Feds Seize Cocaine Jesus
Man busted after dog sniffs drug in statue at Texas border crossing
MAY 29--Meet Cocaine Jesus. Federal agents last week arrested a Mexican national for allegedly paying a woman to smuggle into the U.S. a statue that was made of a dried cocaine paste. The carefully painted religious icon, pictured below, weighed about six pounds and would have had a street value of about $30,000. The statue was confiscated at a Texas border crossing after a drug-sniffing dog alerted to it during an inspection of a vehicle driven by a Mexican woman. The woman later told agents that she was paid $80 by a man who wanted the statue delivered to him at a Laredo bus station. The man, Bernardino Garcia-Cordova, was arrested when the apparently unwitting female mule identified him for investigators, according to a felony cocaine distribution complaint filed May 27 in U.S. District Court in Laredo. When questioned by agents, the 61-year-old Garcia-Cordova, who is a legal permanent U.S. resident, initially acknowledged that Cocaine Jesus was his, but then claimed he was only helping to smuggle the statue on the behalf of a man known only by the nickname "La Arana," or The Spider. Cocaine Jesus, he claimed, was supposed to be delivered to The Spider in Dallas. (3 pages)
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Pakistani Bomb Scientist Dr. A.Q. Khan: people who were supposed to know knew i
ABC Exclusive: Pakistani Bomb Scientist Breaks Silence
Dr. A.Q. Khan Gives His First Interview to an American Journalist Since Being Placed Under House Arrest in 2004
By BRIAN ROSS
May 30, 2008
Pakistani scientist now says he did not sell knowledge to N. Korea and Iran.
The Pakistani scientist blamed for running a rogue network that sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya has recanted his confession, telling ABC News the Pakistani government and President Perez Musharraf forced him to be a "scapegoat" for the "national interest."
"I don't stand by that," Dr. A.Q. Khan told ABC News in a 35-minute phone interview from his home in Islamabad, where he has been detained since "confessing" that he ran the nuclear network on his own, without the knowledge of the Pakistani government. The interview will be broadcast Friday on "World News With Charles Gibson."
It was his first interview with an American journalist in a series of telephone interviews he has granted this week, marking the 10th anniversary of Pakistan's first test of a nuclear bomb.
"People were asking a lot of questions, so I said, 'OK. Let me give an answer,'" Khan told ABC News early Friday, Pakistan time.
As to his widely publicized confession, Khan said he was told by Musharraf that it would get the United States "off our backs" and that he was promised he would be quickly pardoned. "Those people who were supposed to know knew it," Khan said about his activities.
If true, it would mean Pakistan lied to the U.S. and the international community about its role in providing nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
A spokesman for the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington, D.C. said today the government there hasn't changed its views on Khan despite the claims he makes in the interview, "The government of Pakistan has adequately investigated allegations of nuclear proliferation and considers the AQK affair closed," said a statement from the embassy to ABC News.
A U.S. official said American investigators were also unconvinced of Khan's latest claims. "We have not changed our assessment that A.Q. Khan was a very major and dangerous proliferator. He sold sensitive nuclear equipment and know-how to some genuinely bad actors," the official said.
Khan admitted in the ABC News interview that he had twice traveled to North Korea but denied ever going to Iran or Libya.
Khan said the North Korean nuclear weapons program was "well-advanced" before he arrived, as part of an officially sanctioned trip by his government.
As to Iran, he said he believed it would be a "long time" before that country would be able to test a nuclear weapon.
Dr. A.Q. Khan Gives His First Interview to an American Journalist Since Being Placed Under House Arrest in 2004
By BRIAN ROSS
May 30, 2008
Pakistani scientist now says he did not sell knowledge to N. Korea and Iran.
The Pakistani scientist blamed for running a rogue network that sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya has recanted his confession, telling ABC News the Pakistani government and President Perez Musharraf forced him to be a "scapegoat" for the "national interest."
"I don't stand by that," Dr. A.Q. Khan told ABC News in a 35-minute phone interview from his home in Islamabad, where he has been detained since "confessing" that he ran the nuclear network on his own, without the knowledge of the Pakistani government. The interview will be broadcast Friday on "World News With Charles Gibson."
It was his first interview with an American journalist in a series of telephone interviews he has granted this week, marking the 10th anniversary of Pakistan's first test of a nuclear bomb.
"People were asking a lot of questions, so I said, 'OK. Let me give an answer,'" Khan told ABC News early Friday, Pakistan time.
As to his widely publicized confession, Khan said he was told by Musharraf that it would get the United States "off our backs" and that he was promised he would be quickly pardoned. "Those people who were supposed to know knew it," Khan said about his activities.
If true, it would mean Pakistan lied to the U.S. and the international community about its role in providing nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
A spokesman for the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington, D.C. said today the government there hasn't changed its views on Khan despite the claims he makes in the interview, "The government of Pakistan has adequately investigated allegations of nuclear proliferation and considers the AQK affair closed," said a statement from the embassy to ABC News.
A U.S. official said American investigators were also unconvinced of Khan's latest claims. "We have not changed our assessment that A.Q. Khan was a very major and dangerous proliferator. He sold sensitive nuclear equipment and know-how to some genuinely bad actors," the official said.
Khan admitted in the ABC News interview that he had twice traveled to North Korea but denied ever going to Iran or Libya.
Khan said the North Korean nuclear weapons program was "well-advanced" before he arrived, as part of an officially sanctioned trip by his government.
As to Iran, he said he believed it would be a "long time" before that country would be able to test a nuclear weapon.
Sabarimala flame is man made, admits priest
Friday, May 30, 2008
Sabarimala flame is man made, admits priest
Thiruvananthapuram: After a crackdown on fake godmen now the Left Front government is planning to unravel the mystery behind the celestial light at the hill shrine of Sabarimala. For the first time it admitted that the divine light is a man-made phenomenon, not a miracle.
Temple supreme priest Kandararu Mahewararu was the first to make the confession that there was nothing godly behind the mystery flame that flickers thrice on the Makara Sankranti (Makaram first) day every year sending million of devotees into frenzy.
State Temple Affairs Minister G. Sudhakaran and the Travanore Devasom Board (TDB), which manages the affairs of temple, backed the priest’s contention.
Known as ‘Makara Vilakku’ the light blinks thrice at the forest on top of the Ponnambalamedu, some distance away from the hill temple, on the evening of Makara Sankranti when the three-month seasonal pilgrimage touches its peak. Millions of devotees converge at the hilltop to witness the celestial light.
Though the government and TDB disowned the divine light, former TDB chief Raman Nair claimed that the police and the TDB officials jointly light the fire on the orders of the state government. Now rationalists and others have asked the government to tender an apology for “deceiving million of devotees for years together.” Rationalists had claimed for years that the light was lit by TDB officials.
© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.
Sabarimala flame is man made, admits priest
Thiruvananthapuram: After a crackdown on fake godmen now the Left Front government is planning to unravel the mystery behind the celestial light at the hill shrine of Sabarimala. For the first time it admitted that the divine light is a man-made phenomenon, not a miracle.
Temple supreme priest Kandararu Mahewararu was the first to make the confession that there was nothing godly behind the mystery flame that flickers thrice on the Makara Sankranti (Makaram first) day every year sending million of devotees into frenzy.
State Temple Affairs Minister G. Sudhakaran and the Travanore Devasom Board (TDB), which manages the affairs of temple, backed the priest’s contention.
Known as ‘Makara Vilakku’ the light blinks thrice at the forest on top of the Ponnambalamedu, some distance away from the hill temple, on the evening of Makara Sankranti when the three-month seasonal pilgrimage touches its peak. Millions of devotees converge at the hilltop to witness the celestial light.
Though the government and TDB disowned the divine light, former TDB chief Raman Nair claimed that the police and the TDB officials jointly light the fire on the orders of the state government. Now rationalists and others have asked the government to tender an apology for “deceiving million of devotees for years together.” Rationalists had claimed for years that the light was lit by TDB officials.
© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Stonehenge: Monument of Death?
Ned Potter reports that Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project head, Mike Parker Pearson claims the Stonehenge to be Part of Vast Religious Complex. The archaeologists think that Stones Celebrated Death while the Wood Circle nearby celebrated Life. The 4,500 years old English rock formation would most probably a graveyard.
Parker Pearson and other scientists were excavating the site for the last eight years. Stonehenge was built by Neolithic people in Britain. The archaeologists have discovered evidence of a primitive town two miles away from the circle of Stonehenge.This small township was remarkably large for 2,500 B.C. big enough for more than a thousand people. There were also signs of a second circle made of wood. The two great circles were so close to each other, not far from the river Avon in southern England.
"The two circles have very profound architectural similarities, even if they're made out of different materials," said Julian Thomas of the University of Manchester, who has been working with Parker Pearson.
Parker Pearson thinks that the wooden circle could be a celebration of life and perhaps fertility, while Stonehenge would have been a monument to death or the afterlife. The scientists are of the opinion that the wood and stone structures reflect what materials meant to peoples' lives in those days.
Parkinson said, "Wood is something that doesn't last forever, just as our own lives won't last forever. But stone, that's going to be there for eternity."
Cremated remains of some 240 people have been found in the last 75 years at Stonehenge.
Parker Pearson and other scientists were excavating the site for the last eight years. Stonehenge was built by Neolithic people in Britain. The archaeologists have discovered evidence of a primitive town two miles away from the circle of Stonehenge.This small township was remarkably large for 2,500 B.C. big enough for more than a thousand people. There were also signs of a second circle made of wood. The two great circles were so close to each other, not far from the river Avon in southern England.
"The two circles have very profound architectural similarities, even if they're made out of different materials," said Julian Thomas of the University of Manchester, who has been working with Parker Pearson.
Parker Pearson thinks that the wooden circle could be a celebration of life and perhaps fertility, while Stonehenge would have been a monument to death or the afterlife. The scientists are of the opinion that the wood and stone structures reflect what materials meant to peoples' lives in those days.
Parkinson said, "Wood is something that doesn't last forever, just as our own lives won't last forever. But stone, that's going to be there for eternity."
Cremated remains of some 240 people have been found in the last 75 years at Stonehenge.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Apex court stays proceeding against Uttar Pradesh judge
Apex court stays proceeding against Uttar Pradesh judge
Wed, May 28 10:17 PM
New Delhi, May 28 (IANS) The Supreme Court Wednesday halted a contempt of court proceeding against a judge of Uttar Pradesh lower judiciary at the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.
While halting the contempt proceedings against Senior Civil Judge Amarjit Varma, a vacation bench comprising Justices C.K. Thakkar and L.S. Panta also issued notice to the registrar general of the high court, asking him to explain why the proceedings against the judge should not be quashed.
A Lucknow-based senior advocate, Prashant Chandra had allegedly managed to have initiated the contempt of court proceedings at the high court on the grounds that the civil judge had not disposed of a lawsuit he had filed within three months as per a high court direction.
Appearing for Varma, advocate Anoop George Chaudhary pointed out to the apex court that Chandra had managed initiation of contempt proceedings of criminal nature against the judge without mandatory permission from the state's advocate general.
The apex court stayed the contempt proceedings after Chaudhary pointed out to it the lack of this important procedural step for initiating criminal contempt of court proceedings against a judge.
Chaudhary told the apex court that Chandra earlier had moved the court of Civil Judge Varma challenging the suspension of his membership from the city's prestigious Golf Club.
Varma, however, dismissed his civil suit, finding it devoid of merit.
At this, Chandra moved the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, challenging Varma's order. The high court, in turn, remitted the matter back to the civil judge, directing him to possibly dispose the matter within three months.
But Judge Varma could not dispose it within the stipulated period.
At this, Chandra again moved the high court, seeking initiation of a civil contempt proceeding against the judge. But the high court dismissed the plea.
At this Chandra moved the high court yet again, this time for initiation of criminal contempt of court proceedings against the judge.
This time around he allegedly also concealed the fact that he had already earlier moved the high court against the civil judge for civil contempt proceedings.
A person is liable to face civil contempt of court proceeding for his inadvertent lapse in obeying the court order, while a person deliberately disobeying a court order is liable to face criminal contempt to court charges.
