A. Lokmanya Tilak national journalism award : Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N. Ram

This award was instituted by the Kesari Mahratta Trust.
It was given away at Pune on the 129th foundation day of the Kesari newspaper that was started in 1881 by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

B. Water sharing talks to start between New Delhi and Dhaka on the following rivers:

• Teesta
• Feni
• Dharla
• Monu
• Muhuri
• Dudhkumar
• Khowai
• Gomti
• Isamoti

C. James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) :

Named after a former NASA Administrator, its a massive telescope, with a diameter of 6.5 metres, to be deployed in the sky about 1.5 million km from the earth in 2014 to enable astronomers to

• study several subjects, including the formation of the first stars and galaxies after the Big Bang that created the universe
• observe the evolution of galaxies as they changed with time, the formation of stars and planets, and evolution of planetary systems such as the solar system
  

JWST is a project of NASA in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Arianespace’s Ariane -V vehicle will deploy the telescope. It will be folded up into the rocket’s fairing before the launch. Its locationis called the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L-2.

D. Europa] : A moon of the planet Jupiter

Europa was discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1609. It was warm inside and had an ocean with ice covering it.

E. John C. Mather, joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2006.

Dr. Mather shared the Nobel Prize with George F. Smoot of the University of California for their work on the understanding of the Big Bang.

Dr. Mather was one of the organisers of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite of NASA, launched in 1989, to measure the cosmic background radiation of the universe. The COBE organisers also measured the hot and cold spots in this Big Bang radiation to understand why it was possible for galaxies to exist. The hot and cold spots the precursors of the clusters of galaxies that are now observed. These hot and cold spots have evolved over cosmic time to produce the structure of the universe that we now see. These two main measurements were made with the help of the COBE satellite.

F. Twizy Z.E. Concept : New Electric Car by Renault India

Marc Nassif : Renault India, GM.

G. India is set to take the lead in pushing for a single legally binding treaty for Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) of biological resources at the 10th Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to be held at Nagoya, Japan, in October.The CBD was one of the key agreements adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The convention, while reaffirming the sovereign rights of nations over their biological resources, established three main goals —

• conservation of biological diversity
• sustainable use of its component
• fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of generic resources

India would also host the 11th CoP to the CBD in October 2012.

H. Patenting :

India was signing agreements with other patent offices for access to the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), which has about two lakh formulations in Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, and Yoga on 34 million pages. These agreements would enable research by international patent offices to prevent ‘bio-piracy’ of India’s traditional knowledge.

An agreement was signed with the European Patent Office in February 2009, and with the United States Patent Office in November 2009 during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the U.S., Mr. Ramesh said. Similar agreements were being negotiated with other countries.

In the past, patents were secured in the U.S. and Europe on the use of neem and on turmeric’s wound-healing properties, even though their therapeutic qualities were already known in India.

I. Children's Science Congress held : As a part of 97th Indian Science Congress on the Kerala University campus at Kariavattom

J. New ISRO Chairman : K. Radhakrishnan, Former CM : G. Madhavan Nair
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) director P.S. Veeraraghavan
University of Kerala Vice-Chancellor : A. Jayakrishnan

K. GRIHA scheme : Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment Scheme
Under this all new public sector buildings would be rated by technical expertise from TERI, which is headed by R.K. Pachauri. The aim of a green building design was to minimise the demand for non-renewable sources and maximise its utilisation.

A minimum of 3-star rating is must.

Even small dwelling units being constructed under the Indira Awas Yojna could be brought under the GRIHA scheme to ensure sustainability.

Deepak Gupta : Secretary in the Renewable Ministry

L. Lars Prahm : Director-General, EUMETSAT (a European organisation with six operating satellites)
Marc Pircher : Director of CNES (French Space Agency)
Megha-Tropiques : A satellite with payloads from India and France to be put in orbit from India this year. It would study the tropical atmosphere near the equatorial belt and cyclone formation.

