India’s maiden mission to Mars, the Mangalyaan, has arrived in orbit after a 300-day marathon covering over 670 million kilometres (420 million miles). Science writer Pallava Bagla traced its journey as it neared the Red Planet.
On the morning of 24 September, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) slowed down the spacecraft sufficiently so it could be caught in the orbit of Mars.
“India will become the first Asian country to have achieved this and if it happens in the maiden attempt itself, India could become the first country in the world to have reached distant Mars on its own steam in the first attempt,” said Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan as it approached.
Both Russia and the US failed in their maiden attempts. The first Chinese mission to Mars, called Yinghuo-1, failed in 2011 alongside the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission with which it was launched. Earlier in 1998, the Japanese mission to Mars ran out of fuel and was lost.
Undoubtedly, India – a late starter – is way ahead of its Asian rivals in trying to get to the Red Planet.
“We are really not racing with anyone, but with ourselves to reach the next level of excellence,” said Mr Radhakrishnan.
‘Pink of health’
India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) – an indigenously made unmanned robotic mission weighing 1,350kg (2,976lb) – was launched from the rocket port at Sriharikota on the coast of the Bay of Bengal on a balmy afternoon on 5 November last year.
Since then, the mission “has been in the pink of health”, says Isro, and has been cruising at breakneck speed to reach close to Mars, half-way around the Sun.
The death toll in Assam in the current flood rose to 30 on Wednesday with 14 bodies recovered from worst-affected Goalpara and Kamrup (rural) districts even as relief and rescue work continued round-the-clock.
Six bodies were recovered from Bolbola and Krishnai areas of Goalpara taking the total death toll so far to 14 in the district, where army, NDRF and SDRF are conducting rescue operation, a senior district administration official said.
Another eight bodies were recovered from neighbouring Kamrup(Rural) district, where the toll rose to 10. Four others are still missing, Deputy Commissioner J Balaji said.
Goalpara district administration sources said 94 relief camps have been set up by the district administration and more than 90,000 people have taken shelter in them.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday called up Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to take stock of the flood situation in the state. Gogoi apprised him about the slew of steps initiated by the state government to rescue the marooned people in the flood-hit areas. He also asked the home minister to raise the ex-gratia amount to the next of kin of those who died and sustained injuries and enhanced central assistance for damaged houses and crop land.
Assam Agriculture Minister Nilamoni Sen Deka and Forest Minister Rakibul Hussain have been deputed by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to review the prevailing situation in the district and coordinate the relief and rescue operations, an official spokesman said.
The ministers have announced that the state government would provide ex-gratia payment of Rs 3.5 lakh to the next of kin of those who lost their lives in the current floods.
In Kamrup (rural) rescue operations were on and the situation was improving gradually with no rains since Tuesday. Balaji said road communication between Nagarberra and Hekra was affected as a concrete bridge was washed away on Tuesday.
Traffic along NH 37 has resumed but they were moving very slowly as several parts of it are still submerged, he added.
Situation in Guwahati, which falls in Kamrup (metro) district, was improving slowly though the severely affected areas of Anil Nagar, Nabin Nagar, Tarun Nagar, Rajgarh besides Zoo Road in the heart of the city are still under water, a spokesman of the district administration said.
Flood water from neighbouring Meghalaya inundated Betkuchi, Bashishta Chariali, Katahbari and Gorchuk localities of Guwahati along NH 37, the spokesman said.
All government and private educational institutions in and around the city remained closed for the third consecutive day on Wednesday.
In Kamrup (metro), five people have died so far while in Dhubri district a child was killed by landslide at Hatisinghmari on September 22.
A population of nearly four lakh have been affected in 12 districts by the current wave of flood which has inundated 415 villages and nearly 9,000 hectares of crop area, a Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) release said.
The affected districts are Goalpara, Kamrup Metro, Kamrup Rural, Dhemaji, Barpeta, Udalguri, Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Nalbari, Morigaon, Sonitpur, Darrang and Lakhimpur.
Alliance Air would resume flights to five north-eastern cities, including Guwahati, with immediate effect, as the North-Eastern Council (NEC) has decided to fund the viability gap for these operations.
A memorandum of understanding to this effect was today signed in the presence of Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and DoNER Minister Gen V K Singh, under which the Air India subsidiary would provide air services to Shillong, Tezpur, Lilabari, Silchar and Guwahati with turbo-prop ATR-42 aircraft till March 2016.
Alliance Air chief Anil Mehta, who signed the agreement with the Ministry, told PTI that services have already been launched on some routes and all the five stations would be connected with immediate effect.
Under the viability gap funding (VGF) arrangement, NEC would assist Alliance Air in obtaining concessions on jet fuel, landing, Route Navigation Facility charges and other costs. VGF is essentially to meet the gap between the actual cost of operations and the revenue earned from the flights.
The cost of operations would be reviewed every three months based on the proposed cost and VGF amount would be determined accordingly, an Air India spokesperson said.