Wed, May 28 10:17 PM
New Delhi, May 28 (IANS) The Supreme Court Wednesday halted a contempt of court proceeding against a judge of Uttar Pradesh lower judiciary at the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.
While halting the contempt proceedings against Senior Civil Judge Amarjit Varma, a vacation bench comprising Justices C.K. Thakkar and L.S. Panta also issued notice to the registrar general of the high court, asking him to explain why the proceedings against the judge should not be quashed.
A Lucknow-based senior advocate, Prashant Chandra had allegedly managed to have initiated the contempt of court proceedings at the high court on the grounds that the civil judge had not disposed of a lawsuit he had filed within three months as per a high court direction.
Appearing for Varma, advocate Anoop George Chaudhary pointed out to the apex court that Chandra had managed initiation of contempt proceedings of criminal nature against the judge without mandatory permission from the state's advocate general.
The apex court stayed the contempt proceedings after Chaudhary pointed out to it the lack of this important procedural step for initiating criminal contempt of court proceedings against a judge.
Chaudhary told the apex court that Chandra earlier had moved the court of Civil Judge Varma challenging the suspension of his membership from the city's prestigious Golf Club.
Varma, however, dismissed his civil suit, finding it devoid of merit.
At this, Chandra moved the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, challenging Varma's order. The high court, in turn, remitted the matter back to the civil judge, directing him to possibly dispose the matter within three months.
But Judge Varma could not dispose it within the stipulated period.
At this, Chandra again moved the high court, seeking initiation of a civil contempt proceeding against the judge. But the high court dismissed the plea.
At this Chandra moved the high court yet again, this time for initiation of criminal contempt of court proceedings against the judge.
This time around he allegedly also concealed the fact that he had already earlier moved the high court against the civil judge for civil contempt proceedings.
A person is liable to face civil contempt of court proceeding for his inadvertent lapse in obeying the court order, while a person deliberately disobeying a court order is liable to face criminal contempt to court charges.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
How a Thriving Social Life Can Boost Lifespan
How a Thriving Social Life Can Boost Lifespan
By LINDA GEDDES
May 27, 2008
They say you are only as old as the woman (or man) you feel – now we might be closer to understanding why.
dating
Teen dating can be tough when there are allergies to contend with.
(Ebby May/Riser/Getty Images)
It has been suggested that humans and other vertebrates live longer if they have more social interactions, and now this has been verified – in fruit flies.
Chun-Fang Wu and Hongyu Ruan at the University of Iowa in Iowa City studied fruit flies with a genetic mutation that reduces their lifespan by interfering with an enzyme that mops up dangerous free radicals.
The same enzyme is implicated in age-related diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in humans.
Mutant flies that shared a home with younger flies, or non-mutants, lived longer and were more mobile than those sharing a home with similar-aged flies. They were also more resistant to the effects of extreme physical exertion, heat and oxidative stress.
Impairing the movement or activity of younger flies reduced this effect, suggesting that social interaction with the younger flies through courtship, aggression, or grooming, plays a key role in increasing the lifespan of the older flies. "Social activity is the key," says Wu.
Keeping the flies in the dark, so they could not see each other, also reduced the effect.
The next step is to unravel how these social interactions override the mutant gene at the molecular level. In doing so, Wu hopes to understand how similar interactions could benefit ageing humans.
"This study shows that the lifespan of these flies is plastic and can be conditioned by social interactions, corroborating the notion that human patients of certain age-dependant neurological diseases may be benefited by an appropriate social environment," he says.
However, Wu has studied several genes that influence lifespan in fruit flies, and not all of them can be overridden by social interaction, he says.
Provided by NewScientist.com news service © Reed Business Information
By LINDA GEDDES
May 27, 2008
They say you are only as old as the woman (or man) you feel – now we might be closer to understanding why.
dating
Teen dating can be tough when there are allergies to contend with.
(Ebby May/Riser/Getty Images)
It has been suggested that humans and other vertebrates live longer if they have more social interactions, and now this has been verified – in fruit flies.
Chun-Fang Wu and Hongyu Ruan at the University of Iowa in Iowa City studied fruit flies with a genetic mutation that reduces their lifespan by interfering with an enzyme that mops up dangerous free radicals.
The same enzyme is implicated in age-related diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in humans.
Mutant flies that shared a home with younger flies, or non-mutants, lived longer and were more mobile than those sharing a home with similar-aged flies. They were also more resistant to the effects of extreme physical exertion, heat and oxidative stress.
Impairing the movement or activity of younger flies reduced this effect, suggesting that social interaction with the younger flies through courtship, aggression, or grooming, plays a key role in increasing the lifespan of the older flies. "Social activity is the key," says Wu.
Keeping the flies in the dark, so they could not see each other, also reduced the effect.
The next step is to unravel how these social interactions override the mutant gene at the molecular level. In doing so, Wu hopes to understand how similar interactions could benefit ageing humans.
"This study shows that the lifespan of these flies is plastic and can be conditioned by social interactions, corroborating the notion that human patients of certain age-dependant neurological diseases may be benefited by an appropriate social environment," he says.
However, Wu has studied several genes that influence lifespan in fruit flies, and not all of them can be overridden by social interaction, he says.
Provided by NewScientist.com news service © Reed Business Information
Delhi Municipal body fined for flooded streets
Blue Star
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Delhi Municipal body fined for flooded streets
New Delhi: In a first of its kind order against a civic agency, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on Tuesday slapped a fine of Rs 25 lakh on the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for failing to prevent water logging on Delhi’s streets recently during the rain.
Taking cognisance of a series of recent reports in the Hindustan Times, the Commission expressed anger over the fact that every year the MCD “makes tall claims” of cleaning the drains spending crores of rupees. But one heavy downpour was enough to cause water logging and commuters were put to immense hardship with traffic coming to a grinding halt as experienced during the recent rain.
Bringing every citizen under the definition of “consumer” for the first time, a bench of Commission president Justice J.D. Kapoor and member Rumnitta Mittal said “the public is getting services like road, electricity and water after paying tax and therefore they are liable to be compensated for any loss, injury or mental agony owing to deficiency of service”.
The order came on a petition filed by a group of residents of Chittaranjan Park seeking an intervention to put an end to the civic agencies’ “callousness”.
Reacting to the report ‘It is money down the drain-roads clogged as MCD fails in its promise to clear drains’ and ‘Delhi roads cope with traffic nightmare’ in HT dated May 22, 2008, Justice Kapoor said, “We feel constrained to observe that year after year MCD makes tall claims of de-silting of drains but the rain god proves their claim hollow every time”.
“We find the MCD guilty of extreme deficiency of service in not discharging its obligatory functions as a result of which the city is crippled and life paralysed every time it rains,” he said.
© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Delhi Municipal body fined for flooded streets
New Delhi: In a first of its kind order against a civic agency, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on Tuesday slapped a fine of Rs 25 lakh on the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for failing to prevent water logging on Delhi’s streets recently during the rain.
Taking cognisance of a series of recent reports in the Hindustan Times, the Commission expressed anger over the fact that every year the MCD “makes tall claims” of cleaning the drains spending crores of rupees. But one heavy downpour was enough to cause water logging and commuters were put to immense hardship with traffic coming to a grinding halt as experienced during the recent rain.
Bringing every citizen under the definition of “consumer” for the first time, a bench of Commission president Justice J.D. Kapoor and member Rumnitta Mittal said “the public is getting services like road, electricity and water after paying tax and therefore they are liable to be compensated for any loss, injury or mental agony owing to deficiency of service”.
The order came on a petition filed by a group of residents of Chittaranjan Park seeking an intervention to put an end to the civic agencies’ “callousness”.
Reacting to the report ‘It is money down the drain-roads clogged as MCD fails in its promise to clear drains’ and ‘Delhi roads cope with traffic nightmare’ in HT dated May 22, 2008, Justice Kapoor said, “We feel constrained to observe that year after year MCD makes tall claims of de-silting of drains but the rain god proves their claim hollow every time”.
“We find the MCD guilty of extreme deficiency of service in not discharging its obligatory functions as a result of which the city is crippled and life paralysed every time it rains,” he said.
© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.
King Gyanendra must leave palace: Nepal govt
King Gyanendra must leave palace: Nepal govt
27 May 2008, 1126 hrs IST,REUTERS
KATHMANDU: The Nepali government warned on Tuesday that it could use force to throw unpopular King Gyanendra out of the royal palace if he refuses to leave voluntarily after the 239-year-old monarchy is abolished.
A special assembly elected in April is scheduled to hold its first meeting on Wednesday and formally declare an end to the monarchy, a key part of a 2006 peace deal with Maoist former rebels that ended a decade-long civil war.
"The king must leave the palace immediately and move to the Nirmal Niwas," Peace and Reconstruction Minister Ram Chandra Poudel said, referring to Gyanendra's private home.
"If he does not leave the palace then the government might have to use force to vacate the palace," he said. "This will not be good for him."
There was no immediate comment from the palace. Many Nepalis think that the king will quietly go after the assembly vote. Gyanendra has been living in the Narayanhity royal palace in the heart of Kathmandu since ascending the throne in 2001, but he has made no public statement over his plans.
The government has banned demonstrations around major royal sites and the assembly. But Maoists and other main political parties say they are going to take to the streets on Wednesday to celebrate the monarchy's end.
The government that includes the Maoists took over control of the royal palace after Gyanendra was forced to end his absolute rule following weeks of street protests in 2006.
Anti-monarchy Maoists emerged as the largest party in elections to the 601-member assembly in April.
Authorities posted more police outside the International Convention Centre, the venue of Wednesday's assembly meeting, after a pro-Hindu militant group set off two small bombs outside the building, officials said.
Monday's blasts did not cause any injuries but raised security concerns ahead of the historic meet.
27 May 2008, 1126 hrs IST,REUTERS
KATHMANDU: The Nepali government warned on Tuesday that it could use force to throw unpopular King Gyanendra out of the royal palace if he refuses to leave voluntarily after the 239-year-old monarchy is abolished.
A special assembly elected in April is scheduled to hold its first meeting on Wednesday and formally declare an end to the monarchy, a key part of a 2006 peace deal with Maoist former rebels that ended a decade-long civil war.
"The king must leave the palace immediately and move to the Nirmal Niwas," Peace and Reconstruction Minister Ram Chandra Poudel said, referring to Gyanendra's private home.
"If he does not leave the palace then the government might have to use force to vacate the palace," he said. "This will not be good for him."
There was no immediate comment from the palace. Many Nepalis think that the king will quietly go after the assembly vote. Gyanendra has been living in the Narayanhity royal palace in the heart of Kathmandu since ascending the throne in 2001, but he has made no public statement over his plans.
The government has banned demonstrations around major royal sites and the assembly. But Maoists and other main political parties say they are going to take to the streets on Wednesday to celebrate the monarchy's end.
The government that includes the Maoists took over control of the royal palace after Gyanendra was forced to end his absolute rule following weeks of street protests in 2006.
Anti-monarchy Maoists emerged as the largest party in elections to the 601-member assembly in April.
Authorities posted more police outside the International Convention Centre, the venue of Wednesday's assembly meeting, after a pro-Hindu militant group set off two small bombs outside the building, officials said.
Monday's blasts did not cause any injuries but raised security concerns ahead of the historic meet.
Twin Mix Up: Mistaken Woman Raised as a Twin
Hospital's Double Jeopardy for Twin Mix Up
Woman Raised as a Twin, While Real Twin Raised in Wrong Family
By DANIEL WOOLLS Associated Press Writer
MADRID, Spain May 27, 2008
Spanish twins who were separated at birth through a hospital error -- then reunited as adults through a fluke -- are suing for millions in damages, as is a third woman who grew up thinking, erroneously, that she was one of the twins, a lawyer said Tuesday.
The real twins finally met each other in 2001. The case has been working its way through the courts since 2004. A decision is expected soon on whether the three women deserve damages, said Sebastian Socorro Perdomo, a lawyer for one of the twins.
He would not release the names of any of the women, who are all 35 years old.
Socorro Perdomo said in an interview that his client is seeking $4.7 million from the government of the Canary Islands, where the error occurred in 1973 in the city of Las Palmas. The other two women are also suing, he said.
He said his client was taken out of her crib as her twin sister lay in one right next to her, mistakenly replaced by another baby girl, and ultimately raised by the family of that child.