M. Reena Kaushal : First Indian woman to ski to the South Pole.
Eight women from Cyprus, Ghana, India, Singapore, Brunei, New Zealand, Jamaica and Britain took part in the Kaspersky Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition, landing at the South Pole on December 29.

N. Baredi Dance : Popularly known as Raut dance in Chhattisgarh, Baredi Dance is mainly performed by the male dancers of Ahir community. It is mainly conducted on the occasion of Diwali. The main subject of this rhythmic performance is the Krishna legend in Shringaar Rasa.

O. Tejendra Khanna : Delhi's Lieutenant-Governor.

P. Burj Khalifa at Dubai : The world’s tallest tower , 818 metres, followed by Taipei101 at Taiwan of 509.2 meters including antenna height.

Q. Novartis : 1) To buy controlling stake in Alcon. 2) To exercise option to buy 52% from Nestle.

R. FMCG player Marico 's Malaysian arm, Marico Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Marico Middle East FZE, has acquired hair-styling brand ‘Code 10’ from Colgate-Palmolive. This marks the company’s entry into the Malaysian hair styling market.

S. TT :
G. Sathiyan
Harmeet Desai
Soumyajit Ghosh

Junior and Youth National Table Tennis Championship : At Raipur

A. Voice Achievers Award for 2009 to 7 Indo-Canadians for their outstanding contributions to the film industry, trade, medicine, literature and sports:

1. Cancer-stricken actor Lisa Ray (performance in Deepa Mehta’s film Water )
2. Gopal Bhatnagar (cardiac surgery)
3. M.G. Vassanji (arts)
4. Meenu Sikand (social work)
5. Raja Panjwani (sports)
6. Rai Sahi (Business)
7. Asha Luthra (President of Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce)

B. Visa-on-Arrival facility in India to nationals of 5 countries :

1. Japan
2. Singapore
3. New Zealand
4. Luxembourg
5. Finland

C. The new ART (Regulation) Bill, 2008: Seeks to legalise commercial surrogacy and the 228th report of the Law Commission suggests banning commercial surrogacy and legalising only altruistic surrogacy

D. Rajiv Gandhi Award Winners:

Shahid Kapoor: Best Actor
Katrina Kaif: Best Actress
Vineet Jain: MD of The Times Group, for Industry
Ramesh Chandra Agarwal: Journalism
Sam Pitroda: Global Indian
Dr. Narendra Jadhav: Educationist
Dr. G. Madhavan Nair: Super Achiever
Krushnaa Patil: Woman Achiever
Avika Gor: Child Prodigy
Rajashree Birla: Social Field
Rohit Kochhar: Young Entrepreneur

E. Ramon Magsaysay Award Winners:

Krisana Kraisintu from Thailand
Deep Joshi from India
Yu Xiaogang, from China
Antonio Oposa, Jr., from the Philippines
Ma Jun, from China
Hsaw Wa, from Burma

F. Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development started in 1986 has had 22 awardees so far as follows:

Year Name Recipient Description

---- ------------------------------------ -----------------------------------------------------

1986 Parliamentarians for Global Action International Organisation of Parliamentarians

1987 Mikhail Gorbachev Former Soviet Union Leader

1988 Gro Harlem Brundtland Former Prime Minister of Norway

1989 UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund

1990 Sam Nujoma First President of Namibia

1991 Rajiv Gandhi Former Prime Minister of India (posthumous)

1992 Saburo Okita Japanese Economist

1993 Václav Havel 1st President of the Czech Republic

1994 Trevor Huddleston Anti-Apartheid Activist

1995 Olusegun Obasanjo 12th President of Nigeria

1996 Medicins Sans Frontieres Voluntary Organisation

1997 Jimmy Carter 39th President of the United States

1998 Muhammad Yunus Nobel Peace Prize Winner, 2006

1999 M S Swaminathan Indian Agricultural Scientist

2000 Mary Robinson 7th President of Ireland

2001 Sadako Ogata Former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

2002 Shridath Ramphal 2nd Commonwealth Secretary-General

2003 Kofi Annan 7th United Nations Secretary General

2004 Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Princess of Thailand

2005 Hamid Karzai 1st President of Afghanistan

2006 Wangari Maathai Environmental and Political activist

2007 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Charitable Foundation

2008 Mohamed ElBaradei 4th Director General of the IAEA

2009 Sheikh Hasina Bangladesh Prime Minister

A Rapist Society

"Oh is it, was she molested? You know, it must be her fault. Her dresses were too modern and inviting".

