, guided by DNA and targeted to create life forms
never before thought possible.
Venter
has the scientific chops to back up these claims. His first book related the
story of how he led a private effort that raced a government-funded consortium
to decipher the DNA sequence that makes up the human genome. His second book
focuses on a later lab triumph: the creation of Synthia, the first life-form
with a synthesized genome.
Synthia,
announced in 2010, is a bacterial mash-up. Venter’s team stitched together a
genetic code for one bacterial species from scratch, then inserted it into a
second species and booted it up. The result was a living, self-replicating cell
that essentially cribbed synthetic DNA to function.
In
relating Synthia’s story, Venter illuminates the twists and turns that are a
hallmark of modern science. Time and again the researchers go down blind
alleys, only to start again using a different tack — such as ditching one simple but
slow-growing bacterial species in favor of another more complex one that will
replicate faster in petri dishes.
This
description of science-as-process is perhaps the most notable aspect of Life at
the Speed of Light. Venter embeds the story of Synthia in the deep history of
molecular biology, laying out discoveries by previous generations of scientists
and clarifying how those advances made way for modern investigations. It’s a
story with many blind turns and dead ends, but one that triumphs in the end.
J. Craig Venter:
In 2000,
geneticist J. Craig Venter announced that his team, along with the governmental
Human Genome Project, were the first to successfully sequence the
3-billion-plus base pairs of DNA that make up the human genome. In 2010, a
group of Venter-led researchers was the first to transplant a genome made from
synthetic DNA into a bacterial cell. The new cell was capable of
self-replication, a sign of “synthetic life.”
In a
special lecture, Venter will describe his current work and new book, Life at
the Speed of Light, which presents a fascinating and authoritative study of the
emerging field of synthetic genomics—detailing its origins, current challenges,
and controversies, and projected effects on our lives. This scientific frontier
provides an opportunity to ponder anew the age-old question “What is life?” and
examine what we really mean by “playing God.”
Nature Magazine
National Geographic
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