Related
The other two girls were brought up in the mistaken belief they were twin sisters.
"It does not take a lot of effort to put yourself in the position of any of these people in order to understand the damage that has been done," Socorro Perdomo said.
Of the three, he said his client -- taken away from her twin sister and real family -- is the most devastated. "Since this discovery, her world has turned a bit upside down," he said.
"The first right of any child is the right to their own personal and family identity," he said. "In this case, that right has been violated."
The error emerged a generation later through a chance encounter at a clothing store in Las Palmas.
A friend of Socorro Perdomo's client worked in the shop. When a woman who was the spitting image of that client came in and failed to recognize the employee, the clerk was dumbfounded.
When the dead ringer came by the store a second time, the clerk began to put two and two together and arranged for the women to meet.
DNA tests proved they were identical twins, the lawyer said.
Woman Raised as a Twin, While Real Twin Raised in Wrong Family
By DANIEL WOOLLS Associated Press Writer
MADRID, Spain May 27, 2008
Spanish twins who were separated at birth through a hospital error -- then reunited as adults through a fluke -- are suing for millions in damages, as is a third woman who grew up thinking, erroneously, that she was one of the twins, a lawyer said Tuesday.
The real twins finally met each other in 2001. The case has been working its way through the courts since 2004. A decision is expected soon on whether the three women deserve damages, said Sebastian Socorro Perdomo, a lawyer for one of the twins.
He would not release the names of any of the women, who are all 35 years old.
Socorro Perdomo said in an interview that his client is seeking $4.7 million from the government of the Canary Islands, where the error occurred in 1973 in the city of Las Palmas. The other two women are also suing, he said.
He said his client was taken out of her crib as her twin sister lay in one right next to her, mistakenly replaced by another baby girl, and ultimately raised by the family of that child.
Related
The other two girls were brought up in the mistaken belief they were twin sisters.
"It does not take a lot of effort to put yourself in the position of any of these people in order to understand the damage that has been done," Socorro Perdomo said.
Of the three, he said his client -- taken away from her twin sister and real family -- is the most devastated. "Since this discovery, her world has turned a bit upside down," he said.
"The first right of any child is the right to their own personal and family identity," he said. "In this case, that right has been violated."
The error emerged a generation later through a chance encounter at a clothing store in Las Palmas.
A friend of Socorro Perdomo's client worked in the shop. When a woman who was the spitting image of that client came in and failed to recognize the employee, the clerk was dumbfounded.
When the dead ringer came by the store a second time, the clerk began to put two and two together and arranged for the women to meet.
DNA tests proved they were identical twins, the lawyer said.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Not allowed to watch TV, boy kills self
Not allowed to watch TV, boy kills self
26 May 2008, 0629 hrs IST,TNN
NEW DELHI: Addiction to television, failure to perform in examinations and father's scolding, the normal stuff in a child's life drove a 9-year-old to suicide in Budh Vihar in outer Delhi on Saturday evening.
The victim, Sanjeev Gupta, a resident of Harshved Park had failed in his class IV examinations in a government school where he studied.
According to the police, he suffered from severe myopia. The power of his spectacles in both eyes was -10. "First of all, he had failed in his examinations and then he had such weak eyes. To top it, he was watching TV from a very close distance and his father asked him to study instead. This started the entire argument," said a police official from Sultanpuri police station.
He added that the boy's father, Surinder Gupta, a junk dealer, scolded Sanjeev for performing so badly in his exams and watching TV from a close distance. When the father snatched the remote control from him, Sanjeev took the remote control back and switched on the TV on again. This angered Surinder, who slapped him twice and sent him to his room as a punishment, said a police official. "Sanjeev was so addicted to the TV that he had threatened his parents in the past that if he is not allowed to watch it, he would do something drastic," said a police official.
Later during the day, when Sanjeev's parents had gone out and his 14-year-old sister was taking a bath in the first floor bathroom, he got a rope and hung himself from the staircase railing in the house. His sister discovered his body and alerted her parents who rushed him to nearby Brahmashakti Hospital where he was declared brought dead. His body was later sent to Sanjay Gandhi hospital for a post-mortem.
toireporter@timesgroup.com
26 May 2008, 0629 hrs IST,TNN
NEW DELHI: Addiction to television, failure to perform in examinations and father's scolding, the normal stuff in a child's life drove a 9-year-old to suicide in Budh Vihar in outer Delhi on Saturday evening.
The victim, Sanjeev Gupta, a resident of Harshved Park had failed in his class IV examinations in a government school where he studied.
According to the police, he suffered from severe myopia. The power of his spectacles in both eyes was -10. "First of all, he had failed in his examinations and then he had such weak eyes. To top it, he was watching TV from a very close distance and his father asked him to study instead. This started the entire argument," said a police official from Sultanpuri police station.
He added that the boy's father, Surinder Gupta, a junk dealer, scolded Sanjeev for performing so badly in his exams and watching TV from a close distance. When the father snatched the remote control from him, Sanjeev took the remote control back and switched on the TV on again. This angered Surinder, who slapped him twice and sent him to his room as a punishment, said a police official. "Sanjeev was so addicted to the TV that he had threatened his parents in the past that if he is not allowed to watch it, he would do something drastic," said a police official.
Later during the day, when Sanjeev's parents had gone out and his 14-year-old sister was taking a bath in the first floor bathroom, he got a rope and hung himself from the staircase railing in the house. His sister discovered his body and alerted her parents who rushed him to nearby Brahmashakti Hospital where he was declared brought dead. His body was later sent to Sanjay Gandhi hospital for a post-mortem.
toireporter@timesgroup.com
Near-Death Experience: Velma Thomas comes back to life
Doctor Calls Near-Death Experience a 'Miracle'
Hospital Took Velma Thomas off Life Support -- Then She Woke Up
By GIGI STONE, TRACEY MARX and STEPHANIE DAHLE
May 24, 2008
Velma Thomas' heart stopped beating three times -- and her doctors thought she was dead.
Doctors took Velma Thomas off life support -- and then she woke up.
She was taken by ambulance to a local West Virginia hospital when her heart stopped after experiencing symptoms of a heart attack. For more than 17 hours, Thomas had no measurable brain waves, according to her doctors.
Doctors tried everything to save Thomas' life, even inducing hypothermia in an attempt to lower her body temperature and stimulate the brain.
Her family said their goodbyes and left her side at the hospital to make funeral plans.
But after medical staff took Thomas off life support, she miraculously came back to life.
"I said, 'God, just show me something,'" her nephew, Daniel Pence, told ABC News.
"There were really no signs she had neurological functions," Kevin Eggleston, an internist, told ABC News.
"There was no life there," her son, Tim Thomas, told the Charleston Daily Mail. "Her skin had already started hardening, her hands and toes were curling up."
Family Was Distraught but Hopeful
Family members made the difficult decision to take Thomas, 59, off life support.
"We just prayed and prayed and prayed," Tim Thomas told the Charleston Daily Mail, "and I came to the conclusion she wasn't going to make it. ... I felt a sense of peace that I made the right decision."
After their goodbyes, medical staff took Thomas off her respirator.
"There was no heart beat," Tim Thomas told the Daily Mail.
Family members left the hospital to make funeral arrangements.
That's when they say a miracle happened.
Ten minutes after the medical staff stopped the respirator -- while nurses were removing the tubing -- Velma Thomas woke up.
"She moved her arm, and we thought it was reflexes," Pence told ABC News.
Nurses hurried to call Tim Thomas, who was already a few miles away, on his cell phone.
They told him that his mother was moving and had a heart rate, Tim Thomas told the Daily Mail.
Velma Thomas had moved her arm and foot, then she coughed and moved her eyes. Amazingly, Thomas began speaking. By the time Tim Thomas arrived back at the hospital, his mother had already asked for him.
"She had already asked, 'Where's my son?'" he told the newspaper. "She was off everything."
Her doctors were baffled.
"There are things that physicians and nurses we can't always explain. And I think this is one of those cases," Eggleston told ABC News. (ABCNEWS)
Hospital Took Velma Thomas off Life Support -- Then She Woke Up
By GIGI STONE, TRACEY MARX and STEPHANIE DAHLE
May 24, 2008
Velma Thomas' heart stopped beating three times -- and her doctors thought she was dead.
Doctors took Velma Thomas off life support -- and then she woke up.
She was taken by ambulance to a local West Virginia hospital when her heart stopped after experiencing symptoms of a heart attack. For more than 17 hours, Thomas had no measurable brain waves, according to her doctors.
Doctors tried everything to save Thomas' life, even inducing hypothermia in an attempt to lower her body temperature and stimulate the brain.
Her family said their goodbyes and left her side at the hospital to make funeral plans.
But after medical staff took Thomas off life support, she miraculously came back to life.
"I said, 'God, just show me something,'" her nephew, Daniel Pence, told ABC News.
"There were really no signs she had neurological functions," Kevin Eggleston, an internist, told ABC News.
"There was no life there," her son, Tim Thomas, told the Charleston Daily Mail. "Her skin had already started hardening, her hands and toes were curling up."
Family Was Distraught but Hopeful
Family members made the difficult decision to take Thomas, 59, off life support.
"We just prayed and prayed and prayed," Tim Thomas told the Charleston Daily Mail, "and I came to the conclusion she wasn't going to make it. ... I felt a sense of peace that I made the right decision."
After their goodbyes, medical staff took Thomas off her respirator.
"There was no heart beat," Tim Thomas told the Daily Mail.
Family members left the hospital to make funeral arrangements.
That's when they say a miracle happened.
Ten minutes after the medical staff stopped the respirator -- while nurses were removing the tubing -- Velma Thomas woke up.
"She moved her arm, and we thought it was reflexes," Pence told ABC News.
Nurses hurried to call Tim Thomas, who was already a few miles away, on his cell phone.
They told him that his mother was moving and had a heart rate, Tim Thomas told the Daily Mail.
Velma Thomas had moved her arm and foot, then she coughed and moved her eyes. Amazingly, Thomas began speaking. By the time Tim Thomas arrived back at the hospital, his mother had already asked for him.
"She had already asked, 'Where's my son?'" he told the newspaper. "She was off everything."
Her doctors were baffled.
"There are things that physicians and nurses we can't always explain. And I think this is one of those cases," Eggleston told ABC News. (ABCNEWS)
Saturday, May 24, 2008
German Parents Post Baby on eBay for 1 Euro
German authorities take baby from parents who posted eBay ad offering to sell him for 1 euro
BERLIN May 24, 2008 (AP)
Authorities in southern Germany said Saturday they have taken custody of a 7-month-old boy after his parents posted an ad on eBay offering to sell him for one euro, the equivalent of $1.57.
Peter Hieber, a spokesman for police in the Bavarian town of Krumbach, said the baby was placed in the care of youth services in the southwestern Allgaeu region, although the child's 23-year-old mother insisted the ad was only a joke.
Authorities have launched an investigation into possible child trafficking against the baby's mother and 24-year-old father, neither of whom was identified.
"Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28 inches (70 cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller," police quoted the ad as reading.
No offers were made for the child in the two hours and 30 minutes the ad was posted on Tuesday. EBay later deleted the posting, but assisted police in tracking down the parents.
Several people who saw the ad alerted police.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
German authorities take baby from parents who posted eBay ad offering to sell him for 1 euro
BERLIN May 24, 2008 (AP)
Authorities in southern Germany said Saturday they have taken custody of a 7-month-old boy after his parents posted an ad on eBay offering to sell him for one euro, the equivalent of $1.57.
Peter Hieber, a spokesman for police in the Bavarian town of Krumbach, said the baby was placed in the care of youth services in the southwestern Allgaeu region, although the child's 23-year-old mother insisted the ad was only a joke.
Authorities have launched an investigation into possible child trafficking against the baby's mother and 24-year-old father, neither of whom was identified.
"Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28 inches (70 cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller," police quoted the ad as reading.
No offers were made for the child in the two hours and 30 minutes the ad was posted on Tuesday. EBay later deleted the posting, but assisted police in tracking down the parents.