"Yeah I tell you, these girls nowadays wear vulgar dresses and then blame it upon boys when they get raped."

"So true, in our days, we never faced such problems and neither heard of them."

"Was she from north-east India, oh then it must have been her fault. These chinkis, I tell you, always behave and dress like foreigners in India and invite troubles."

Do these statements sound familiar? If you say "No", then either you are not an Indian or you belong to the ultra rich or the ultra poor class in India who have other things to discuss about.

But if you belong to the so-called Indian middle class, of course that includes the upper and lower middle classes with annual incomes ranging from Rs.60000 to Rs.10000000 or may be more, then you have surely come across such instances of the "Great Indian Hypocrisy". There are greater chances of your encounter with such comments if you hail from any part north of the Godaveri River and west of the Brahmaputra. In the leftover region, though not absent but 'Hypocrisy' is a little less, at least in matters of sexual harassment.

Such comments come from both men and women, young and old, with mild variations depending on their status and stature. Whenever I hear such comments, I honestly wish to open the brains of all such people who believe in this and fix a few nuts and bolts inside it that have probably loosened due to what-so-ever reasons. I really wish to ask them, that do the maids who get harassed so often, wear swimsuits or mini skirts while washing dishes? Of course not. Then why do they get harassed? Or if I wear gold chain and it gets snatched and I am killed in the process, should I be held responsible for provocating the goons by wearing a gold chain? What logic explains their concept is hard to understand.

Again, how can one decide an inviting dress? For someone from a rural background who has probably never seen his mother's face without a pallu, even a normal salwar suit may be inviting, whereas for someone who has grown up with girls wearing mini skirts and probably whose mother and sisters wear western dresses, might not get his testosterone boiling unless he sees a nude girl. So whose standard are the girls supposed to follow and how do you set such standards? For some tribes in the Northeast, a sleeveless is not a big deal but exposing tummy when you wear sari is supposed to be vulgar. On the other hand, someone in Maharashtra might find a sari decent and a sleeveless top inviting. So what is the solution, of course, if you think 'Dress' to have any role in cases of eve-teasing? Well then I can see only two possibilities:

1) Follow Raj Thakaray's advice and be in your own state, a UP wala in UP, MP wala in MP and Punjabi in Punjab.

2) Be used to get raped as soon as you cross your state or regional boundary because cultures, norms and traditions vary from state to state and region to region.

But then the discoverers of the 'Dress' theory would have to ensure that ones dresses and regions are fixed, eve-teasing would not happen. Anyone out there to take the responsibility?

Rapes are not specific to India. They happen in Least Developed Economies and Most Developed Economies alike. This only goes to show that sexual harassment has nothing to do with modernity, development, underdevelopment, class, caste or dress. It is just another crime that needs to be severely punished to send across a strong message that one can't get away with this. While in the developed countries where this is followed, in India things get more complicated because of the so called 'Hypocrisy'. Punishment to criminals is alright. But what about those hundred tongues which eject venom when such a case happens. A girl is raped once by a rapist, but she is made to go through even worse experiences by the attitude of the society. How do we plan to punish this society which finds it so easy to convict the victim?