The airline has been operating flights to the North-East since January 2003 under the VGF system. Till the end of 2012, it was operating 65 flights each week in the region.
From January 2013, due to outstanding VGF, the airline restructured its ATR operations in the North-East and discontinued these services on certain routes.
However, it continued operations between Kolkata-Silchar, Kolkata-Guwahati and Silchar-Imphal with ATR aircraft. In July 2013, it also restored five times weekly flights on the Kolkata-Shillong route.
Besides the ATR flights, Air India has been operating flights in the North-East with its Airbus family aircraft between Kolkata and Silchar, Dimapur, Dibrugarh, Aizawl, Imphal, Agartala and Guwahati, besides the Delhi-Guwahati route.
Scottish National Party gets 11,000 new membership requests in the 75 hours following the referendum
Scottish pro-independence parties reported a surge in membership over the weekend as campaigners vowed to continue to fight after a split with the United Kingdom was rejected in a referendum.
The Scottish National Party said its servers were struggling to cope with 11,000 new membership requests in the 75 hours following the referendum on Thursday, when it had 25,600 members.
The SNP’s leader Alex Salmond announced he would step down as Scottish First Minister after 55% of voters rejected independence, and British Prime Minister David Cameron said the question had been settled for a lifetime.
However, supporters of independence vowed to continue the campaign on social media, many including the figure “45” in their profile pictures to represent the percentage that voted for the split.
“As a former Labour councillor of 15 years I have today joined the SNP,” wrote pro-independence aviation consultant John Baillie on Twitter, who was previously the Labour Party leader on South Ayrshire Council.
“On Friday I mainly felt angry, yesterday I just felt sad, today I joined the SNP. Never give up on what you believe in,” wrote @Kels450 yesterday.
The pro-independence Scottish Green Party said its membership had increased by 2,000 since Thursday.
The referendum campaign had seen a huge rise in engagement in politics, and voter turnout of 84.5% and over 90% in some areas broke previous records in Britain.
New Delhi:Narendra Modi “spoke like a Prime Minister” when he said that Indian Muslims would live and die for the country, but he should check the Sangh Parivar from promoting communal polarization to back his message of national unity, the CPI said on Monday.
It is good that he (Modi) spoke like a Prime Minister. But his words should translate into action as the Sangh Parivar have been raising issues of religious divide and so-called ‘love jihad’ to create tension.
“There is a big campaign unleashed by the RSS-BJP. The Prime Minister should restrain these forces,” CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy told a press conference in New Delhi. He claimed that even BJP President Amit Shah has made certain statements in the past to “provoke tensions” while the Sangh Parivar have been “intensifying their offensive for communal polarisation through hate campaigns”.
“The Indian Right has become brazen and aggressive (enough) to use the state apparatus to push through its agenda. The change in rhetoric and demagogy does not hide the sinister designs of the BJP-led rule,” charged the senior CPI leader.
On Modi’s upcoming visit to the US, Reddy said the government should tread “carefully” during negotiations and “not fall into the American trap” of furthering the strategic partnership under which Washington may try to sell India old nuclear reactors which have not been in use for two decades.
“In the name of helping India’s power sector, the US will try to push India into accepting such reactors. We don’t know yet as to what is on the agenda for the defence sector. Our experience with the US has not been good,” he said.
CPI National Secretary D Raja said the US has been pressuring India to dilute the provisions of the nuclear liability law, which would benefit American companies to the detriment of Indian interests.
PTI
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MUMBAI: Shiv Sena today made it clear that it won’t make any more concession for BJP, offering to cede it only 119 out of the total 288 seats in Maharashtra Assembly for the next month’s polls, and said this was “the final attempt” to break the logjam over seat-sharing.
Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray also reminded Prime Minister Narendra Modi that late Sena supremo Bal Thackeray had backed him in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots.
“Today I am making a final attempt to ensure that the Mahayuti (grand alliance of opposition parties) stays intact. Sena had initially asked for 160 seats. But now we are ready to part with nine seats. Shiv Sena will fight on 151 seats, leaving 119 seats for BJP. The remaining 18 seats will be given to our allies,” he said.
“I cannot go any further,” said Thackeray, who addressed his party workers this morning after a meeting of the party’s state executive.
“Maharashtra will be the number one state in the country if Sena comes to power. I want power and I will take it at any cost. But this power is to give Maharashtra something and not to take away, like other parties do,” he said.
“Everyone knows how terrible the situation was when the Godhra riots took place. Everyone was saying that Modi should be immediately removed from the Gujarat CM’s post. At that time, it was only Balasaheb who told LK Advani that Modi should stay on as he pursues the Hindutva ideology,” he said.
Thackeray said that state BJP chief Devendra Fadanvis met him last night and proposed that Sena should contest 140 seats while BJP should get 130 (the rest going to smaller allies of Mahayuti). However, he couldn’t accept this as it would frustrate the aspirations of many Sena candidates, he said.
Reacting to senior state BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar’s allegation that the Sena did not support BJP in the last two Presidential elections, Thackeray said he was “proud” of the decisions then.