Several people who saw the ad alerted police.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Appa Sherpa climbs Everest for record-breaking 18th time
'Super Sherpa' climbs Everest for record-breaking 18th time
22 May 2008, 1816 hrs IST,AFP
KATHMANDU: A 48-year-old Nepalese Sherpa broke his own world record on Thursday by conquering Mount Everest for a breathtaking eighteenth time.
Appa Sherpa, who hails from a village at the base of the world's highest peak, topped out in the early hours of the morning, the head of Nepal's Mountaineering Association said.
"Appa Sherpa summitted Everest at 5:45 am (0000 GMT) this morning. He has set the new world record as it is the eighteenth time he has got to the top," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.
"This is another proud moment for the whole mountaineering fraternity." Appa Sherpa, known as one of Nepal's "Super Sherpas" -- hardened local climbers with almost superhuman stamina -- was among 37 climbers taking advantage of the good weather to reach the summit Thursday morning. Twenty-seven others reached the peak Wednesday.
Appa's closest competition -- trailing at 15 ascents -- is 42-year-old Nepalese climber Chhewang Nima.
This spring's other aspiring recordbreakers include 75-year-old adventurer Yuichiro Miura of Japan and 77-year-old Nepalese Min Bahadur Sherchan, who are both vying to become the oldest person to conquer Everest.
Retired Japanese schoolteacher Katsusuke Yanagisawa, 71, set that record last year. The youngest climber was 15-year-old Nepalese Temba Chheri in 2001. Appa Sherpa bagged his first Everest summit in 1990, and has been making the climb into the "death zone" look like child's play ever since.
The communities living around the mountain are essential for commercial expeditions.
They lay out kilometres of ropes and prepare camps, and Appa Sherpa -- who started climbing in 1987 -- was quickly recognised as someone who foreign expeditions wanted on their team.
This year he reached the summit with the Eco Everest expedition, an international team aiming to highlight the effects of global warming in the Himalayas as well as test ecologically sound mountaineering practices.
"He wasn't planning on trying for another summit, but he joined the Eco Everest expedition as he wanted to raise awareness about melting glaciers and the fragility of the mountain environment," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.
Since it was first climbed in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the 8,848-metre (29,028-foot) mountain has been conquered more than 3,000 times.
Last year 557 people -- 254 via Nepal and 303 via Tibet -- reached the highest point on earth, which was a record.
The numbers are expected to be lower this year because of a climbing ban Nepal imposed up to May 11 to allow a protest-free path for the Chinese Olympic torch, which was carried up the northern approach to the mountain from Tibet.
22 May 2008, 1816 hrs IST,AFP
KATHMANDU: A 48-year-old Nepalese Sherpa broke his own world record on Thursday by conquering Mount Everest for a breathtaking eighteenth time.
Appa Sherpa, who hails from a village at the base of the world's highest peak, topped out in the early hours of the morning, the head of Nepal's Mountaineering Association said.
"Appa Sherpa summitted Everest at 5:45 am (0000 GMT) this morning. He has set the new world record as it is the eighteenth time he has got to the top," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.
"This is another proud moment for the whole mountaineering fraternity." Appa Sherpa, known as one of Nepal's "Super Sherpas" -- hardened local climbers with almost superhuman stamina -- was among 37 climbers taking advantage of the good weather to reach the summit Thursday morning. Twenty-seven others reached the peak Wednesday.
Appa's closest competition -- trailing at 15 ascents -- is 42-year-old Nepalese climber Chhewang Nima.
This spring's other aspiring recordbreakers include 75-year-old adventurer Yuichiro Miura of Japan and 77-year-old Nepalese Min Bahadur Sherchan, who are both vying to become the oldest person to conquer Everest.
Retired Japanese schoolteacher Katsusuke Yanagisawa, 71, set that record last year. The youngest climber was 15-year-old Nepalese Temba Chheri in 2001. Appa Sherpa bagged his first Everest summit in 1990, and has been making the climb into the "death zone" look like child's play ever since.
The communities living around the mountain are essential for commercial expeditions.
They lay out kilometres of ropes and prepare camps, and Appa Sherpa -- who started climbing in 1987 -- was quickly recognised as someone who foreign expeditions wanted on their team.
This year he reached the summit with the Eco Everest expedition, an international team aiming to highlight the effects of global warming in the Himalayas as well as test ecologically sound mountaineering practices.
"He wasn't planning on trying for another summit, but he joined the Eco Everest expedition as he wanted to raise awareness about melting glaciers and the fragility of the mountain environment," Ang Tsering Sherpa said.
Since it was first climbed in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the 8,848-metre (29,028-foot) mountain has been conquered more than 3,000 times.
Last year 557 people -- 254 via Nepal and 303 via Tibet -- reached the highest point on earth, which was a record.
The numbers are expected to be lower this year because of a climbing ban Nepal imposed up to May 11 to allow a protest-free path for the Chinese Olympic torch, which was carried up the northern approach to the mountain from Tibet.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Is Google a threat to consumer privacy.?
Michael Gottschalk/AFP/ writes:
Founded in 1998, Google runs the world’s most popular Internet search engine. For hundreds of millions of Web users, an online session starts at the Google search box. It’s a position that has given Google an outsize influence over anyone doing business on the Internet and that has allowed the company to build a hugely profitable and fast-growing online advertising system.
But Google’s ambition far exceeds the confines of Internet search and advertising. The company has an expansive interpretation of its already far-reaching corporate mission: to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. For that, Google has built a powerful network of data centers around the globe in hopes of, among other things, connecting users instantly with high-resolution satellite pictures of every corner of the earth and sky; making the entire text of books, in and out of print, available online; and becoming the leading distributor of online video through YouTube, which it acquired in 2006.
At the same time, Google has taken its advertising system offline, as it tries to capture portions of large ad markets in television, radio and newspapers. It is investing heavily in mobile phone technology to replicate its online success in the wireless world. And it has built an array of online software programs, including e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets that it hopes will become the building blocks of a new computing paradigm — one that, unlike the Microsoft-dominated PC world, will have Google at its center.
Google’s unbounded ambition, as well as what many critics say is a cavalier approach to copyrights, has put it at odds with a growing list of companies in industries ranging from Hollywood to book publishing and from telecommunications to e-commerce. And the company’s appetite for collecting vast amounts of data about its users and their online habits has prompted increasing fears that Google could become a threat to consumer privacy.
Google is known for the quirky corporate culture created by its billionaire co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, which includes a chaotic, campuslike atmosphere at its offices, where workers are pampered with free, chef-prepared food and other amenities. Part of that culture includes a principle that some critics believe will become harder for Google to uphold as it grows in size. That principle: Don’t be evil.-- Miguel Helft, Sept. 14, 2007
Founded in 1998, Google runs the world’s most popular Internet search engine. For hundreds of millions of Web users, an online session starts at the Google search box. It’s a position that has given Google an outsize influence over anyone doing business on the Internet and that has allowed the company to build a hugely profitable and fast-growing online advertising system.
But Google’s ambition far exceeds the confines of Internet search and advertising. The company has an expansive interpretation of its already far-reaching corporate mission: to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. For that, Google has built a powerful network of data centers around the globe in hopes of, among other things, connecting users instantly with high-resolution satellite pictures of every corner of the earth and sky; making the entire text of books, in and out of print, available online; and becoming the leading distributor of online video through YouTube, which it acquired in 2006.
At the same time, Google has taken its advertising system offline, as it tries to capture portions of large ad markets in television, radio and newspapers. It is investing heavily in mobile phone technology to replicate its online success in the wireless world. And it has built an array of online software programs, including e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets that it hopes will become the building blocks of a new computing paradigm — one that, unlike the Microsoft-dominated PC world, will have Google at its center.
Google’s unbounded ambition, as well as what many critics say is a cavalier approach to copyrights, has put it at odds with a growing list of companies in industries ranging from Hollywood to book publishing and from telecommunications to e-commerce. And the company’s appetite for collecting vast amounts of data about its users and their online habits has prompted increasing fears that Google could become a threat to consumer privacy.
Google is known for the quirky corporate culture created by its billionaire co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, which includes a chaotic, campuslike atmosphere at its offices, where workers are pampered with free, chef-prepared food and other amenities. Part of that culture includes a principle that some critics believe will become harder for Google to uphold as it grows in size. That principle: Don’t be evil.-- Miguel Helft, Sept. 14, 2007
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Anti-foreigner violence spreads in South Africa
Anti-foreigner violence spreads in South Africa
By Paul Simao Mon May 19, 3:57 AM ET
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A wave of xenophobic attacks spread through South African townships on Monday and mobs beat foreigners and set some ablaze in scenes reminiscent of apartheid era violence.
Two people were killed and more than two dozen shacks were torched in the Tembisa township near Johannesburg, the South African Broadcasting Corp. said. Police, struggling to restore order, said at least 13 people were killed over the weekend.
Immigrants from African neighbors are accused by many in the townships, among South Africa's poorest areas, of taking jobs and fuelling the high rate of violent crime. Local media report about 20 dead since trouble broke out a week ago.
The unrest is an embarrassment for a country that has vaunted its tolerance since the end of apartheid and an indicator of growing disaffection among South Africa's poor.
President Thabo Mbeki and ruling ANC party leader Jacob Zuma have called for an end to the violence, which threatens a new strain on an economy struggling with rising inflation, power outages and a skills shortage.
Hundreds of immigrants have taken refuge in police stations, churches and government offices.
"At the moment some of the people have been taken to the city hall as a place of safety, but some of them are still running around and do not know where to go," police spokesman Veli Nhlapo told SABC.
Police fired rubber bullets at gangs of youths, who patrolled unruly streets, armed with sticks, rocks and knives. Scores have been arrested in connection with the violence.
South African newspapers carried photos of a man who was set alight by a mob on the weekend. Callers to radio stations urged authorities to impose curfews and bring in the army to restore order in some of the most violent areas.
Among the immigrants are an estimated 3 million Zimbabweans who fled economic collapse at home. The immigrants say they more often the victims of crime than perpetrators.
The Zimbabweans, like others on the continent, have been lured by work in South Africa's mines, farms and homes, and by one of the world's most liberal immigration and refugee policies.
Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said the situation in the townships now amounted to a humanitarian crisis.
(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
By Paul Simao Mon May 19, 3:57 AM ET
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A wave of xenophobic attacks spread through South African townships on Monday and mobs beat foreigners and set some ablaze in scenes reminiscent of apartheid era violence.
Two people were killed and more than two dozen shacks were torched in the Tembisa township near Johannesburg, the South African Broadcasting Corp. said. Police, struggling to restore order, said at least 13 people were killed over the weekend.
Immigrants from African neighbors are accused by many in the townships, among South Africa's poorest areas, of taking jobs and fuelling the high rate of violent crime. Local media report about 20 dead since trouble broke out a week ago.
The unrest is an embarrassment for a country that has vaunted its tolerance since the end of apartheid and an indicator of growing disaffection among South Africa's poor.
President Thabo Mbeki and ruling ANC party leader Jacob Zuma have called for an end to the violence, which threatens a new strain on an economy struggling with rising inflation, power outages and a skills shortage.
Hundreds of immigrants have taken refuge in police stations, churches and government offices.
"At the moment some of the people have been taken to the city hall as a place of safety, but some of them are still running around and do not know where to go," police spokesman Veli Nhlapo told SABC.
Police fired rubber bullets at gangs of youths, who patrolled unruly streets, armed with sticks, rocks and knives. Scores have been arrested in connection with the violence.
South African newspapers carried photos of a man who was set alight by a mob on the weekend. Callers to radio stations urged authorities to impose curfews and bring in the army to restore order in some of the most violent areas.
Among the immigrants are an estimated 3 million Zimbabweans who fled economic collapse at home. The immigrants say they more often the victims of crime than perpetrators.
The Zimbabweans, like others on the continent, have been lured by work in South Africa's mines, farms and homes, and by one of the world's most liberal immigration and refugee policies.
Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said the situation in the townships now amounted to a humanitarian crisis.
(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Changing name to fight atheism
Man asks court to change his name to 'In God We Trust'
May 4 05:52 AM US/Eastern
ZION, Ill. (AP) - Steve Kreuscher wants a judge to allow him to legally change his name. He wants to be known as "In God We Trust."
Kreuscher (CROY'-shir) says the new name would symbolize the help God gave him through tough times.
