ndia and China on Sunday discussed the possibility of working in collaborative projects in third countries, including joint initiatives in Afghanistan to tap large mineral resources, as part of efforts to broad base their relationship.
National Security Adviser (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon, who arrived here yesterday on a four-day visit as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special envoy began his high-level engagements by holding talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Sunday.
After one and half hour talks at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, Yang accompanied by Menon told the Indian media that "talks went off very very well... we have a tour of the whole horizon" of issues.
A significant part of the discussions between Menon and Yang reportedly centred on economic issues and the booming trade between the two countries that is expected to touch a new of high of USD 60 billion this year.
Apparently issues relating to Pakistan and the visit of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to China beginning from July 6 reportedly to firm up cooperation to build two nuclear power plants figured in the talks.
"We also went to specifics about certain aspects of our relationship," Yang said without directly referring to Pakistan and India's concerns to the two nuclear reactors.
These issues were expected to figure in Menon's scheduled talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and State Councillor Dai Bingguo tomorrow.
India has expressed reservations over China's proposed nuclear deal with Pakistan under which it will provide two nuclear reactors to Pakistan.
"We talked a lot about high level exchanges and visits and (steps) to further boost trade volume to create even better conditions for mutual investment, cooperation and even talked about the possibility of cooperation on certain subjects in other countries and let us have three or four party collaborative projects in the economic field as well," he said.
Yang's reference to projects in third country was interesting as the two sides apparently discussed collaborative projects including in Afghanistan where they want to tap trillions of dollars worth mineral resources jointly with other countries.
Recent reports said huge deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium were large enough to transform Afghanistan into one of the most important mining centres in the world.
India, China, United States and a vast number of European countries which are present in Afghanistan could work out a joint initiative to tap the resources which could change the face of poverty-stricken Afghanistan reeling under a Taliban insurgency.
Monday, July 05, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
The New START
If whats claimed by Mr.Obama is infact accomplished..we would forever be known as a generation that made a significant progress toward global nuclear disarmament. (Now thats plain Rhetorics )but whats important is if US starts treating
1, Russia a Super-power worthy of negotiations..
2,France an allay and friend with an independent vision of world order
3, China as a partner Nation with different set of values where democracy and equality doesnot function like in the US..
The world will really be a better place..
1, Russia a Super-power worthy of negotiations..
2,France an allay and friend with an independent vision of world order
3, China as a partner Nation with different set of values where democracy and equality doesnot function like in the US..
The world will really be a better place..
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Technology - A reflection
Though I should say its been a long time (almost an year) since i blogged here. But I was thinking of writing a post here regarding the "There is no Spoon" thing...what expedited it was one of the classical symptoms of a apocalyptic movie's starting scenes..
Yes My office is is in Ashok Nagar and my residence is in velachery and there were about a dozen ATM kiosks in the way.
Yesterday, 21/11/2009 from about 15:30 to today morning 11:45 I a haven't come across a single functional ATM thats dispensing cash. I happen to be a person who actually takes no more than INR 200 per ATm visit. As most of my bills and stuff go via standing instructions/ECS and some through cheques.
I really do not use cash much except for in "Saivaal Coffee Bar"s in Maambalam and some hotels where my dinner happens to be on that day, MTC bus, Share autos and occasional call taxis (when luggage is more of a passenger than me :-)). So, I had about 20 rupees in my pocket (and wallet is full of cards and bills ) and headed to home on a Saturday evening to a rude awakening from my daydream to nightmares ...
I have been an early adaptor of technologies and never the one to complain the normal issues, I remember 2001 as the year I last visited bank for securing entries in Passbook and using a W/D slip. for the past 8+yeasr I've been through SBI, ICICI , Washington 1st Mutual, E*trade and finally to HDFC and never ever felt that the plastic is going to fail me one day...
See this in the Neighbor and Its not limited to my bank (HDFC) I visited 2 SBI and 1 Axis bank ATMs ..
But most guards were unaware of the situation and thought this as an isolated incident(as usual). But, It the morning it was full of a frenzy...there were about 500+ ppl in SBi's ATM which was 3 doors to my home ..
I think the issue is is still there...
BTW I bowwowed 100bucks from my friend to go home and for the weekend...
Yes My office is is in Ashok Nagar and my residence is in velachery and there were about a dozen ATM kiosks in the way.
Yesterday, 21/11/2009 from about 15:30 to today morning 11:45 I a haven't come across a single functional ATM thats dispensing cash. I happen to be a person who actually takes no more than INR 200 per ATm visit. As most of my bills and stuff go via standing instructions/ECS and some through cheques.
I really do not use cash much except for in "Saivaal Coffee Bar"s in Maambalam and some hotels where my dinner happens to be on that day, MTC bus, Share autos and occasional call taxis (when luggage is more of a passenger than me :-)). So, I had about 20 rupees in my pocket (and wallet is full of cards and bills ) and headed to home on a Saturday evening to a rude awakening from my daydream to nightmares ...
I have been an early adaptor of technologies and never the one to complain the normal issues, I remember 2001 as the year I last visited bank for securing entries in Passbook and using a W/D slip. for the past 8+yeasr I've been through SBI, ICICI , Washington 1st Mutual, E*trade and finally to HDFC and never ever felt that the plastic is going to fail me one day...
See this in the Neighbor and Its not limited to my bank (HDFC) I visited 2 SBI and 1 Axis bank ATMs ..
But most guards were unaware of the situation and thought this as an isolated incident(as usual). But, It the morning it was full of a frenzy...there were about 500+ ppl in SBi's ATM which was 3 doors to my home ..
I think the issue is is still there...
BTW I bowwowed 100bucks from my friend to go home and for the weekend...
Monday, February 23, 2009
Maha Shiva Rathiri
It was really a once in a lifetime experience that i underwent in this Shivarathiri to go to Mylapore Kabalieshwarar Kovil...
Friday, November 28, 2008
Israeli Reflection to Mumbai Attacks..
The following is the extract of an article in Jerusalem Post.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
The multiple terror attacks that have rocked India's financial capital Mumbai were aimed at halting India's increasingly close relationship with the US, Britain and Israel, a senior Indian defense source told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, noting that nationals of each country had been targeted.
Army personnel stand guard...
The attacks were also aimed at fomenting strife between India's well-integrated, sizable Muslim minority (third only in size to the Muslim population of Indonesia and Pakistan) and the Hindu majority, according to Colonel Behram A.
Sahukar, who has extensive practical experience in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism in the Indian subcontinent.
"There have been growing strategic ties between India and the US... and growing ties between India and Israel," Sahukar said.
Indian-Israeli relations have "been getting stronger by the day," Sahukar noted, though he stressed that this did "not come at the expense of India's relations with Arab countries."
Americans, British nationals and Israelis had been singled out in Mumbai as a result "of the closeness of their governments to us," Sahukar explained. The attackers perceive India's close ties with these countries and its partnership in the global war on terror "as a war against true Islam," he added.
Sahukar, a former Fellow in Terrorism and Security Studies at the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA) and a researcher at the United Service Institution of India in Delhi, said the raid and hostage-taking attack on the Nariman Chabad House in Mumbai was an opportunistic act by a jihadi group with ties to radical elements in Pakistan.
At the same time, however, Israelis were not the main focus of the terror onslaught, he added. "This particular attack was expanded to include the Chabad House, but the [main] targets were Americans, and British nationals, because the UK is seen by the radicals as a poodle of the US," he said.
"If they wanted to hit Israelis they would hit Goa [south of Mumbai] or Manali [northeast of Dehli]," Sahukar said, naming hugely popular destinations among Israeli backpackers, where signs in Hebrew are commonplace, and where Sahukar said locals have even begun speaking some Hebrew because of the large numbers of Israelis passing through.