And again, I really wish to meet those people personally who lived in that "Golden Age" when sexual harassment did not happen. A basic knowledge would let anyone understand that number or statistics of such cases is of course directly proportional to population. More males, more females and hence more cases. As population has increased, obviously, such cases have increased. Also, in the olden days, a case of sexual harassment was never reported. The tears, the blood, the shame, the disgrace of the woman were all confined to herself in the dark dungeon of her shattered mind and ego or were blown away by the wind with her ashes or may be buried deep under the earth with her decomposed body. Another factor that has led to more cases of sexual harassment is the fact that today, women are not chained within the walls of their houses. They get educated, they move out and many a times outside the protective shield of their fathers or husbands. (Well, sometimes even fathers and husbands play the role of the dreaded monsters in their lives from whom they are supposed to protect her but such cases are comparatively less and can be ignored for the present discussion.) The women, therefore, are rendered more vulnerable and exposed to threats of eve-teasing and even more severe forms of sexual harassment. Well, to understand this, one needs a mind and one who comments as the ones with which I started this piece of writing, surely does not have one.

Suicides, depressions, trauma, psychological disorders and all other aftermaths of any form of sexual harassment is often caused less because of the incident itself and more due to the way the society reacts to it. So for all such people who think that the girl invited the innocent boy, I advise them, to surrender themselves to police when their money or jewelery or any valuables are stolen for the crime of inviting the thieves or dacoits by buying jewelery or earning money or carrying either, to get themselves arrested and convicted when their cars get stolen for the crime of buying or traveling in a car thereby inviting the thieves. And the most important reason why they should be put behind bars is to prevent crimes because one with such mentality surely does not have any strength of character or control over his organs. So the moment he feels a dress is beautiful or sexy or modern or traditional enough to invite him, he would definitely pounce on the girl wearing that and devour her. That's what they believe in right! If a girl's dress appeals them, raping her is their right or may be duty!

As far as the north-east is concerned, though economically it’s a backward region, but socially it’s far advanced than many other regions in India. Gender disparity is very low and females enjoy an equal status. In fact, some north-eastern tribes follow a matrilineal pattern of society. The female literacy rates and the sex ratios are much better than many other regions in India. This can be seen by comparing the India average and some of the north eastern states data as per 2001 census. While the India average for female literacy rate is 54.16, with few states like Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, MP and even economically advanced states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana have female Literacy rate much below 60%, north eastern states like Mizoram has above 86%, Nagaland, 62%, Tripura, 65%, Meghalaya, 60%, Sikkim, 61%, all of which are much above the national average. Similarly, comparing the sex ratio, shows that states like Manipur(978), Mizoram(938), Tripura(950), Meghalaya(975) etc have a much better sex ratio than the national avg of 933. So when those girls who enjoy social liberty in their regions get trapped by the gimmicky infrastructure and show-offs wrapping up a backward male dominating, women exploiting, hypocrite social mentality, its not those girls who are to be blamed for assuming the national capital 'Delhi' or for that matter, any other so-called ‘developed’ city in India to be socially more advanced than the economically plundered NE states.

Finally the one rapist who commits the crime due to momentary passion or animal instinct might or might not be reported, might or might not be caught, might or might not be convicted but the rapist, the molester, the women oppressor, hiding behind the innocent faces of this hypocrite middle class Indian Society is never reported, never caught and never convicted. We have no laws, no procedure, and no Constitutional provision to punish or amend the criminal social mentality towards women prevailing in India. Alas, after a heinous crime as rape is committed, we have so many senseless, conscienceless, heartless and mindless people finding faults with the victim instead of supporting a stringent punishment for the criminal. I wonder if we would need to wait until at least one daughter or sister in each Indian family is raped before the society learns that such crimes ruin the girl, her family and their lives and it’s not the victim but the perpetrator of the crime whose life needs to be made hell.