“BJP said we did not support them during the Presidential election by backing Pratibha Patil. But we backed her as she would be the first President from Maharashtra. We also backed Pranab Mukherjee as P A Sangma was not from NDA. He was originally an NCP leader,” he said.
Just as Sena did not play a spoilsport in BJP’s “Mission 272′ in the Lok Sabha polls, BJP should now respect Sena’s `Mission 150′ for the Maharashtra polls, he said.
“There are Shiv Sena workers in UP, Rajasthan and MP as well. They all wanted to fight elections saying they have been with Sena for long and thus deserve a chance. But we didn’t let them contest (against BJP/NDA candidates). Now it is Shiv Sena’s turn. It is our mission to send at least 150 MLAs to the Vidhan Sabha. BJP should consider this,” he said.
“I feel from the bottom of my heart that the alliance should stay as this alliance is not for the Chief Minister’s post but for Hindutva. But whatever happens will be my destiny. We are ready to contest all the seats,” the Sena chief said.
Delhi government has invited applications for scholarship and reimbursement of half of the tuition fee for socially and economically backward students in non-technical professional courses in universities of Delhi for the current academic year.
The Delhi Higher Education Aid Trust of Directorate of Higher Education has asked the eligible socially and economically backward students studying in different universities of the capital to apply for the scholarship under the ‘Yuva Nirman Scheme’.
In 2009-10, an amount of Rs 3,36,750 was disbursed to 15 students, in 2010-11, Rs 1,72,250 to 8 students, in 2011-12 Rs 2,02,400 to 7 students and in 2012-13 Rs 6,97,450 to 27 students as a part of the scheme.
The concerned university or institute have been directed to constitute a Committee of at least three officers at their own level to scrutinise the applications and to forward the same with their recommendation to the Director, Directorate of Higher Education along with the requisite attested documents.
Jitu Rai celebrates with his coach Mohinder Lal after winning the Gold Medal in the final of the 50m Pistol Men at the Ongnyeon International Shooting Range for the 17th Asian Games in Incheon.
Fresh from his 50m Pistol silver in the World Championships, the Lucknow-based shooter completed a grand double as he had won a gold in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow earlier this year.
Jitu Rai, who serves the Gurkha regiment, was on target from the word go after moving into the finals even as compatriot Omkar Singh failed to cross the qualification hurdle.
In the finals though, Rai was tested by Vietnam’s Nguyen Hoang Phuong, who had to settle for silver and bronze medallist Wang Zhiwei of China.
Rai accumulated 186.2 points in comparison to Phuong’s 183.4 and Zhiwei stood a distant third with 165.6 points. This was India’s second medal at the ongoing Games after Shweta Chaudhry’s bronze in the 10m air pistol event.
PANAJI: The Goa tourism department here said that it is open to tie up with Bollywood films that are shot in Goa, in order to target NRI tourists.
State tourism director Amey Abhyankar said that initiatives to tie up with films depicting beauty of Goa can result in the increased footfalls of the NRIs.
“NRIs are large communities outside country and our films have large fan following there. We might be surprised to see large number of NRIs coming in after watching Goa in the films,” Abhyankar, told PTI yesterday.
Goa tourism department has tied up with latest Bollywood release of Deepika Padakone, Arjun Kapoor starrer ‘Finding Fanny’.
The film, which is in both Hindi and English, has a potential international audience and Goa has been extensively showcased in it.
“Films definitely have spill over on tourism. State has single window system to make film shootings more convenient. We will be open to such ventures in near future,” Abhyankar added.
He said the film has explored areas which tourists might not have seen during their visit to Goa.
“You get to see glimpses of different parts of Goa (in the film). These are places which a person who has been before might not have seen,” he said.
Congress today deliberated on selection of candidates for 174 seats in Maharashtra, which it had contested in the last assembly polls, with no seat arrangement still decided with Sharad Pawar’s NCP for the October 15 vote.
State Congress chief Manikrao Thakre said that it was for the high command to decide on the issue of seat sharing with NCP.
In the last Assembly elections, Congress had contested 174 seats while the NCP had fought in 114 seats in the 288 member Maharashtra Assembly.
This time, the NCP is pitching for as many as 144 seats contending that the two parties should share 50:50 share in the wake of in the results in the Lok Sabha polls.
In the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress could secure only two seats while NCP had won four out of total 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Thakre evaded questions on whether Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan will be contesting the polls and, if yes, from which constituency.
Chavan had been saying that he will be contesting from Karad South seat in his home district of Satara.
Currently, he is a member of the state legislative council.
The development came as the process of filing nominations for the October 15 election to the state Assembly began today with authorities issuing the poll notification.
Maharashtra’s over 8.28 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the single-phase election for its 13th assembly.
September 27 is the deadline for filing nomination. After scrutiny of papers, the last date for withdrawal of nominations is October 1. Counting of votes will take place on October 19. The existing assembly’s term expires on November 8.
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