Sahukar said the attacks may have been launched by a coalition of home-grown Indian jihadi sleeper cells and Pakistan-based radical elements.
"The involvement of Pakistan is evident from the rubber dinghy boats found near the Mumbai waterfront, and past history shows that a sophisticated operation to coordinate and plan these simultaneous Fedayeen [martyrdom] attacks is necessary for sustainability and staying power," he added.
The attacks could also be linked to a group associated with Omar Sheikh, the man who beheaded the Jewish American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Sheikh, together with Maulana Mazood Azhar, were released by India in exchange for the release of 180 passengers on a flight hijacked by Muslim radicals in 1999.
"Omar Sheikh was later implicated in the murder of Daniel Pearl, and Mazood Azhar formed the Jaish e Muhammad group, which in conjunction with the Laskar e Taiyyaba launched several Fedayeen attacks against India's Parliament in December 2001, and in Kashmir since 1999," Sahukar said.
"This is not the first time that Westerners have been targeted, but it is the first time that they have been targeted on this scale and in such a violent manner," he added. Sahukar recalled how in June 1991, seven Israelis and one Dutch tourist were kidnapped from a houseboat in Srinagar, Kashmir. In the subsequent scuffle, one Israeli was killed and the others escaped. Other attacks on Westerners followed.
Sahukar said terrorism was now engulfing large cities in India due to crackdowns on trouble spots like Kashmir in recent years.
"This is shown by recent attacks in Gauhati and two other towns in Assam, Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Htderabad, Mumbai and also Delhi," he said.
"Terrorists will also use India's vast and vulnerable coastline to introduce radical Islamists and explosives, in conjunction with home-grown terrorists and the activation of home-grown Indian Muslim militants," Sahukar stated.
The name of the group which has claimed responsibility for the attack, Deccan Mujahideen, "does not really mean very much," according to Sahukar, who said the name appeared to be a front for members of the Indian Mujahideen and the banned terrorist organization Students' Islamic Movement of India
The extremists are seeking to play off Hindu-Muslim tensions, which came to the fore in 1992, when Hindu radicals destroyed the renowned Babri Masjid mosque built on top of a Hindu holy place. Ten years later, 58 Hindus were burned alive by Muslim rioters in a train car in Ghodra. That incident was followed by dozens of attacks on Muslims by Hindus in the state of Gujarat. Sahukar expressed hope that Hindu militants would not fall into the trap set by jihadis by alienating India's moderate Muslims.
Sahukar regularly visits Israel to participate in conferences held by the Interdisciplinary Center's Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya.
"If anything, these attacks will bring India even closer to the US, UK, Israel and even Pakistan in its fight against terrorism in general and Islamist terrorism in particular," Sahukar predicted.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
The multiple terror attacks that have rocked India's financial capital Mumbai were aimed at halting India's increasingly close relationship with the US, Britain and Israel, a senior Indian defense source told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, noting that nationals of each country had been targeted.
Army personnel stand guard...
The attacks were also aimed at fomenting strife between India's well-integrated, sizable Muslim minority (third only in size to the Muslim population of Indonesia and Pakistan) and the Hindu majority, according to Colonel Behram A.
Sahukar, who has extensive practical experience in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism in the Indian subcontinent.
"There have been growing strategic ties between India and the US... and growing ties between India and Israel," Sahukar said.
Indian-Israeli relations have "been getting stronger by the day," Sahukar noted, though he stressed that this did "not come at the expense of India's relations with Arab countries."
Americans, British nationals and Israelis had been singled out in Mumbai as a result "of the closeness of their governments to us," Sahukar explained. The attackers perceive India's close ties with these countries and its partnership in the global war on terror "as a war against true Islam," he added.
Sahukar, a former Fellow in Terrorism and Security Studies at the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA) and a researcher at the United Service Institution of India in Delhi, said the raid and hostage-taking attack on the Nariman Chabad House in Mumbai was an opportunistic act by a jihadi group with ties to radical elements in Pakistan.
At the same time, however, Israelis were not the main focus of the terror onslaught, he added. "This particular attack was expanded to include the Chabad House, but the [main] targets were Americans, and British nationals, because the UK is seen by the radicals as a poodle of the US," he said.
"If they wanted to hit Israelis they would hit Goa [south of Mumbai] or Manali [northeast of Dehli]," Sahukar said, naming hugely popular destinations among Israeli backpackers, where signs in Hebrew are commonplace, and where Sahukar said locals have even begun speaking some Hebrew because of the large numbers of Israelis passing through.
Sahukar said the attacks may have been launched by a coalition of home-grown Indian jihadi sleeper cells and Pakistan-based radical elements.
"The involvement of Pakistan is evident from the rubber dinghy boats found near the Mumbai waterfront, and past history shows that a sophisticated operation to coordinate and plan these simultaneous Fedayeen [martyrdom] attacks is necessary for sustainability and staying power," he added.
The attacks could also be linked to a group associated with Omar Sheikh, the man who beheaded the Jewish American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Sheikh, together with Maulana Mazood Azhar, were released by India in exchange for the release of 180 passengers on a flight hijacked by Muslim radicals in 1999.
"Omar Sheikh was later implicated in the murder of Daniel Pearl, and Mazood Azhar formed the Jaish e Muhammad group, which in conjunction with the Laskar e Taiyyaba launched several Fedayeen attacks against India's Parliament in December 2001, and in Kashmir since 1999," Sahukar said.
"This is not the first time that Westerners have been targeted, but it is the first time that they have been targeted on this scale and in such a violent manner," he added. Sahukar recalled how in June 1991, seven Israelis and one Dutch tourist were kidnapped from a houseboat in Srinagar, Kashmir. In the subsequent scuffle, one Israeli was killed and the others escaped. Other attacks on Westerners followed.
Sahukar said terrorism was now engulfing large cities in India due to crackdowns on trouble spots like Kashmir in recent years.
"This is shown by recent attacks in Gauhati and two other towns in Assam, Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Htderabad, Mumbai and also Delhi," he said.
"Terrorists will also use India's vast and vulnerable coastline to introduce radical Islamists and explosives, in conjunction with home-grown terrorists and the activation of home-grown Indian Muslim militants," Sahukar stated.
The name of the group which has claimed responsibility for the attack, Deccan Mujahideen, "does not really mean very much," according to Sahukar, who said the name appeared to be a front for members of the Indian Mujahideen and the banned terrorist organization Students' Islamic Movement of India
The extremists are seeking to play off Hindu-Muslim tensions, which came to the fore in 1992, when Hindu radicals destroyed the renowned Babri Masjid mosque built on top of a Hindu holy place. Ten years later, 58 Hindus were burned alive by Muslim rioters in a train car in Ghodra. That incident was followed by dozens of attacks on Muslims by Hindus in the state of Gujarat. Sahukar expressed hope that Hindu militants would not fall into the trap set by jihadis by alienating India's moderate Muslims.
Sahukar regularly visits Israel to participate in conferences held by the Interdisciplinary Center's Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya.
"If anything, these attacks will bring India even closer to the US, UK, Israel and even Pakistan in its fight against terrorism in general and Islamist terrorism in particular," Sahukar predicted.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
India's 9/11 & the insult on the Institution called TAJ.
On an evening not long ago at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel in Mumbai, a Bollywood star named Preity Zinta rushed up the stairs and into Wasabi, a Japanese restaurant. She joined long-waiting friends at their table and apologized for being late.
But before long, she had risen again. She had seen at a nearby table Adi and Parmeshwar Godrej, billionaires, socialites and fellow jet-setters. A good amount of air-kissing ensued. Then she was introduced to Imran Khan, the Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician, who just happened to be in town.