The 57-year-old man also told the (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald he's worried that atheists may succeed in removing the phrase "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency.
He recalls that the phrase "God Reigns" was removed from the Zion city seal in 1992 after courts deemed it unconstitutional. Zion was founded as a theocracy—by a sect that believed the Earth was flat.
The school bus driver and amateur artist in the northern Chicago suburb says he has filed a petition to change his name in Lake County Circuit Court.
May 4 05:52 AM US/Eastern
ZION, Ill. (AP) - Steve Kreuscher wants a judge to allow him to legally change his name. He wants to be known as "In God We Trust."
Kreuscher (CROY'-shir) says the new name would symbolize the help God gave him through tough times.
The 57-year-old man also told the (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald he's worried that atheists may succeed in removing the phrase "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency.
He recalls that the phrase "God Reigns" was removed from the Zion city seal in 1992 after courts deemed it unconstitutional. Zion was founded as a theocracy—by a sect that believed the Earth was flat.
The school bus driver and amateur artist in the northern Chicago suburb says he has filed a petition to change his name in Lake County Circuit Court.
Einstein on Faith in God: 1954 letter
Belief in God 'childish,' Jews not chosen people: Einstein letter
May 13 08:24 AM US/Eastern
Albert Einstein described belief in God as "childish superstition" and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week, an auctioneer said Tuesday.
The father of relativity, whose previously known views on religion have been more ambivalent and fuelled much discussion, made the comments in response to a philosopher in 1954.
As a Jew himself, Einstein said he had a great affinity with Jewish people but said they "have no different quality for me than all other people".
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.
"No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this," he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper.
The German-language letter is being sold Thursday by Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, said the auction house's managing director Rupert Powell.
In it, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel's second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people.
"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions," he said.
"And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people."
And he added: "As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."
Previously the great scientist's comments on religion -- such as "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" -- have been the subject of much debate, used notably to back up arguments in favour of faith.
Powell said the letter being sold this week gave a clear reflection of Einstein's real thoughts on the subject. "He's fairly unequivocal as to what he's saying. There's no beating about the bush," he told AFP.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
May 13 08:24 AM US/Eastern
Albert Einstein described belief in God as "childish superstition" and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week, an auctioneer said Tuesday.
The father of relativity, whose previously known views on religion have been more ambivalent and fuelled much discussion, made the comments in response to a philosopher in 1954.
As a Jew himself, Einstein said he had a great affinity with Jewish people but said they "have no different quality for me than all other people".
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.
"No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this," he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper.
The German-language letter is being sold Thursday by Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, said the auction house's managing director Rupert Powell.
In it, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel's second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people.
"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions," he said.
"And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people."
And he added: "As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."
Previously the great scientist's comments on religion -- such as "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" -- have been the subject of much debate, used notably to back up arguments in favour of faith.
Powell said the letter being sold this week gave a clear reflection of Einstein's real thoughts on the subject. "He's fairly unequivocal as to what he's saying. There's no beating about the bush," he told AFP.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
Friday, May 16, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Against offshoring to India
BBC journalists oppose offshoring of programming to India
Thu, May 15 09:49 AM
Journalists from south Asia working in the Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Sinhala sections of the BBC World Service in London have launched a campaign to protest against offshoring of programming to the Indian sub-continent.
A series of meetings have been held between the affected journalists and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), which is supporting a union campaign against what is described as a "money-saving adventure" of the BBC management.
The offshoring involves new contracts for the London-based journalists who have been told to accept redundancy or relocate to their countries of origin in south Asia, and accept downgraded pay conditions.
Defending the move, the BBC said it had plans to have around 50 per cent of overall language service staff located closer to their audiences.
Mike Gardner, Head of Media Relations at the BBC World Service, said: "The proposed redeployments of staff to India, Pakistan and Nepal recognise the new media realities in those countries."
He added: "It aims to serve our audiences in the region better; equip those services with the qualities that will be successful in these fiercely competitive media landscapes; and use resources more efficiently."
Gardner said, it was BBC World Service's policy that its language services work closer to the audiences they serve for some time.
However, Indian and other south Asian BBC journalists said that the redeployment would "dismantle a broadcasting service that is the envy of the world". They added that it would affect their working and the lives of their families.
Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the NUJ, said after a meeting with BBC's south Asian journalists on Wednesday evening: "We are committed to opposing these offshoring plans which are ill-founded and put at threat not just jobs but editorial quality, integrity and the future of the world service".
Dear said the plans which would have a fundamental impact on staff and their families were conceived without proper consultation and were in breach of agreements, which should worry staff across all BBC services.
"It is unacceptable that staff should be faced with the kind of choices - offshore or go - the BBC are seeking to impose... We're not against new staff, not against being closer to listeners across the sub-continent. We are against jobs being cut, offshored and outsourced to meet artificial budget restrictions.
"We're not against additional resources and staff - we are against seeking to get work on the cheap," he said.
Gardner noted that there was a rapidly changing media environment and highly competitive market both for radio and on-line in all parts of the world.
"This presents the BBC with new challenges, but also opportunities. It means the BBC can work closer with our local FM partner stations that deliver around one-third of our 183 million listeners a week and allows us to respond more rapidly to changing local media market conditions." According to Arjum Wajid of the BBC Urdu Service, the offshoring process started three years ago when Hindi programming was progressively shifted from Bush House, London, to New Delhi. This included the Hindi online service.
In 2007 end, staff of the Hindi Service was reportedly told that 80 per cent of the programming would be moved to India, while the Urdu Service staff learnt that 50 per cent programming would move to Islamabad.
Thu, May 15 09:49 AM
Journalists from south Asia working in the Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Sinhala sections of the BBC World Service in London have launched a campaign to protest against offshoring of programming to the Indian sub-continent.
A series of meetings have been held between the affected journalists and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), which is supporting a union campaign against what is described as a "money-saving adventure" of the BBC management.
The offshoring involves new contracts for the London-based journalists who have been told to accept redundancy or relocate to their countries of origin in south Asia, and accept downgraded pay conditions.
Defending the move, the BBC said it had plans to have around 50 per cent of overall language service staff located closer to their audiences.
Mike Gardner, Head of Media Relations at the BBC World Service, said: "The proposed redeployments of staff to India, Pakistan and Nepal recognise the new media realities in those countries."
He added: "It aims to serve our audiences in the region better; equip those services with the qualities that will be successful in these fiercely competitive media landscapes; and use resources more efficiently."
Gardner said, it was BBC World Service's policy that its language services work closer to the audiences they serve for some time.
However, Indian and other south Asian BBC journalists said that the redeployment would "dismantle a broadcasting service that is the envy of the world". They added that it would affect their working and the lives of their families.
Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the NUJ, said after a meeting with BBC's south Asian journalists on Wednesday evening: "We are committed to opposing these offshoring plans which are ill-founded and put at threat not just jobs but editorial quality, integrity and the future of the world service".
Dear said the plans which would have a fundamental impact on staff and their families were conceived without proper consultation and were in breach of agreements, which should worry staff across all BBC services.
"It is unacceptable that staff should be faced with the kind of choices - offshore or go - the BBC are seeking to impose... We're not against new staff, not against being closer to listeners across the sub-continent. We are against jobs being cut, offshored and outsourced to meet artificial budget restrictions.
"We're not against additional resources and staff - we are against seeking to get work on the cheap," he said.
Gardner noted that there was a rapidly changing media environment and highly competitive market both for radio and on-line in all parts of the world.
"This presents the BBC with new challenges, but also opportunities. It means the BBC can work closer with our local FM partner stations that deliver around one-third of our 183 million listeners a week and allows us to respond more rapidly to changing local media market conditions." According to Arjum Wajid of the BBC Urdu Service, the offshoring process started three years ago when Hindi programming was progressively shifted from Bush House, London, to New Delhi. This included the Hindi online service.
In 2007 end, staff of the Hindi Service was reportedly told that 80 per cent of the programming would be moved to India, while the Urdu Service staff learnt that 50 per cent programming would move to Islamabad.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Shaukat Hussain Guru's plea rejected by Supreme Court
Supreme Court rejects Shaukat plea for release
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to entertain a writ petition filed by Shaukat Hussain Guru for his release. Guru was convicted and sentenced to 10-year imprisonment in the Parliament attack case.
He contended that his continued detention was in violation of his fundamental right.
A Bench consisting of Justices P.P. Naolekar and V.S. Sirpurkar said: “We do not find any ground to entertain the petition under Article 32 of the Constitution [filing a petition directly in the apex court].
“Moreover, for granting the relief prayed for, it is necessary to set aside the judgment delivered by a Division Bench of this court confirmed by dismissal of the review petition as also of the curative petition, which cannot be granted.”
In his petition, Shaukat alleged that though he was not charged under Section 123 of the Indian Penal Code (concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war), he was convicted of that offence.
No opportunity
He had no opportunity of being heard on this charge and there was nothing in the charge sheet or in the evidence put to him.
It was argued that the apex court could correct its order if there was miscarriage of justice.
The Bench said: “It is settled law that a judgment of this court cannot be assailed invoking Article 32.
“This court has held that to prevent abuse of its process and to cure a gross miscarriage of justice, it may reconsider its judgment,” subject to the petitioner meeting certain requirements for exercising such a jurisdiction.
Mr. Justice Naolekar, writing the judgment, said the court had already held that the evidence on record justified the conviction of Shaukat under Section 123 of the IPC.
The Bench pointed out that the review petition in which he had taken the same stand was rejected by this court.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to entertain a writ petition filed by Shaukat Hussain Guru for his release. Guru was convicted and sentenced to 10-year imprisonment in the Parliament attack case.
He contended that his continued detention was in violation of his fundamental right.
A Bench consisting of Justices P.P. Naolekar and V.S. Sirpurkar said: “We do not find any ground to entertain the petition under Article 32 of the Constitution [filing a petition directly in the apex court].
“Moreover, for granting the relief prayed for, it is necessary to set aside the judgment delivered by a Division Bench of this court confirmed by dismissal of the review petition as also of the curative petition, which cannot be granted.”
In his petition, Shaukat alleged that though he was not charged under Section 123 of the Indian Penal Code (concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war), he was convicted of that offence.
No opportunity
He had no opportunity of being heard on this charge and there was nothing in the charge sheet or in the evidence put to him.
It was argued that the apex court could correct its order if there was miscarriage of justice.
The Bench said: “It is settled law that a judgment of this court cannot be assailed invoking Article 32.
“This court has held that to prevent abuse of its process and to cure a gross miscarriage of justice, it may reconsider its judgment,” subject to the petitioner meeting certain requirements for exercising such a jurisdiction.
Mr. Justice Naolekar, writing the judgment, said the court had already held that the evidence on record justified the conviction of Shaukat under Section 123 of the IPC.
The Bench pointed out that the review petition in which he had taken the same stand was rejected by this court.
Fight Diabetes
hba1c diabetes?
Diabetes mellitus, often simply diabetes is a syndrome characterized by disordered metabolism and inappropriately high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia) resulting from either low levels of the hormone insulin or from abnormal resistance to insulin's effects coupled with inadequate levels of insulin secretion to compensate. The characteristic symptoms are excessive urine production (polyuria), excessive thirst and increased fluid intake (polydipsia), and blurred vision; these symptoms may be absent if the blood sugar is mildly elevated.
The blue circle was recently adopted as the symbol for Diabetes, much like the Red Ribbon is for AIDS. The World Health Organization recognizes three main forms of diabetes mellitus: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes (occurring during pregnancy), which have similar signs, symptoms, and consequences, but different causes and population distributions. Ultimately, all forms are due to the beta cells of the pancreas being unable to produce sufficient insulin to prevent hyperglycemia.[4] Type 1 diabetes is usually due to autoimmune destruction of the pancreatic beta cells, which produce insulin. Type 2 diabetes is characterized by insulin resistance in target tissues, but some impairment of beta cell function is necessary for its development. Gestational diabetes is similar to type 2 diabetes, in that it involves insulin resistance; the hormones of pregnancy can cause insulin resistance in women genetically predisposed to developing this condition.