Aparajita Banerjee

Date: 26-Oct-2009

Some more GK :-)

A. Man Booker Prize 2009 winner : Hilary Mantel for fiction "Wolf Hall"

B. GAGAN : GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation ; An augmentation system to enhance the accuracy and integrity of GPS signals to meet precision approach requirements in Civil Aviation and is being implemented jointly by AAI and ISRO

C.Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi located at Fursatganj in UP

2009 Nobel Laureates

A. Field : Physiology or Medicine 2009

Reason : For the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme
telomerase

Awardees :

1. Elizabeth H. Blackburn (1/3) - USA
2. Carol W. Greider (1/3) - USA
3. Jack W. Szostak (1/3) - USA

B. Field : Physics

Awardees :
1. Charles K. Kao (1/2) - China : Reason - For groundbreaking achievements concerning the
transmission of light in fibers for optical communication

Reason : For the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor

2. Willard S. Boyle (1/4) - USA
3. George E. Smith (1/4) - USA

C. Field : Chemistry

Reason : For studies of the structure and function of the ribosome

Awardees :

1. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1/3) - UK (Indian Origin)
2. Thomas A. Steitz (1/3) - USA
3. Ada E. Yonath (1/3) - Israel

D. Field : Literature

Reason : For depicting the landscape of the dispossessed with the concentration of poetry and
the frankness of prose

Awardee :

1. Herta Müller - Germany

E. Field : Peace

Reason : For his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation
between peoples

Awardee :

1. Barack Hussein Obama - USA

20-Sep-2009

1) Arun Majumdar is in news. Why?

Named by Obama White House as the 1st director of the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

ARPA-E : Organization for reducing America's reliance on foreign energy supplies, cutting Greenhouse gas emission and improving energy efficiency.

2) Excellent scheme by AP govt. Call centre to accept complaints from public on efficiency of implementation of Public Welfare Schemes.

3) Who is India's National Security Advisor currently?

M.K. Narayan

4) 27th Sep - 03rd Oct , what's the significance ?

We are celebrating the Joy of Giving Week. So what would you give and to whom?

5) What has the Nanavati commission been investigating ?

For those who don't know, its the Godhra and post-Godhra incidents.

6) Some sportsmen in news today:

a. Ai Miyazato : Golf (Women) - Japan

b. Geethu Anna Jose, Pauldurai Anitha : basket ball(Women) - India

c. Shakeh Mortaja : Atheletics(male) - India

d. Mandeep Kaur, Manjeet Kaur : Atheletics(Female) - India

e. Gaurav Gill, Musa Sheriff : Motor Sports (Team MRF)

f. Amittrajit Ghosh, Ashwin Naik : Motor Sports ( Red Rooster Racing)

g. Gaganjeet Bhullar : Golf

h. Rushmi Chakravarthy, Sanaa Bhamri : Tennis ( Women) : India

Some more on sports : Any idea , terms like 'Double-Bogey', 'Birdie' are related to which sport?

Well, that's Golf.

16-Sep-2009

1)C.N. Annadurai : Who's this man?

Well, he is the founder of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party of TN and the first non-congress CM of TN.

2)What is resolution 1172 of UNSC?

UNSC passed resolution 1172 in 1998 urging India and Pakistan to sign the NPT as well as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in the wake of the nuclear tests both countries conducted in May that year. Since then, 1172 has been treated by the international community, and the U.S. in particular, as a dead letter as far as India is concerned.

3)Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina ended Roger Federer’s run of dominance at the U.S. Open on Monday(14-Sep-2009), stunning the top-ranked Swiss great in five sets to win in his first Grand Slam final.

4) Great Initiative : "The Government of Kerala Web-mail Edition"

This facility aims at providing email addresses to all state govt employees in Kerela as part of efforts to improve bureaucratic efficiency and speed up service delivery. Read this.

5) A very well written article on the extent to which we need nuclear weapons. Here .

6) Another beautiful piece (a speech by Sarkozy and others in France ) on a more inclusive index, rather than just the economic statistical GDP ,for measuring progress of a nation as a whole. Its here .

7)What is NCR SelfServ 32?

Its the next generation, multi-functional Automated-Teller-Machine (ATM) introduced by Global technology company NCR Corporation. Some of its advanced functions include accepting cheques without any envelope and is scalable to offer bulk cheque deposits and is in sync with the Reserve Bank of India’s current initiative of getting banks’ technology ready to offer cheque truncation.