Before long, a bottle of imported red wine arrived and was poured into a silver-tipped glass decanter, as platters of miso-encrusted sea bass and rock-shrimp tempura floated through the restaurant on upraised hands.
When violent attackers besieged the Taj, as it is universally known, and embarked on a murderous rampage Wednesday night, they targeted one of the city's best known landmarks.
But they also went after something larger: a hulking, physical embodiment of India's deepening involvement with the world.
The Taj is where privileged Indians come when they want a world-class meal. It is where pinstriped foreign executives come when deciding whether to invest in India or outsource jobs here. It is where Mick Jagger, Liz Hurley, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt stay when they are in town.
And it is owned by a conglomerate, the Tata Group, that appears to buy another foreign company every few months in its quest to be a multinational: hotels in Sydney, New York and London; a truck producer in South Korea; the British steel maker Corus; the storied automotive brands Jaguar and Land Rover.
Overnight Wednesday, the Indian writer Suketu Mehta, who wrote a defining book on Mumbai called "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found," said that an attack on the Taj was "as if terrorists had taken over the Four Seasons and the Waldorf-Astoria and then were running around shooting people in Times Square."
The Four Seasons and the Waldorf-Astoria, however, could never claim the pivotal role in New York life that the Taj could claim in Mumbai.
It is not another Hilton or Sheraton in another Asian city. Its cash cow may be foreign guests, but it is equally a fixture of local Mumbai life, the aorta through which anything glamorous, sentimental, confidential or profitable passes in the city.
The hotel stands across from the Gateway of India, in the historic Colaba quarter. Those who would not dream of paying $3 - a good daily wage here - for one of its fresh-lime sodas sit outside the hotel, leaning against the stone wall above the Arabian Sea. They take in the scene, admire the finely dressed people breezing in and out.
It may not be their time for the Taj right now; but should a fortune ever bless them, into the Taj they will saunter.
The Taj, like many productive endeavors, was born out of spite.
Legend has it that Jamsetji Tata, a 19th-century Indian industrialist of Persian descent, was turned away from a hotel in British-era Mumbai. His crime was being Indian. He decided, in an inventive vision of revenge, to build the best hotel in the country, outfitted with German elevators, French bathtubs and other refinements from around the world.
Those refinements come with a price: at least $300 a night for one of the hotel's simplest rooms, or much more for better accommodation or in times of peak demand. And yet to pay that price and stay in that room is to enter a world that in India is hard to match.
The honking, scorching chaos of Mumbai fades away. A certain quiet comes. You can breathe again. The rooms come with all the latest gadgets. But there are also those indelible aspects of colonial life that refuse to wash away: The turbaned bodyguards, the grown men in the restrooms who refuse to let you twist the tap or squeeze the soap yourself, insisting on doing it for you.
For wealthy visitors, as well as many of the city's elite, the hotel had become so etched into their routine that it was like a second home, taken almost for granted - until its placid calm was broken when terrorism entered its halls.
But before long, she had risen again. She had seen at a nearby table Adi and Parmeshwar Godrej, billionaires, socialites and fellow jet-setters. A good amount of air-kissing ensued. Then she was introduced to Imran Khan, the Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician, who just happened to be in town.
Before long, a bottle of imported red wine arrived and was poured into a silver-tipped glass decanter, as platters of miso-encrusted sea bass and rock-shrimp tempura floated through the restaurant on upraised hands.
When violent attackers besieged the Taj, as it is universally known, and embarked on a murderous rampage Wednesday night, they targeted one of the city's best known landmarks.
But they also went after something larger: a hulking, physical embodiment of India's deepening involvement with the world.
The Taj is where privileged Indians come when they want a world-class meal. It is where pinstriped foreign executives come when deciding whether to invest in India or outsource jobs here. It is where Mick Jagger, Liz Hurley, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt stay when they are in town.
And it is owned by a conglomerate, the Tata Group, that appears to buy another foreign company every few months in its quest to be a multinational: hotels in Sydney, New York and London; a truck producer in South Korea; the British steel maker Corus; the storied automotive brands Jaguar and Land Rover.
Overnight Wednesday, the Indian writer Suketu Mehta, who wrote a defining book on Mumbai called "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found," said that an attack on the Taj was "as if terrorists had taken over the Four Seasons and the Waldorf-Astoria and then were running around shooting people in Times Square."
The Four Seasons and the Waldorf-Astoria, however, could never claim the pivotal role in New York life that the Taj could claim in Mumbai.
It is not another Hilton or Sheraton in another Asian city. Its cash cow may be foreign guests, but it is equally a fixture of local Mumbai life, the aorta through which anything glamorous, sentimental, confidential or profitable passes in the city.
The hotel stands across from the Gateway of India, in the historic Colaba quarter. Those who would not dream of paying $3 - a good daily wage here - for one of its fresh-lime sodas sit outside the hotel, leaning against the stone wall above the Arabian Sea. They take in the scene, admire the finely dressed people breezing in and out.
It may not be their time for the Taj right now; but should a fortune ever bless them, into the Taj they will saunter.
The Taj, like many productive endeavors, was born out of spite.
Legend has it that Jamsetji Tata, a 19th-century Indian industrialist of Persian descent, was turned away from a hotel in British-era Mumbai. His crime was being Indian. He decided, in an inventive vision of revenge, to build the best hotel in the country, outfitted with German elevators, French bathtubs and other refinements from around the world.
Those refinements come with a price: at least $300 a night for one of the hotel's simplest rooms, or much more for better accommodation or in times of peak demand. And yet to pay that price and stay in that room is to enter a world that in India is hard to match.
The honking, scorching chaos of Mumbai fades away. A certain quiet comes. You can breathe again. The rooms come with all the latest gadgets. But there are also those indelible aspects of colonial life that refuse to wash away: The turbaned bodyguards, the grown men in the restrooms who refuse to let you twist the tap or squeeze the soap yourself, insisting on doing it for you.
For wealthy visitors, as well as many of the city's elite, the hotel had become so etched into their routine that it was like a second home, taken almost for granted - until its placid calm was broken when terrorism entered its halls.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Other Updates: Mumbai under Attack.
* 7 British citizens injured but safely rescued.
* one op French Nuclear Scientist was in the Hotel and after contacting the DAE, he ws rescued by the NSG.
* A Rabbi and his family is supposedly taken by the terrorists and Israel is keen to know whats going on..
* one op French Nuclear Scientist was in the Hotel and after contacting the DAE, he ws rescued by the NSG.
* A Rabbi and his family is supposedly taken by the terrorists and Israel is keen to know whats going on..
ATS chief Hemant Karkare Killed in Terrorist Strike
ATS chief Hemant Karkare, two senior police officers and 80 others were killed when terrorists struck with impunity in Mumbai on Wednesday night in coordinated multiple blasts and gunfire in a dozen areas including at iconic landmarks CST railway station and two five star hotels--Oberoi and Taj.
Karkare (54), who was probing the Malegaon blasts case, was gunned down when he was leading an operation at Hotel Taj against terrorists who had taken 15 people, including seven foreigners, as hostages. He was hit by three bullets in his chest. One MP Krishan Das and 200 people were stranded in Taj hotel.
Another IPS officer Ashok Marutirao Kamte, a 1989 batch IPS officer, was killed while fighting terrorists at Metro Cinema in the city along with encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar who also gunned down as one of the worst terror strikes brought Mumbai to the knees.
Army moved in to assist local police in flushing out terrorists holed up in Taj and Oberoi hotels. 200 NSG commandoes were also rushed to Mumbai.