Gestational diabetes typically resolves with delivery of the child, however types 1 and 2 diabetes are chronic conditions. All types have been treatable since insulin became medically available in 1921. Type 1 diabetes, in which insulin is not secreted by the pancreas, is directly treatable only with injected or inhaled insulin, although dietary and other lifestyle adjustments are part of management. Type 2 may be managed with a combination of dietary treatment, tablets and injections and, frequently, insulin supplementation. While insulin was originally produced from natural sources such as porcine pancreas, most insulin used today is produced through genetic engineering, either as a direct copy of human insulin, or human insulin with modified molecules that provide different onset and duration of action. Insulin can also be delivered continuously by a pump surgically embedded under the skin.
Diabetes can cause many complications. Acute complications (hypoglycemia, ketoacidosis or nonketotic hyperosmolar coma) may occur if the disease is not adequately controlled. Serious long-term complications include cardiovascular disease (doubled risk), chronic renal failure, retinal damage (which can lead to blindness), nerve damage (of several kinds), and microvascular damage, which may cause impotence and poor healing. Poor healing of wounds, particularly of the feet, can lead to gangrene, which may require amputation. Adequate treatment of diabetes, as well as increased emphasis on blood pressure control and lifestyle factors (such as not smoking and keeping a healthy body weight), may improve the risk profile of most aforementioned complications. In the developed world, diabetes is the most significant cause of adult blindness in the non-elderly, the leading cause of non-traumatic amputation in adults, and diabetic nephropathy is the main illness requiring renal dialysis.
Diabetes on Wikipedia | Yahoo Diabetes
Diabetes mellitus, often simply diabetes is a syndrome characterized by disordered metabolism and inappropriately high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia) resulting from either low levels of the hormone insulin or from abnormal resistance to insulin's effects coupled with inadequate levels of insulin secretion to compensate. The characteristic symptoms are excessive urine production (polyuria), excessive thirst and increased fluid intake (polydipsia), and blurred vision; these symptoms may be absent if the blood sugar is mildly elevated.
The blue circle was recently adopted as the symbol for Diabetes, much like the Red Ribbon is for AIDS. The World Health Organization recognizes three main forms of diabetes mellitus: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes (occurring during pregnancy), which have similar signs, symptoms, and consequences, but different causes and population distributions. Ultimately, all forms are due to the beta cells of the pancreas being unable to produce sufficient insulin to prevent hyperglycemia.[4] Type 1 diabetes is usually due to autoimmune destruction of the pancreatic beta cells, which produce insulin. Type 2 diabetes is characterized by insulin resistance in target tissues, but some impairment of beta cell function is necessary for its development. Gestational diabetes is similar to type 2 diabetes, in that it involves insulin resistance; the hormones of pregnancy can cause insulin resistance in women genetically predisposed to developing this condition.
Gestational diabetes typically resolves with delivery of the child, however types 1 and 2 diabetes are chronic conditions. All types have been treatable since insulin became medically available in 1921. Type 1 diabetes, in which insulin is not secreted by the pancreas, is directly treatable only with injected or inhaled insulin, although dietary and other lifestyle adjustments are part of management. Type 2 may be managed with a combination of dietary treatment, tablets and injections and, frequently, insulin supplementation. While insulin was originally produced from natural sources such as porcine pancreas, most insulin used today is produced through genetic engineering, either as a direct copy of human insulin, or human insulin with modified molecules that provide different onset and duration of action. Insulin can also be delivered continuously by a pump surgically embedded under the skin.
Diabetes can cause many complications. Acute complications (hypoglycemia, ketoacidosis or nonketotic hyperosmolar coma) may occur if the disease is not adequately controlled. Serious long-term complications include cardiovascular disease (doubled risk), chronic renal failure, retinal damage (which can lead to blindness), nerve damage (of several kinds), and microvascular damage, which may cause impotence and poor healing. Poor healing of wounds, particularly of the feet, can lead to gangrene, which may require amputation. Adequate treatment of diabetes, as well as increased emphasis on blood pressure control and lifestyle factors (such as not smoking and keeping a healthy body weight), may improve the risk profile of most aforementioned complications. In the developed world, diabetes is the most significant cause of adult blindness in the non-elderly, the leading cause of non-traumatic amputation in adults, and diabetic nephropathy is the main illness requiring renal dialysis.
Diabetes on Wikipedia | Yahoo Diabetes
Love the dying - Marrying an.HIV-positive
His love is blind... & HIV-positive-Ahmedabad-Cities-The Times of India
His love is blind... & HIV-positive
14 May 2008, 0600 hrs IST,Radha Sharma,TNN
AHMEDABAD: They met on a passenger train, while travelling together every morning from home in Viramgam to work in Ahmedabad and back in the evening. They fell in love, got married and have embarked on a journey of life that dares the jaws of death!
This is the love story of Rajiv, a healthy young man, and Dipali a widow with two kids. She is also HIV-positive. She says that after marriage, she falls ill less often.A couple of years ago, Dipali's first husband, a driver, was admitted to hospital with a terminal illness. The illness was diagnosed as AIDS and Dipali was asked to undergo a test as well. The result turned out to be as expected — Dipali was HIV-positive.
Dipali, her husband and two children were shunted off to a separate floor of the house and treated as untouchables by her in-laws. All hell broke loose when Dipali's husband died. Her in-laws started taunting her, beating her up, wishing she would leave.
It is then that Dipali started work with 'Adhaar', an agency working with HIV-positive people in Ahmedabad. She would take the Viramgam local every morning at 7.30, just like Rajiv, a supervisor at a shirt manufacturing unit. The journeys together got them talking and Dipali shared her travails with Rajiv. Friendship bloomed into love and one day, when Dipali was beaten black and blue by her in-laws, Dipali shared with Rajiv her only option - to leave for Mumbai to get into prostitution for which a pimp had offered to pay Rs 1.5 lakh. "I proposed to her, asking her to ditch her unhappy life and be happy with me. I knew she was HIV-positive but that didn't make any difference. We all have to die one day," says Rajiv. Today, Dipali is a happy homemaker living with Rajiv and her elder son - the younger one stays with her in-laws. Asked Rajiv if he ever fears contracting the virus, he says, "We are careful and I get myself tested every six months. But if I do, I will accept it as a gift of love from my wife."
His love is blind... & HIV-positive
14 May 2008, 0600 hrs IST,Radha Sharma,TNN
AHMEDABAD: They met on a passenger train, while travelling together every morning from home in Viramgam to work in Ahmedabad and back in the evening. They fell in love, got married and have embarked on a journey of life that dares the jaws of death!
This is the love story of Rajiv, a healthy young man, and Dipali a widow with two kids. She is also HIV-positive. She says that after marriage, she falls ill less often.A couple of years ago, Dipali's first husband, a driver, was admitted to hospital with a terminal illness. The illness was diagnosed as AIDS and Dipali was asked to undergo a test as well. The result turned out to be as expected — Dipali was HIV-positive.
Dipali, her husband and two children were shunted off to a separate floor of the house and treated as untouchables by her in-laws. All hell broke loose when Dipali's husband died. Her in-laws started taunting her, beating her up, wishing she would leave.
It is then that Dipali started work with 'Adhaar', an agency working with HIV-positive people in Ahmedabad. She would take the Viramgam local every morning at 7.30, just like Rajiv, a supervisor at a shirt manufacturing unit. The journeys together got them talking and Dipali shared her travails with Rajiv. Friendship bloomed into love and one day, when Dipali was beaten black and blue by her in-laws, Dipali shared with Rajiv her only option - to leave for Mumbai to get into prostitution for which a pimp had offered to pay Rs 1.5 lakh. "I proposed to her, asking her to ditch her unhappy life and be happy with me. I knew she was HIV-positive but that didn't make any difference. We all have to die one day," says Rajiv. Today, Dipali is a happy homemaker living with Rajiv and her elder son - the younger one stays with her in-laws. Asked Rajiv if he ever fears contracting the virus, he says, "We are careful and I get myself tested every six months. But if I do, I will accept it as a gift of love from my wife."
Tata Nano
The story behind the Tata Nano
The story behind the Tata Nano
Manjeet Kripalani, BusinessWeek.com
May 14, 2008
At Tata's Engineering Research Center, near the bucolic surroundings of the Tata Motors [Get Quote] factory in Pune, India, there are two cars on display.
One is a complete prototype of the Nano, the $2,500 compact car Tata unveiled in January, whichhas all the essentials and safety features of India's higher-priced automobiles along with a sticker price that will forever change the economics of low-cost cars. The other is a neat bisection, with the car's innards clearly visible.
"Every day we invite people to come and examine the car and ask: 'How can we make more savings?'" says Tata Motors Chief Executive Ravi Kant.
That quest to build the world's cheapest car hasn't ended. The Nano should be available this fall, but the mission began back in 2003, when Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors and the $50 billion Tata conglomerate, set a challenge to build a "people's car."
Tata gave an engineering team, led by 32-year-old star engineer Girish Wagh, three requirements for the new vehicle: It should be low-cost, adhere to regulatory requirements, and achieve performance targets such as fuel efficiency and acceleration capacity. The design team initially came up with a vehicle which had bars instead of doors and plastic flaps to keep out the monsoon rains. It was closer to a quadricycle than a car, and the first prototype, Wagh admits candidly, "lacked punch."
Even a bigger engine, which boosted the power by nearly 20%, was still dismal. "It was an embarrassment," says Wagh.
But the failure was also the catalyst for Tata's decision to build a proper car, not an upgraded scooter on four wheels or anything flimsy or cheap-looking. "We didn't want an apology for a car," says Ravi Kant. "We were conscious of the fact that whether it was a $2,500 car or not, it ought not to have looked like a $2,500 car."
Becoming a part of history
The tale of the creation and design of the Nano is one of innovation and ingenuity, both inside and outside Tata's own organization.
First, Ratan Tata called a meeting of his top parts suppliers and, after showing them the early, earnest but flawed prototypes, asked them to help. Companies including Germany's Bosch, which makes the computer that is the heart of car's engine, were skeptical. So were local Indian players.
But Tata persisted, pointing out that not only could a company's specific developments for the Nano help to make history but they could also improve their companies' businesses and bottom lines. Soon most of Tata's traditional suppliers were on board.
Rane Group, for instance, makes a rack and pinion steering system. It focused on reducing the weight of the materials used, replacing the steel rod of the steering with a steel tube -- a major cost-reducer. Typically, the product is made of two pieces, but it was redesigned as one to save on machining and assembling costs.
According to Harish Lakshman, director of the $317 million company: "The world has seen this sort of integration of two pieces into one, but applied differently -- not for a new car, and not to reduce costs."
GKN Driveline India, a subsidiary of global auto parts leader GKN, made the driveshaft -- the component that transfers power from the engine to the wheel. The team spent a year developing 32 experimental variants to create the perfect driveshaft for the Nano. It roped in designers from the company's French and Italian operations and changed the design to make it lighter and easier to manufacture.
For the Nano's rear-wheel drive system, GKN designed a smaller diameter of shaft, which made it lighter and saved on material costs. "We thought if we were successful in this, we could dictate terms to the market, and every other car manufacturer would want to work with us," says Rajendra Ojha, chief executive of GKN Driveline India.
Taking the pulse of the project
All the suppliers have similar stories. And although none would disclose specific cost savings, most stuck to Tata's mandate to cut costs. That was, as Kant acknowledges, the biggest hurdle for the company -- "then, now, and in the future," -- particularly as the price of raw materials like steel have more than doubled in the past four years, and the company has to follow new, tighter industry regulations.
Kant, who recently led negotiations to acquire luxury auto brand Jaguar Land Rover, has little time to get involved in day-to-day details of Tata's many projects. However, with the Nano, "every cost, every component price, has to be run by me," he says.
Coordinating the vendors with Tata Motors' team was a whole new exercise in logistics. Wagh quickly realized it was necessary to bring everyone on board, "else it leads to last-minute heartache and delays."
Every morning, he would spend an hour or two on the floor of the Pune factory, insisting that everyone involved -- designers, manufacturing teams, vendor development people -- be there to accelerate decision-making and problem-solving. "We had to have the pulse of the project and know exactly where the hurdles were," Wagh remembers.
Over time, Wagh's team grew to comprise some 500 engineers, an impractically large group to gather on a daily basis. So instead, a core team of five engineers gathered every day at 3 p.m. to discuss the latest developments. Each engineer represented a different part of the car: engine and transmission, body, vehicle integration, safety and regulation, and industrial design.