As indiscriminate firing and explosions at iconic landmarks showed no signs of easing since the first attack at Leopold restaurant in Colaba area at about 9.30 PM, hospitals like GT and Cama where gunfire was reported were also targeted. Police and eyewitnesses said AK-47s, rifles and hand grenades were used at will by an unspecified number of terrorists.
Sixty bodies and over 200 persons injured were brought at St George's Hospital, hospital sources said. Seven bodies were brought to GT hospital while two bodies were brought to Cooper hospital. Four bodies were brought to Mumbai hospital.
A little known outfit "Deccan Mujahideen" claimed responsibility for the
Karkare (54), who was probing the Malegaon blasts case, was gunned down when he was leading an operation at Hotel Taj against terrorists who had taken 15 people, including seven foreigners, as hostages. He was hit by three bullets in his chest. One MP Krishan Das and 200 people were stranded in Taj hotel.
Another IPS officer Ashok Marutirao Kamte, a 1989 batch IPS officer, was killed while fighting terrorists at Metro Cinema in the city along with encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar who also gunned down as one of the worst terror strikes brought Mumbai to the knees.
Army moved in to assist local police in flushing out terrorists holed up in Taj and Oberoi hotels. 200 NSG commandoes were also rushed to Mumbai.
As indiscriminate firing and explosions at iconic landmarks showed no signs of easing since the first attack at Leopold restaurant in Colaba area at about 9.30 PM, hospitals like GT and Cama where gunfire was reported were also targeted. Police and eyewitnesses said AK-47s, rifles and hand grenades were used at will by an unspecified number of terrorists.
Sixty bodies and over 200 persons injured were brought at St George's Hospital, hospital sources said. Seven bodies were brought to GT hospital while two bodies were brought to Cooper hospital. Four bodies were brought to Mumbai hospital.
A little known outfit "Deccan Mujahideen" claimed responsibility for the
Mumbai under attack, 104 killed, 600+ injured
Yesterday night, during a regular news at 10 session a small scroll began as it sad "Bomb blasts in Mumbai CST" , dismissing it to be a low intensity blast, I was surfing channels and was shocked beyond words to see live images of gore and horror, as chaos reigned and both Oberai and Taj Mahal hotel is telecasted with commotion of gun-fires and grenade hurlings I've never expected to see in real life. (rather than when Arnold was part of it in some hi-budget Hollywood Flick)
Now, The details are clear(to a degree)
* - Terrorists Striked in 4 different places in a coordinated attack this country has ever witnessed.
* - The beating breast of Mumbai is the financal district surrounding Oberai hotels, nearly 40 hostages are there with scores of them being British and American citizens.
* - The intensity & audacity of the attack is so giant that we should really tell the establishment was caught in unawares...
* - There were two boats ladden with explosives near the Gateway of India and was seized and deactivated in time.
The Saddest part of the story is , India Today lost 3 of her Heroes in the action and they were caught unprepared and Under-equipped , The famed Head of The Anti Terrorism Squad Hemant Karkarae and ACP of Mumbai were killed when their command vehicle was entering the Hotel..
They died as they lived with a carbine in hand and a bullet in chest...and once this carnage is over, theres go to be a hell lot of an investigation to conduct.
Right now, Entire indian Security establishment has been mooted, INclding The NSG, ATS, Army commandos and the CRPF ....
More chaos and more confusion ...My hope and Yes PRAYERS are with those holed up in those places and the more so with e brave soles who endures the wrath and trying thier bet to end this nightmare...
Now, The details are clear(to a degree)
* - Terrorists Striked in 4 different places in a coordinated attack this country has ever witnessed.
* - The beating breast of Mumbai is the financal district surrounding Oberai hotels, nearly 40 hostages are there with scores of them being British and American citizens.
* - The intensity & audacity of the attack is so giant that we should really tell the establishment was caught in unawares...
* - There were two boats ladden with explosives near the Gateway of India and was seized and deactivated in time.
The Saddest part of the story is , India Today lost 3 of her Heroes in the action and they were caught unprepared and Under-equipped , The famed Head of The Anti Terrorism Squad Hemant Karkarae and ACP of Mumbai were killed when their command vehicle was entering the Hotel..
They died as they lived with a carbine in hand and a bullet in chest...and once this carnage is over, theres go to be a hell lot of an investigation to conduct.
Right now, Entire indian Security establishment has been mooted, INclding The NSG, ATS, Army commandos and the CRPF ....
More chaos and more confusion ...My hope and Yes PRAYERS are with those holed up in those places and the more so with e brave soles who endures the wrath and trying thier bet to end this nightmare...
Saturday, September 06, 2008
INDIA JOINS NUCLEAR CLUB, NSG WAIVER THROUGH!!
The 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has finally given its nod to the Indo-US nuclear deal in Vienna on Saturday.
Ending three decades of isolation, India has joined the elite nuclear club. The NSG waiver has come through on the third day of the crucial talks in Vienna after push from the highest political level, the opposing countries gave their nod.
Sources say apart from External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement, there is no reference to ban on tests or termination of deal if India tests.
US President George W Bush called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh soon after the waiver came through. Congress president Sonia Gandhi congratulated the PM.
Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon has told NDTV that the text permits full civil nuclear cooperation between India and the world.
Atomic Energy's chief negotiator in Vienna Ravi B Grover told NDTV that it's a clean waiver for India at the NSG, changes in the draft made have been mutually agreed upon.
"It's a clean waiver for India. Changes made in the draft is mutually agreed upon. We have no problem with the draft," said Ravi B Grover, Atomic Energy Negotiator.
And the prime minister hailed it as a landmark decision. In a statement after the waiver the PM said:
"This is a forward-looking and momentous decision. It marks the end of India's decades long isolation from the nuclear mainstream and of the technology denial regime. It is a recognition of India's impeccable non-proliferation credentials and its status as a state with advanced nuclear technology."
Welcoming the waiver External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, "We welcome the decision and thank NSG countries and the final outcome fully meets our expectations. NSG waiver a unique development, it is in India's interest."
US Under Secretary, Arms and Control, John Roods has said that it is a historic moment for India and the decision will improve ties between India and the US.
Sources have told NDTV that the new draft, which got the go-ahead by the NSG, has no reference to testing, enrichment ban and preprocessing technology ban.
However, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said, "We have given up our right to test forever."
Criticising the NSG waiver CPI leader D Raja said that India has become a subject of US strategy.
He said, "India has become a subject of US strategy and our opposition to N-deal will continue."
Speaking about the development, Congress leader Digvijay Singh has said that it is a historic day for India and the Prime Minister and team has achieved an impossible task.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement on moratorium is a part of the N-waiver received by India.
As per reports, Pranab's statement on Friday over India's commitment for non-proliferation played a crucial role in changing Austria's mind. Austria said they were among the last to yield.
Meanwhile, China has stressed on balancing energy needs and non-proliferation.
So, what does this mean for India? Essentially, it's a victory for Indian diplomacy and it brings India into international nuclear club.
What it means for India
Access to nuclear technology without signing CTBT, NPT
India can buy nuclear reactors from US, Russia, France
India will get access to nuclear fuel from world market
India will have access to civilian space technology
India will get access to nuclear technology without having signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or Non Proliferation Treaty. It opens up nuclear commerce for India and it can buy nuclear reactors from Russia, France and USA.
India will get access to nuclear fuel from the international market and also civilian space technology.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Russia's second chance?
EU leaders condemned Russia's military moves in Georgia but decided against sanctions Monday at an emergency summit on the Caucasus crisis.
Leaders did, however, postpone talks on a long-overdue new partnership agreement with Russia until Moscow withdraws its troops from Georgian territory.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was leading the summit, said he and his colleagues "strongly condemned" Russia's military reaction to the Georgian attack on separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the recognition of the two breakaway provinces as independent states.