Attention to detail pays off
Fitting the parts of the car together required lots of little, head-breaking details, recalls Wagh. The engine, for instance, was designed three times. Initially, Wagh thought they'd buy an off-the-shelf engine and so studied all the small-capacity engines available. They were unsuitable, so in early 2005 he decided to build his own.
The first was a 540 CC engine that, when fitted on the prototype, lacked the necessary power. So its capacity was increased by 9%, then by another 9%, before Wagh finally settled on a 623 CC engine. Then the foot pedal had to be realigned to create more legroom.
The body had to be changed because Ratan Tata, over six feet tall himself, wanted it to be easy for tall people to get in and out of the car. "Imagine the plight of the body designer -- he went through hundreds of iterations, then at the last minute the car length was increased by 100 millimeters!" Wagh says.
The attention to detail paid off: When the car rolled onto the dais at the Auto Show in New Delhi in January, and Ratan Tata stepped out of the driver's seat with ease, it made an immediate impact.
What shook the automobile world most was the fact that the designers seem to have done the impossible: The sleek, sophisticated Nano doesn't look flimsy or inexpensive. If it had been an upgraded scooter on four wheels, Tata still would have been applauded for making a family of four safer on Indian roads. The Nano, however, affords both safety and status.
"The innovation wasn't in technology," Kant recalls. "It was in a mindset change." The Nano, he adds, has put an end to all discussions of having variants of scooters or quadricycles as passenger vehicles on India's roads.
Organizational innovation
Still, the story of the Nano is not confined to its impact on the auto industry. It's a tale that illuminates the India of today -- an eager, ambitious nation with a combination of engineering talent, a desire for low costs and value, and the hunger of young managers looking to break from a hidebound corporate environment.
Indeed, the team that worked on the Nano -- on average aged between 25 and 30 -- has helped to flatten Tata Motors' stodgy, multilayered management structure, which has resulted in an unexpected side-benefit Wagh calls "organizational innovation".
The factory in Singur, Bengal, is still being built, and machinery is being installed. Wagh now spends most of his time away from his Pune home, supervising the work at Singur leading up to the launch date in fall.
Tata Motors is determined to succeed in its mission, Ravi Kant says. "We are hungry for growth -- and innovation is a by-product of that."
The story behind the Tata Nano
Manjeet Kripalani, BusinessWeek.com
May 14, 2008
At Tata's Engineering Research Center, near the bucolic surroundings of the Tata Motors [Get Quote] factory in Pune, India, there are two cars on display.
One is a complete prototype of the Nano, the $2,500 compact car Tata unveiled in January, whichhas all the essentials and safety features of India's higher-priced automobiles along with a sticker price that will forever change the economics of low-cost cars. The other is a neat bisection, with the car's innards clearly visible.
"Every day we invite people to come and examine the car and ask: 'How can we make more savings?'" says Tata Motors Chief Executive Ravi Kant.
That quest to build the world's cheapest car hasn't ended. The Nano should be available this fall, but the mission began back in 2003, when Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors and the $50 billion Tata conglomerate, set a challenge to build a "people's car."
Tata gave an engineering team, led by 32-year-old star engineer Girish Wagh, three requirements for the new vehicle: It should be low-cost, adhere to regulatory requirements, and achieve performance targets such as fuel efficiency and acceleration capacity. The design team initially came up with a vehicle which had bars instead of doors and plastic flaps to keep out the monsoon rains. It was closer to a quadricycle than a car, and the first prototype, Wagh admits candidly, "lacked punch."
Even a bigger engine, which boosted the power by nearly 20%, was still dismal. "It was an embarrassment," says Wagh.
But the failure was also the catalyst for Tata's decision to build a proper car, not an upgraded scooter on four wheels or anything flimsy or cheap-looking. "We didn't want an apology for a car," says Ravi Kant. "We were conscious of the fact that whether it was a $2,500 car or not, it ought not to have looked like a $2,500 car."
Becoming a part of history
The tale of the creation and design of the Nano is one of innovation and ingenuity, both inside and outside Tata's own organization.
First, Ratan Tata called a meeting of his top parts suppliers and, after showing them the early, earnest but flawed prototypes, asked them to help. Companies including Germany's Bosch, which makes the computer that is the heart of car's engine, were skeptical. So were local Indian players.
But Tata persisted, pointing out that not only could a company's specific developments for the Nano help to make history but they could also improve their companies' businesses and bottom lines. Soon most of Tata's traditional suppliers were on board.
Rane Group, for instance, makes a rack and pinion steering system. It focused on reducing the weight of the materials used, replacing the steel rod of the steering with a steel tube -- a major cost-reducer. Typically, the product is made of two pieces, but it was redesigned as one to save on machining and assembling costs.
According to Harish Lakshman, director of the $317 million company: "The world has seen this sort of integration of two pieces into one, but applied differently -- not for a new car, and not to reduce costs."
GKN Driveline India, a subsidiary of global auto parts leader GKN, made the driveshaft -- the component that transfers power from the engine to the wheel. The team spent a year developing 32 experimental variants to create the perfect driveshaft for the Nano. It roped in designers from the company's French and Italian operations and changed the design to make it lighter and easier to manufacture.
For the Nano's rear-wheel drive system, GKN designed a smaller diameter of shaft, which made it lighter and saved on material costs. "We thought if we were successful in this, we could dictate terms to the market, and every other car manufacturer would want to work with us," says Rajendra Ojha, chief executive of GKN Driveline India.
Taking the pulse of the project
All the suppliers have similar stories. And although none would disclose specific cost savings, most stuck to Tata's mandate to cut costs. That was, as Kant acknowledges, the biggest hurdle for the company -- "then, now, and in the future," -- particularly as the price of raw materials like steel have more than doubled in the past four years, and the company has to follow new, tighter industry regulations.
Kant, who recently led negotiations to acquire luxury auto brand Jaguar Land Rover, has little time to get involved in day-to-day details of Tata's many projects. However, with the Nano, "every cost, every component price, has to be run by me," he says.
Coordinating the vendors with Tata Motors' team was a whole new exercise in logistics. Wagh quickly realized it was necessary to bring everyone on board, "else it leads to last-minute heartache and delays."
Every morning, he would spend an hour or two on the floor of the Pune factory, insisting that everyone involved -- designers, manufacturing teams, vendor development people -- be there to accelerate decision-making and problem-solving. "We had to have the pulse of the project and know exactly where the hurdles were," Wagh remembers.
Over time, Wagh's team grew to comprise some 500 engineers, an impractically large group to gather on a daily basis. So instead, a core team of five engineers gathered every day at 3 p.m. to discuss the latest developments. Each engineer represented a different part of the car: engine and transmission, body, vehicle integration, safety and regulation, and industrial design.
Attention to detail pays off
Fitting the parts of the car together required lots of little, head-breaking details, recalls Wagh. The engine, for instance, was designed three times. Initially, Wagh thought they'd buy an off-the-shelf engine and so studied all the small-capacity engines available. They were unsuitable, so in early 2005 he decided to build his own.
The first was a 540 CC engine that, when fitted on the prototype, lacked the necessary power. So its capacity was increased by 9%, then by another 9%, before Wagh finally settled on a 623 CC engine. Then the foot pedal had to be realigned to create more legroom.
The body had to be changed because Ratan Tata, over six feet tall himself, wanted it to be easy for tall people to get in and out of the car. "Imagine the plight of the body designer -- he went through hundreds of iterations, then at the last minute the car length was increased by 100 millimeters!" Wagh says.
The attention to detail paid off: When the car rolled onto the dais at the Auto Show in New Delhi in January, and Ratan Tata stepped out of the driver's seat with ease, it made an immediate impact.
What shook the automobile world most was the fact that the designers seem to have done the impossible: The sleek, sophisticated Nano doesn't look flimsy or inexpensive. If it had been an upgraded scooter on four wheels, Tata still would have been applauded for making a family of four safer on Indian roads. The Nano, however, affords both safety and status.
"The innovation wasn't in technology," Kant recalls. "It was in a mindset change." The Nano, he adds, has put an end to all discussions of having variants of scooters or quadricycles as passenger vehicles on India's roads.
Organizational innovation
Still, the story of the Nano is not confined to its impact on the auto industry. It's a tale that illuminates the India of today -- an eager, ambitious nation with a combination of engineering talent, a desire for low costs and value, and the hunger of young managers looking to break from a hidebound corporate environment.
Indeed, the team that worked on the Nano -- on average aged between 25 and 30 -- has helped to flatten Tata Motors' stodgy, multilayered management structure, which has resulted in an unexpected side-benefit Wagh calls "organizational innovation".
The factory in Singur, Bengal, is still being built, and machinery is being installed. Wagh now spends most of his time away from his Pune home, supervising the work at Singur leading up to the launch date in fall.
Tata Motors is determined to succeed in its mission, Ravi Kant says. "We are hungry for growth -- and innovation is a by-product of that."
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Facebook Is Dangerous!
Nicole Ferraro discusses how new social websites can be misused and threten our privacy
BBC: Facebook Is Dangerous!
Written by Nicole Ferraro
The BBC today published a harrowing report that third-party Facebook applications can access your personal data. Halfway through my reactive bout of running in circles and screaming in panic, I had to take a moment to wonder exactly where the BBC has been for the past year?
According to the report, the BBC, with the help of its crackerjack technology program Click, created a malicious third-party application to run on Facebook. The organization then made up a profile for some frat guy "Bob Smith," and went to work on stealing his personal data. (Sigh. Poor Bob...)
The BBC reports: "While we could not get all details, what we did get, included his name, hometown, school, interests and photograph, would certainly help us to steal someone's identity." Or, at very least, his lunch money.
The story would have been at least mildly interesting if the BBC exposed current, real applications that are eating our data in a malicious fashion, but alas: "We do not know of any specific application which abuses user information, apart from ours."
Well, then. Look who's malicious now!
The point of the expedition was to prove that Facebook's third-party applications acquire user data and, in turn, can leave users vulnerable should the app have ill intentions. Simply by reading Facebook's terms and conditions, or a blog, or a tea leaf, users would have figured this out themselves without putting old Bob Smith to work.
This idea that Facebook and its platforms aren't to be fully trusted is something we've been aware of for quite a bit of time. In fact, one of the issues the BBC "discovered" -- that we are responsible for our friends' data security -- is something one of our ThinkerNetters Mary Madden wrote about in her blog on Internet Evolution this week. Perhaps the BBC should spend less time in its mad scientist lab and more time on the blogosphere? Hmm?
Aside from the fact that BBC is telling an old story, this great, big, evil problem it claims to have exposed is not a homegrown Facebook problem -- it's an Internet problem. The moral of their story is that, although it's not happening right now, someone at some time on the Internet could create something that may harm you in one way or another. Bravo, Sir Holmes.
Nevertheless, it is always a positive thing to consistently challenge Facebook. This is the only real way to get the company to fix its flaws (of which it has many)... and it's also fun to get Mark Zuckerberg to shake in his sandals time and again.
— Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution
BBC: Facebook Is Dangerous!
Written by Nicole Ferraro
The BBC today published a harrowing report that third-party Facebook applications can access your personal data. Halfway through my reactive bout of running in circles and screaming in panic, I had to take a moment to wonder exactly where the BBC has been for the past year?
According to the report, the BBC, with the help of its crackerjack technology program Click, created a malicious third-party application to run on Facebook. The organization then made up a profile for some frat guy "Bob Smith," and went to work on stealing his personal data. (Sigh. Poor Bob...)
The BBC reports: "While we could not get all details, what we did get, included his name, hometown, school, interests and photograph, would certainly help us to steal someone's identity." Or, at very least, his lunch money.
The story would have been at least mildly interesting if the BBC exposed current, real applications that are eating our data in a malicious fashion, but alas: "We do not know of any specific application which abuses user information, apart from ours."
Well, then. Look who's malicious now!
The point of the expedition was to prove that Facebook's third-party applications acquire user data and, in turn, can leave users vulnerable should the app have ill intentions. Simply by reading Facebook's terms and conditions, or a blog, or a tea leaf, users would have figured this out themselves without putting old Bob Smith to work.