"We must say that Russia's behavior over the past few weeks, its disproportionate response and its recognition of the two entities that declared independence has caused considerable concern in Europe and beyond," Sarkozy said.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso added the West "couldn't continue as if nothing happened."
Sarkozy and Barroso are part of a diplomatic task force that will travel to Moscow next Monday to meet with the Russian leadership. The EU team will urge the Kremlin to adhere to a French-brokered six-point peace plan and then decide whether talks over the partnership agreement can resume.
"We will ask Russia to apply the six-point plan scrupulously," Sarkozy said.
According to Angela Merkel, there is hope for a swift improvement of the situation.
The German chancellor revealed Monday that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had told Sarkozy the Kremlin "seems to be ready" to withdraw its troops to pre-conflict positions.
The Germans, together with France, Italy and Spain, had lobbied for a milder statement than Britain, some of the Baltic states and Poland did.
"I think we found an excellent compromise not going back to business as usual, but still making clear that we want to maintain contact with Russia," Merkel said.
All participants underlined the summit participants' -- at least external -- unity, with Merkel noting that each of the 27 member states was "very willing" to find a joint position.
"Europe has spoken with one voice," Sarkozy said proudly, brushing aside a reporter's question whether the EU wasn't more than a paper tiger to Russia.
"We do not want to create tension," he replied. "We do not want to be flexing our muscles talking about sanctions and counter-sanctions. Who would benefit from that? Nobody."
Internally, there were significantly more differences, as revealed by Polish Premier Donald Tusk, who spoke of European politicians who "would prefer empty conclusions because of their intensive bilateral relations with Russia."
Indeed, Germany, Italy and also Austria, for example, have extensive economic ties with Russia; they are dependent on Russian gas deliveries, and an outright conflict isn't in their interest.
Yet it remains to be seen if Russia is susceptible to the soft approach favored in Berlin and Paris.
The summit in Brussels was preceded by several tit-for-tat exchanges between Russia and the West, with EU officials talking about sanctions, which Moscow in turn called "sick ideas." Medvedev even indicated that Russia could itself level sanctions.
Several Russian officials have noted that the EU would only hurt itself with punitive measures and that the EU-Russian partnership agreement, which also aims to regulate the bilateral energy relationship, is more in Brussels' interest than in Moscow's.
"We don't need these talks or this new agreement any more than the EU does," said Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's envoy to the EU. "It's more a self-punishment for the EU because it doesn't improve its credibility as a trading partner."
Russia has talked about supplying energy to Asia at a higher rate, which would hurt deliveries to the West. Yet not everything Moscow says needs to be taken too seriously, observers say. It is muscle-flexing caused by Russia's new self-confidence.
What the West will have to do is shed some light on who really did launch the first attacks in Georgia, and identify how Russian and Georgian operations killed civilians, and how many of them. Russian sources speak of attempted genocide in South Ossetia.
Merkel, who is known to be critical of the Georgian leadership, underlined that there "never is only one side to blame in such a conflict."
No matter the findings, there are more than 20,000 displaced people in Georgia, and for them, help needs to come sooner rather than later, no matter the speed at which diplomatic progress is made by the West and Russia.
The EU has already committed roughly $15 million in aid and said Monday it would help organize a donors' conference to raise the additional money needed to help people in Georgia -- in the mainland and in the two breakaway provinces.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Russia Recoginizes the Breakaway provinces.
Russia has recognised Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, thus dramatically upping stakes in its mounting confrontation with the West.
President Dmitry Medvedev signed decrees extending formal recognition to South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Tuesday after discussing the issue with top Ministers, defence and security chiefs at his Black Sea residence. The move came a day after Parliament passed non-binding resolutions urging the President to recognise the two territories.
“We have taken this step in order to prevent the genocide and annihilation of the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia after 17 years of international efforts to resolve the conflict between Georgia and the two regions failed,” said Mr. Medvedev.
He accused NATO of conniving at Georgia’s refusal to renounce the use of force against its separatist territories, and said the aid and support Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili received from his “foreign patrons” encouraged him to launch a military attack against South Ossetia. NATO has sent an armada of warships to the Black Sea in a show of support for Georgia. Russia said 10 U.S. and NATO combat ships were already in the Black Sea, and another eight were expected to join them shortly.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
There Will Be No Armageddon!
There Will Be No Armageddon
The Large Hadron Collider is expected to generate collision energies of proton bunches (rather than traveling in a continuous beam, particles in accelerators are generally "bunched" together) as high as 7 teraelectronvolts.by Yury ZaitsevMoscow (RIA Novosti) Jun 20, 2008A black hole will appear in mid-July on the border between France and Switzerland, swallowing up first Europe and then the entire planet. Such are the apocalyptic forecasts being made ahead of the scheduled launching, in three weeks, of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The ambitious research project, aimed at looking into superconductivity, high energies and God or devil knows what else, is an international effort involving several countries, including Russia. The report that the LHC will also produce a black hole is the most talked about item.
Remarkably, the most powerful sources of radiation in the universe are not those driven by thermonuclear reactions or annihilation processes. Much more powerful are high-density objects called black holes and neutron stars.
The force of gravity around these bodies is tremendous, and accelerates any matter caught by its pull to immense speeds. Matter impacting on the surface of a neutron star does so at half the speed of light. The efficiency at which energy is released from such impacts is more than ten times that of nuclear or thermonuclear reactions.
The general theory of relativity says black holes appear when matter is compressed into a more compact shape than that of a neutron star.
As a result, a black hole has a gravitational field so strong that neither a material body nor any kind of radiation (including light) is able to escape its embrace. The black holes are, therefore, impossible to see. They can only be identified indirectly, by observing the matter they absorb from a neighboring visible star, for example.
The gas flowing from such a star does not fall into the black hole at once. First, it forms the so-called "accretion disk", where the matter rotates for a long time. As it accelerates, it picks up a speed approaching that of light and starts emitting super-high energy X-radiation, which can be measured by instruments placed in space.
Will it be possible to reproduce these phenomena, as yet only theoretically predicted, in the ground-based accelerator in the Alps?
The hadron collider straddling the French-Swiss border is a ring accelerator designed to collide charged particles into each other at massive speeds. When it is turned on more than a billion collisions per second will occur inside it. The huge circumference of the collider ring (26.65 km) will allow the LHC to whisk particles to speeds close to that of light and produce super-high energy collisions.
The LHC is expected to generate collision energies of proton bunches (rather than traveling in a continuous beam, particles in accelerators are generally "bunched" together) as high as 7 teraelectronvolts (TeV).
Electron-proton bunches will collide with energies of up to 1.5 TeV, and bunches of heavy ions, such as lead, with a total energy of over 1,250 TeV. This is nothing short of a new phenomenon in physics, in particular the likely confirmation of a theory that teraelectronic energies and corresponding gravitation give rise to black holes.
Some theorists, however, and the public at large have started voicing fears that when such processes are modeled there will be a danger of collider experiments getting out of hand and giving rise to a chain reaction that could destroy our planet. The most widely expressed fear is that microscopic black holes may appear and capture the surrounding matter.
Some people take this threat extremely seriously. In March of this year a claim was even filed with the Hawaii district court charging CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), which is building the accelerator, with an attempt at Armageddon, and demanding a ban on the accelerator's launching.
Meanwhile, several years ago, it was discovered that black holes "evaporate" with time - a crucial discovery for understanding their physics. Larger ones do so only slowly, over billions of years, while smaller ones, practically instantaneously, within 10-17 of a second. Naturally, they simply do not have the time to absorb any sizeable amount of matter.
Some researchers also believe that black holes arise when space rays bombard, at much higher energies, the Earth's atmosphere, the Moon and the surfaces of other planets. We just cannot see them because the process is too short-lived.
Black holes are expected to appear (or be detected appearing) in the LHC every second or so. As they evaporate they will leave a trail of radiation that will be registered by the accelerator's monitoring devices.
Such holes pose no threat, even in theory. On the other hand, they should help improve our understanding of the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravitation, because evaporation of black holes is a quantum mechanical process.
It is estimated that it will take about 20 million CDs to record the data produced by the collider and 70,000 mainframe computers to process it. But what is important is not the volume of data but the findings physicists can draw from it.
The super-accelerator, by throwing light on the evolution of black holes, will also recreate the conditions that obtained in the universe within one-billionth of a second of the Big Bang. That, scientists hope, will help to answer many questions about how our world began, questions usually still discussed on a theoretical plane.
Yury Zaitsev is an analyst at the Institute of Space Research.
The Large Hadron Collider is expected to generate collision energies of proton bunches (rather than traveling in a continuous beam, particles in accelerators are generally "bunched" together) as high as 7 teraelectronvolts.by Yury ZaitsevMoscow (RIA Novosti) Jun 20, 2008A black hole will appear in mid-July on the border between France and Switzerland, swallowing up first Europe and then the entire planet. Such are the apocalyptic forecasts being made ahead of the scheduled launching, in three weeks, of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The ambitious research project, aimed at looking into superconductivity, high energies and God or devil knows what else, is an international effort involving several countries, including Russia. The report that the LHC will also produce a black hole is the most talked about item.
Remarkably, the most powerful sources of radiation in the universe are not those driven by thermonuclear reactions or annihilation processes. Much more powerful are high-density objects called black holes and neutron stars.
The force of gravity around these bodies is tremendous, and accelerates any matter caught by its pull to immense speeds. Matter impacting on the surface of a neutron star does so at half the speed of light. The efficiency at which energy is released from such impacts is more than ten times that of nuclear or thermonuclear reactions.
The general theory of relativity says black holes appear when matter is compressed into a more compact shape than that of a neutron star.
As a result, a black hole has a gravitational field so strong that neither a material body nor any kind of radiation (including light) is able to escape its embrace. The black holes are, therefore, impossible to see. They can only be identified indirectly, by observing the matter they absorb from a neighboring visible star, for example.
The gas flowing from such a star does not fall into the black hole at once. First, it forms the so-called "accretion disk", where the matter rotates for a long time. As it accelerates, it picks up a speed approaching that of light and starts emitting super-high energy X-radiation, which can be measured by instruments placed in space.
Will it be possible to reproduce these phenomena, as yet only theoretically predicted, in the ground-based accelerator in the Alps?
The hadron collider straddling the French-Swiss border is a ring accelerator designed to collide charged particles into each other at massive speeds. When it is turned on more than a billion collisions per second will occur inside it. The huge circumference of the collider ring (26.65 km) will allow the LHC to whisk particles to speeds close to that of light and produce super-high energy collisions.
The LHC is expected to generate collision energies of proton bunches (rather than traveling in a continuous beam, particles in accelerators are generally "bunched" together) as high as 7 teraelectronvolts (TeV).
Electron-proton bunches will collide with energies of up to 1.5 TeV, and bunches of heavy ions, such as lead, with a total energy of over 1,250 TeV. This is nothing short of a new phenomenon in physics, in particular the likely confirmation of a theory that teraelectronic energies and corresponding gravitation give rise to black holes.
Some theorists, however, and the public at large have started voicing fears that when such processes are modeled there will be a danger of collider experiments getting out of hand and giving rise to a chain reaction that could destroy our planet. The most widely expressed fear is that microscopic black holes may appear and capture the surrounding matter.
Some people take this threat extremely seriously. In March of this year a claim was even filed with the Hawaii district court charging CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), which is building the accelerator, with an attempt at Armageddon, and demanding a ban on the accelerator's launching.
Meanwhile, several years ago, it was discovered that black holes "evaporate" with time - a crucial discovery for understanding their physics. Larger ones do so only slowly, over billions of years, while smaller ones, practically instantaneously, within 10-17 of a second. Naturally, they simply do not have the time to absorb any sizeable amount of matter.
Some researchers also believe that black holes arise when space rays bombard, at much higher energies, the Earth's atmosphere, the Moon and the surfaces of other planets. We just cannot see them because the process is too short-lived.
Black holes are expected to appear (or be detected appearing) in the LHC every second or so. As they evaporate they will leave a trail of radiation that will be registered by the accelerator's monitoring devices.
Such holes pose no threat, even in theory. On the other hand, they should help improve our understanding of the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravitation, because evaporation of black holes is a quantum mechanical process.
It is estimated that it will take about 20 million CDs to record the data produced by the collider and 70,000 mainframe computers to process it. But what is important is not the volume of data but the findings physicists can draw from it.
The super-accelerator, by throwing light on the evolution of black holes, will also recreate the conditions that obtained in the universe within one-billionth of a second of the Big Bang. That, scientists hope, will help to answer many questions about how our world began, questions usually still discussed on a theoretical plane.
Yury Zaitsev is an analyst at the Institute of Space Research.
There Will Be No Armageddon!
There Will Be No Armageddon
The Large Hadron Collider is expected to generate collision energies of proton bunches (rather than traveling in a continuous beam, particles in accelerators are generally "bunched" together) as high as 7 teraelectronvolts.by Yury ZaitsevMoscow (RIA Novosti) Jun 20, 2008A black hole will appear in mid-July on the border between France and Switzerland, swallowing up first Europe and then the entire planet. Such are the apocalyptic forecasts being made ahead of the scheduled launching, in three weeks, of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The ambitious research project, aimed at looking into superconductivity, high energies and God or devil knows what else, is an international effort involving several countries, including Russia. The report that the LHC will also produce a black hole is the most talked about item.
Remarkably, the most powerful sources of radiation in the universe are not those driven by thermonuclear reactions or annihilation processes. Much more powerful are high-density objects called black holes and neutron stars.
The force of gravity around these bodies is tremendous, and accelerates any matter caught by its pull to immense speeds. Matter impacting on the surface of a neutron star does so at half the speed of light. The efficiency at which energy is released from such impacts is more than ten times that of nuclear or thermonuclear reactions.
The general theory of relativity says black holes appear when matter is compressed into a more compact shape than that of a neutron star.
As a result, a black hole has a gravitational field so strong that neither a material body nor any kind of radiation (including light) is able to escape its embrace. The black holes are, therefore, impossible to see. They can only be identified indirectly, by observing the matter they absorb from a neighboring visible star, for example.
The gas flowing from such a star does not fall into the black hole at once. First, it forms the so-called "accretion disk", where the matter rotates for a long time. As it accelerates, it picks up a speed approaching that of light and starts emitting super-high energy X-radiation, which can be measured by instruments placed in space.
Will it be possible to reproduce these phenomena, as yet only theoretically predicted, in the ground-based accelerator in the Alps?
The hadron collider straddling the French-Swiss border is a ring accelerator designed to collide charged particles into each other at massive speeds. When it is turned on more than a billion collisions per second will occur inside it. The huge circumference of the collider ring (26.65 km) will allow the LHC to whisk particles to speeds close to that of light and produce super-high energy collisions.
The LHC is expected to generate collision energies of proton bunches (rather than traveling in a continuous beam, particles in accelerators are generally "bunched" together) as high as 7 teraelectronvolts (TeV).
Electron-proton bunches will collide with energies of up to 1.5 TeV, and bunches of heavy ions, such as lead, with a total energy of over 1,250 TeV. This is nothing short of a new phenomenon in physics, in particular the likely confirmation of a theory that teraelectronic energies and corresponding gravitation give rise to black holes.
Some theorists, however, and the public at large have started voicing fears that when such processes are modeled there will be a danger of collider experiments getting out of hand and giving rise to a chain reaction that could destroy our planet. The most widely expressed fear is that microscopic black holes may appear and capture the surrounding matter.
Some people take this threat extremely seriously. In March of this year a claim was even filed with the Hawaii district court charging CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), which is building the accelerator, with an attempt at Armageddon, and demanding a ban on the accelerator's launching.
Meanwhile, several years ago, it was discovered that black holes "evaporate" with time - a crucial discovery for understanding their physics. Larger ones do so only slowly, over billions of years, while smaller ones, practically instantaneously, within 10-17 of a second. Naturally, they simply do not have the time to absorb any sizeable amount of matter.
Some researchers also believe that black holes arise when space rays bombard, at much higher energies, the Earth's atmosphere, the Moon and the surfaces of other planets. We just cannot see them because the process is too short-lived.
Black holes are expected to appear (or be detected appearing) in the LHC every second or so. As they evaporate they will leave a trail of radiation that will be registered by the accelerator's monitoring devices.
Such holes pose no threat, even in theory. On the other hand, they should help improve our understanding of the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravitation, because evaporation of black holes is a quantum mechanical process.
It is estimated that it will take about 20 million CDs to record the data produced by the collider and 70,000 mainframe computers to process it. But what is important is not the volume of data but the findings physicists can draw from it.
The super-accelerator, by throwing light on the evolution of black holes, will also recreate the conditions that obtained in the universe within one-billionth of a second of the Big Bang. That, scientists hope, will help to answer many questions about how our world began, questions usually still discussed on a theoretical plane.
Yury Zaitsev is an analyst at the Institute of Space Research.
The Large Hadron Collider is expected to generate collision energies of proton bunches (rather than traveling in a continuous beam, particles in accelerators are generally "bunched" together) as high as 7 teraelectronvolts.by Yury ZaitsevMoscow (RIA Novosti) Jun 20, 2008A black hole will appear in mid-July on the border between France and Switzerland, swallowing up first Europe and then the entire planet. Such are the apocalyptic forecasts being made ahead of the scheduled launching, in three weeks, of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The ambitious research project, aimed at looking into superconductivity, high energies and God or devil knows what else, is an international effort involving several countries, including Russia. The report that the LHC will also produce a black hole is the most talked about item.
Remarkably, the most powerful sources of radiation in the universe are not those driven by thermonuclear reactions or annihilation processes. Much more powerful are high-density objects called black holes and neutron stars.
The force of gravity around these bodies is tremendous, and accelerates any matter caught by its pull to immense speeds. Matter impacting on the surface of a neutron star does so at half the speed of light. The efficiency at which energy is released from such impacts is more than ten times that of nuclear or thermonuclear reactions.
The general theory of relativity says black holes appear when matter is compressed into a more compact shape than that of a neutron star.
As a result, a black hole has a gravitational field so strong that neither a material body nor any kind of radiation (including light) is able to escape its embrace. The black holes are, therefore, impossible to see. They can only be identified indirectly, by observing the matter they absorb from a neighboring visible star, for example.
The gas flowing from such a star does not fall into the black hole at once. First, it forms the so-called "accretion disk", where the matter rotates for a long time. As it accelerates, it picks up a speed approaching that of light and starts emitting super-high energy X-radiation, which can be measured by instruments placed in space.
Will it be possible to reproduce these phenomena, as yet only theoretically predicted, in the ground-based accelerator in the Alps?
The hadron collider straddling the French-Swiss border is a ring accelerator designed to collide charged particles into each other at massive speeds. When it is turned on more than a billion collisions per second will occur inside it. The huge circumference of the collider ring (26.65 km) will allow the LHC to whisk particles to speeds close to that of light and produce super-high energy collisions.
The LHC is expected to generate collision energies of proton bunches (rather than traveling in a continuous beam, particles in accelerators are generally "bunched" together) as high as 7 teraelectronvolts (TeV).
Electron-proton bunches will collide with energies of up to 1.5 TeV, and bunches of heavy ions, such as lead, with a total energy of over 1,250 TeV. This is nothing short of a new phenomenon in physics, in particular the likely confirmation of a theory that teraelectronic energies and corresponding gravitation give rise to black holes.
Some theorists, however, and the public at large have started voicing fears that when such processes are modeled there will be a danger of collider experiments getting out of hand and giving rise to a chain reaction that could destroy our planet. The most widely expressed fear is that microscopic black holes may appear and capture the surrounding matter.
Some people take this threat extremely seriously. In March of this year a claim was even filed with the Hawaii district court charging CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), which is building the accelerator, with an attempt at Armageddon, and demanding a ban on the accelerator's launching.
Meanwhile, several years ago, it was discovered that black holes "evaporate" with time - a crucial discovery for understanding their physics. Larger ones do so only slowly, over billions of years, while smaller ones, practically instantaneously, within 10-17 of a second. Naturally, they simply do not have the time to absorb any sizeable amount of matter.
Some researchers also believe that black holes arise when space rays bombard, at much higher energies, the Earth's atmosphere, the Moon and the surfaces of other planets. We just cannot see them because the process is too short-lived.
Black holes are expected to appear (or be detected appearing) in the LHC every second or so. As they evaporate they will leave a trail of radiation that will be registered by the accelerator's monitoring devices.
Such holes pose no threat, even in theory. On the other hand, they should help improve our understanding of the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravitation, because evaporation of black holes is a quantum mechanical process.
It is estimated that it will take about 20 million CDs to record the data produced by the collider and 70,000 mainframe computers to process it. But what is important is not the volume of data but the findings physicists can draw from it.
The super-accelerator, by throwing light on the evolution of black holes, will also recreate the conditions that obtained in the universe within one-billionth of a second of the Big Bang. That, scientists hope, will help to answer many questions about how our world began, questions usually still discussed on a theoretical plane.
Yury Zaitsev is an analyst at the Institute of Space Research.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Saturday, January 07, 2006
The Insat 4A
The INSAT 4A
As some of you have been Asking me Some details Regarding INSAT4A and its operation i take this opportunity to describe it ..through the press releases and some insights
These Release was after launch.
Indian space scientists on Thursday received signals of INSAT-4A, which was launched by Ariane-5 rocket from Kourou in French Guyana and said the health of the satellite is 'good'."Satellite signals have been acquired by our station (Master Control Facility) at Hassan (in Karnataka). Signals are good. Health of the satellite is good," Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair said soon after the launch.
"INSAT-4A is the most advanced, heaviest and most powerful satellite (of India)," Nair said, describing its launch as a "very important milestone in the history of ISRO".
It carries 12 ku band and 12 c band transponders, which would add to the capacity of 150 transponders that the INSAT series possesses today, he said.
"So, this is going to revolutionise the TV broadcasting directly to the home and improve the entertainment scenario in India," he Said. According to ISRO officials in Bangalore, 12 ku band transponders provide around 140 to 150 DTH channels. The satellite is expected to be operational by next month end, they said.
INSAT-4A blasts off from Kourou in French Guyana
The successful launch Thursday of India's heaviest satellite from spaceport of Kourou in French Guyana may have boosted the country's space research efforts to yet another level, but it has also lifted the spirits of at least three Direct-To-Home televisions broadcasters, one of which has been waiting for years to launch its services in India.Onboard new generation spacecraft Ariane-5G rocket, the INSAT-4A was placed in geosynchronous transfer orbit in 3-axis stabilized mode shortly after launch, drawing cheers for the fact that it was the first launch of a 3,080 kg satellite by India.
It is the also the first Indian satellite to meet the requirement of the DTH television services.
"Insat-4A is the most advanced, heaviest and powerful satellite and it's a very important milestone in the history of India's space program," said Madhavan Iyer, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization. "This is going to revolutionize TV broadcasting directly to the homes and improve the entertainment scenario in India."
After completing orbit-raising operations and a few tests, INSAT-4A will become fully operational in early 2006. It will be positioned in geostationary orbit 36,000 km above the equator.
For the DTH wannabes then, this is indeed good news because even as the country's TV viewership explodes, peculiar broadcasting laws and lack of transponder availability has been obstructing proliferation of DTH services in the country for years.
DTH services were first proposed in India in 1996, but due to concerns of national security and a cultural invasion -- from mainly the Western countries -- it did not pass approval of the Indian government. In 1997 the government even imposed a ban when the Rupert Murdoch-owned Indian Sky Broadcasting was about to launch its DTH services in India.
Finally in 2000 DTH was allowed. But the new policy mandated that all operators can only broadcast using Indian satellites. Moreover, companies offering DTH service were also told to appoint only a local resident as chief and foreign equity was capped at 49 percent. There was, however, no limit stipulated on the number of companies applying for the DTH license.
Clearly the first company to jump into the fray was the state-owned TV broadcasting giant Doordarshan (DD) (using C-band transponder). And even as DD penetrated 4.6 million homes in no time, triggering DTH interests of private players, not many could start operations owing to lack of availability of KU transponder capacity in Indian satellites.
DTH services can also be beamed through S band and C band transponders for which capacity is available in the existing Indian satellites, but according to industry sources DTH through KU transponders is preferred in India since a KU band dish -- set up at homes to receive the signals from satellite -- is much smaller and cheaper.
Currently besides DD, the only other DTH operator is a broadcaster known as DishTV that is owned by a local TV channel. Both use the NSS6 Satellite (C band) to air their DTH services.
And waiting in the queue are Tata Sky, a joint venture between the local Tata group and Rupert Murdoch's Star group; and, reportedly two very large local players, the Sun Network and Anil Ambani of the Reliance Group.
Clearly the first to launch DTH would be Tata Sky. It already bagged its clearances from the Telecommunications Ministry last week and from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry much earlier. Moreover, Star group has booked all the KU band transponders of INSAT 4A, say ISRO sources.
But prospective DTH players should not lose heart, because ISRO has already contracted Arianespace for launch of Insat-4B, which will also carry 12 KU-band and 12 C-band transponders, to be followed by Insat-4C, an exclusive KU-band spacecraft with 12 KU-band transponders.
Besides, ISRO says that it also plans to launch Insat-4D and Insat-4E from home soil, as Insat-4F and Insat-4G projects, which complete the Insat-4 series, is awaiting government nod.
After everything is said and done., its all but a sat-tv repeater...
and so i'll post further details after i edit em...
As some of you have been Asking me Some details Regarding INSAT4A and its operation i take this opportunity to describe it ..through the press releases and some insights
These Release was after launch.
Indian space scientists on Thursday received signals of INSAT-4A, which was launched by Ariane-5 rocket from Kourou in French Guyana and said the health of the satellite is 'good'."Satellite signals have been acquired by our station (Master Control Facility) at Hassan (in Karnataka). Signals are good. Health of the satellite is good," Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair said soon after the launch.
"INSAT-4A is the most advanced, heaviest and most powerful satellite (of India)," Nair said, describing its launch as a "very important milestone in the history of ISRO".
It carries 12 ku band and 12 c band transponders, which would add to the capacity of 150 transponders that the INSAT series possesses today, he said.
"So, this is going to revolutionise the TV broadcasting directly to the home and improve the entertainment scenario in India," he Said. According to ISRO officials in Bangalore, 12 ku band transponders provide around 140 to 150 DTH channels. The satellite is expected to be operational by next month end, they said.
INSAT-4A blasts off from Kourou in French Guyana
The successful launch Thursday of India's heaviest satellite from spaceport of Kourou in French Guyana may have boosted the country's space research efforts to yet another level, but it has also lifted the spirits of at least three Direct-To-Home televisions broadcasters, one of which has been waiting for years to launch its services in India.Onboard new generation spacecraft Ariane-5G rocket, the INSAT-4A was placed in geosynchronous transfer orbit in 3-axis stabilized mode shortly after launch, drawing cheers for the fact that it was the first launch of a 3,080 kg satellite by India.
It is the also the first Indian satellite to meet the requirement of the DTH television services.
"Insat-4A is the most advanced, heaviest and powerful satellite and it's a very important milestone in the history of India's space program," said Madhavan Iyer, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization. "This is going to revolutionize TV broadcasting directly to the homes and improve the entertainment scenario in India."
After completing orbit-raising operations and a few tests, INSAT-4A will become fully operational in early 2006. It will be positioned in geostationary orbit 36,000 km above the equator.
For the DTH wannabes then, this is indeed good news because even as the country's TV viewership explodes, peculiar broadcasting laws and lack of transponder availability has been obstructing proliferation of DTH services in the country for years.
DTH services were first proposed in India in 1996, but due to concerns of national security and a cultural invasion -- from mainly the Western countries -- it did not pass approval of the Indian government. In 1997 the government even imposed a ban when the Rupert Murdoch-owned Indian Sky Broadcasting was about to launch its DTH services in India.
Finally in 2000 DTH was allowed. But the new policy mandated that all operators can only broadcast using Indian satellites. Moreover, companies offering DTH service were also told to appoint only a local resident as chief and foreign equity was capped at 49 percent. There was, however, no limit stipulated on the number of companies applying for the DTH license.
Clearly the first company to jump into the fray was the state-owned TV broadcasting giant Doordarshan (DD) (using C-band transponder). And even as DD penetrated 4.6 million homes in no time, triggering DTH interests of private players, not many could start operations owing to lack of availability of KU transponder capacity in Indian satellites.
DTH services can also be beamed through S band and C band transponders for which capacity is available in the existing Indian satellites, but according to industry sources DTH through KU transponders is preferred in India since a KU band dish -- set up at homes to receive the signals from satellite -- is much smaller and cheaper.
Currently besides DD, the only other DTH operator is a broadcaster known as DishTV that is owned by a local TV channel. Both use the NSS6 Satellite (C band) to air their DTH services.
And waiting in the queue are Tata Sky, a joint venture between the local Tata group and Rupert Murdoch's Star group; and, reportedly two very large local players, the Sun Network and Anil Ambani of the Reliance Group.
Clearly the first to launch DTH would be Tata Sky. It already bagged its clearances from the Telecommunications Ministry last week and from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry much earlier. Moreover, Star group has booked all the KU band transponders of INSAT 4A, say ISRO sources.
But prospective DTH players should not lose heart, because ISRO has already contracted Arianespace for launch of Insat-4B, which will also carry 12 KU-band and 12 C-band transponders, to be followed by Insat-4C, an exclusive KU-band spacecraft with 12 KU-band transponders.
Besides, ISRO says that it also plans to launch Insat-4D and Insat-4E from home soil, as Insat-4F and Insat-4G projects, which complete the Insat-4 series, is awaiting government nod.
After everything is said and done., its all but a sat-tv repeater...
and so i'll post further details after i edit em...
My First Post In BlogSpot
IN this posts i am thinking of writting my opinions and ideas and may be experiences ... too.
My former user id and password is gone and who cares. any way...
And for the interim period i blogged in yahoo360
That URL is http://360.yahoo.com/swraj_2000
will continue to update soon...
My former user id and password is gone and who cares. any way...
And for the interim period i blogged in yahoo360
That URL is http://360.yahoo.com/swraj_2000
will continue to update soon...
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