This idea that Facebook and its platforms aren't to be fully trusted is something we've been aware of for quite a bit of time. In fact, one of the issues the BBC "discovered" -- that we are responsible for our friends' data security -- is something one of our ThinkerNetters Mary Madden wrote about in her blog on Internet Evolution this week. Perhaps the BBC should spend less time in its mad scientist lab and more time on the blogosphere? Hmm?
Aside from the fact that BBC is telling an old story, this great, big, evil problem it claims to have exposed is not a homegrown Facebook problem -- it's an Internet problem. The moral of their story is that, although it's not happening right now, someone at some time on the Internet could create something that may harm you in one way or another. Bravo, Sir Holmes.
Nevertheless, it is always a positive thing to consistently challenge Facebook. This is the only real way to get the company to fix its flaws (of which it has many)... and it's also fun to get Mark Zuckerberg to shake in his sandals time and again.
— Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution
Nandigram: Women allege stripping by CPM cadres-India-The Times of India
Nandigram: Women allege stripping by CPM cadres-India-The Times of India
Nandigram: Women allege stripping by CPM cadres
6 May 2008, 1542 hrs IST,PTI
Shifting Face of a political party
NANDIGRAM: Three women activists of Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Commitee on Tuesday claimed they were beaten up and stripped by CPM cadres in Nandigram for refusing to support the Marxists in the ensuing panchayat polls.
Malati Das, Krishna Das and Tulsi Das of Simulkundu village claimed that they have filed a complaint but the Nandigram police refused to comment.
When contacted, Superintendent of Police of East Midnapore S Panda said that he had no information on the matter and that the Nandigram police station could only say anything.
The women alleged that around 40-50 CPM cadres, led by Mamata Das, came to their houses on Monday.
"The CPM cadres told us that we should vote for their party in the panchayat polls. When we refused to oblige, they started beating us. They even snatched the voter's identity cards," they alleged.
"They then started stripping our clothes. We ran for around one km without any clothes to escape from their clutches," they claimed.
The CPI-M denied the allegations, saying it was all a part of the malicious campaign to tarnish its image ahead of the polls.
The East Midnapore district secretariat member of CPI-M, Ashok Guria, alleged that during the clash at the village, a party activist Sheikh Javed was shot at by rival party activists and women present there ran in panic.
"In the confusion, one or two of them might have fallen down and the incident was thoroughly distorted by the opposition parties," he claimed.
He alleged the Opposition was bent on tarnishing the image of the CPI-M at a time when defeat in the panchayat poll was staring it in the face.
Nandigram: Women allege stripping by CPM cadres
6 May 2008, 1542 hrs IST,PTI
Shifting Face of a political party
NANDIGRAM: Three women activists of Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Commitee on Tuesday claimed they were beaten up and stripped by CPM cadres in Nandigram for refusing to support the Marxists in the ensuing panchayat polls.
Malati Das, Krishna Das and Tulsi Das of Simulkundu village claimed that they have filed a complaint but the Nandigram police refused to comment.
When contacted, Superintendent of Police of East Midnapore S Panda said that he had no information on the matter and that the Nandigram police station could only say anything.
The women alleged that around 40-50 CPM cadres, led by Mamata Das, came to their houses on Monday.
"The CPM cadres told us that we should vote for their party in the panchayat polls. When we refused to oblige, they started beating us. They even snatched the voter's identity cards," they alleged.
"They then started stripping our clothes. We ran for around one km without any clothes to escape from their clutches," they claimed.
The CPI-M denied the allegations, saying it was all a part of the malicious campaign to tarnish its image ahead of the polls.
The East Midnapore district secretariat member of CPI-M, Ashok Guria, alleged that during the clash at the village, a party activist Sheikh Javed was shot at by rival party activists and women present there ran in panic.
"In the confusion, one or two of them might have fallen down and the incident was thoroughly distorted by the opposition parties," he claimed.
He alleged the Opposition was bent on tarnishing the image of the CPI-M at a time when defeat in the panchayat poll was staring it in the face.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Freedom Software
The Hindu - Indian Newspapers in English Language from eight editions.
Frontline
Volume 25 - Issue 10 :: May. 10-23, 2008
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU •
TECHNOLOGY
A new wave of freedom
V. SASI KUMAR
The new freedom movement , in software, knowledge, publishing and commerce, will change the way we think, do things and interact.
H. SATISH
Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation.
Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral.
– Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
INDIA became a sovereign republic on January 26, 1950. India became free. Or, more precisely, political power was transferred from the British to the Indians. That was a period when a number of countries that were living under the yoke of imperialism broke free.
Politically, that is. We still do not enjoy certain freedoms that we deserve. A new wave of freedom movements, to achieve these freedoms, is now sweeping the world – a movement that is bound to change the way we think, the way we do things and the way we interact. It started in the United States and aims to free people from the clutches of monopoly corporations. And the role of Gandhiji is being played by an extraordinary person with long hair and a long beard; a man called Richard Mathew Stallman, who vehemently rejects any comparison with Gandhiji or Nelson Mandela.
“Till we are fully free, we are slaves,” said Gandhiji. Developments in technology have made it possible for mankind to enjoy greater freedom in certain ways. However, vested interests, with help from legislators, are now succeeding in preventing society from enjoying this freedom. For instance, with the advent of computers and the Internet, it has become possible for data, information and knowledge to be communicated instantaneously, provided a computer with Internet connection is available at both ends. However, some of our laws that were designed for an earlier era are preventing societies from benefiting fully from this technology.
The new freedom movement is finding means to circumvent these laws. And, interestingly, this movement is not led by political parties or activists, but, of all people, by computer programmers (or hackers). Let us look at some of the ways in which our freedoms are being curtailed, and how there are ways by which we can regain them even within the existing paradigm.
When you switch on your computer, you are making a political statement. This may sound absurd, trying to find politics in even mundane matters. But this is a fact. In the early days of the computer, users used to write their own programs and they used to exchange these programs according to need. No one used to hold exclusive rights over these programs. Those days, computers were big and expensive, often occupying whole rooms, but were much less powerful compared even to the small PCs of today. As technology developed, computers became smaller and, interestingly, more powerful.
It was around the early 1980s that computer manufacturers started enforcing what was called a non-disclosure agreement on programmers who were engaged to write software. These agreements prevented programmers from disclosing the human-readable source-code of the programs. And software became a product for which users had to pay. Of course, some users continued to write programs for their own purposes, and still do so, but ready-made programs became available on payment and computer users increasingly started using them.
Software for all
It was as a reaction to this productisation of software that Richard Stallman, then working in the Artificial Intelligence Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), decided to create an operating system (OS) and applications that gave users freedom. He believed that software was like knowledge (as he often says, like a recipe) and, like knowledge, software should not be the property of any individual or organisation. It should belong to all humanity.
Stallman wrote: “What does society need? It needs information that is truly available to its citizens, for example, programs that people can read, fix, adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners typically deliver is a black box that we can’t study or change. Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own lives” (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html).
Stallman started a project that he named GNU to create free software, and he decided to model his free OS on the then very popular Unix. Unix was a proprietary OS that could handle multiple users simultaneously, it could interconnect computers and was very secure. In those days, many programmers used to name a new program that was similar to an existing one by creating an acronym saying this is not that.
Thus, for instance, a new text editor similar to the existing Emacs editor was called Eine for Eine Is Not Emacs. In a similar manner, Stallman called his operating system GNU for GNU is Not Unix. This was later used with the Linux kernel (the core part of an OS) and thus was born the GNU/Linux OS. We now have different kernels that can be used with GNU software, such as Free BSD, Open Solaris and so on.
“Free software is a matter of freedom, not cost. It is a matter of liberty, not price. The word ‘free’ in free software has a similar meaning as in free speech, free people and free country and should not be confused with its other meaning associated with zero cost. Think of free software as software which is free of encumbrances, not necessarily free of cost. Think of it as swatantra software,” says the Free Software Foundation of India ( www.fsf.org.in). Free software gives users four freedoms, namely,
1. Freedom to use on any number of computers for any purpose;
2. Freedom to share the software with your family and friends;
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) website and the first issue of its free biology journal. PLoS publishes seven such journals today.
3. Freedom to study and modify the software; and
4. Freedom to redistribute the modified software.
The third freedom means that the so-called source-code (the human-readable text) of the programs should be available to any user who wants it. But one may wonder of what use it is to the users. While most users may not be able to even study or understand the program, let alone modify it, this freedom makes it possible for anyone to get a programmer to modify it and also makes it possible for programmers around the world at least to study the program and ensure that no part of it causes any harm to the users. In reality, business houses and other organisations are able to modify programs to suit their needs.
Stallman soon left his job at MIT fearing that MIT may claim the copyright for his work. He was virtually a one-man industry when he started the GNU project in 1984, but was later joined by tens of thousands of people from all over the world. In 1985, he started the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Today, apart from the FSF in Boston, United States, (see www.fsf.org) there are FSFs in Europe ( www.fsfeurope.org), India ( www.fsf.org.in) and Latin America ( www.fsa.org). And free software has become powerful enough, and popular enough, to challenge the might of many proprietary software companies.
Free and popular
For instance, all schools in Kerala use only free software, and the government of Kerala is in the process of migrating all its computers to free software. Schools in the Extramadura province of Spain do the same. But much before them, the city of Munich had decided to migrate all its computers to free software. Many companies and government bodies have already migrated (such as ELCOT in Tamil Nadu) or are in the process of doing so (the Kerala State Electricity Board, for instance). Though the Government of Kerala has adopted an IT policy that explicitly promotes free software, the Government of India is yet to take such a step. Let us hope that the Government of India, too, will soon declare freedom in software.
Now, software is like knowledge, as Stallman found. The similarity can be established in a very detailed manner. Instead of listing all the arguments, it may be pointed out that a lot of knowledge is available in digital format today and, for a computer, there is little difference between a program and digitised knowledge such as a text file, an image file or a video file. In this situation, it should be possible to make knowledge also free, just as the GNU project made software free.
In March 2000, Jimmy Wales, an American Internet entrepreneur, started Nupedia, a free content online encyclopaedia, the forerunner of today’s Wikipedia. The content of the encyclopaedia was licensed under the Nupedia Open Content Licence, which permitted anyone to copy, modify and distribute it but prohibited anyone from charging for the content. The content was written by volunteers whose capability in the area was assessed by a committee and the content they submitted was peer reviewed before publishing. The cost of running Nupedia was underwritten by Bomis, an Internet company owned by Wales.
However, Nupedia was wound up in 2003 after Wikipedia became a success. Many contributors were unhappy with the extent of editorial control over contributions, and Stallman and the FSF were in favour of allowing much greater freedom to contributors. As a consequence, FSF started a new free encyclopaedia called GNUPedia in 2001. But since Wales already owned the domain name gnupedia.org, this was renamed GNE (for GNE is Not an Encyclopedia) along the lines of GNU.
GNE had an even shorter life, partly because it was going through a struggle to decide on the extent of editorial control but mainly because Nupedia started Wikipedia in 2001, which offered total freedom and licensed its content under the GNU Free Documentation Licence. Apparently, it was Stallman who first put forward the suggestion for a free online encyclopaedia in 1999.
Though he started GNE, since its failure, he has been supporting Wikipedia. Wikipedia today is the most popular encyclopaedia with more than two million articles in English alone and has many pages in other languages. Eight of these other languages have more than 300,000 articles each and eight other languages have more than 100,000 articles each.
As many as 254 languages of the world have at least one Wikipedia page. Indian languages are not well represented in Wikipedia. Telugu tops with 38,000 articles, followed by Bishnupriya Manipuri at 23,000, Bengali (17,000), Hindi (16,500), Marathi (16,200) and Tamil (13,000). All other Indian languages have less than 10,000 articles. It is understood that the Malayalam encyclopaedia being published by the Government of Kerala will put all its articles in Wikipedia.
Though, admittedly, the number of Internet users is a tiny fraction of the country’s population, this is bound to grow and the availability of information in Indian languages would certainly be of great help to all Indians, in India and abroad.
Wikipedia is today run by a non-profit organisation called Wikimedia Foundation with the help of contributions from the public. It has several other projects today, such as Wikibooks, Wikinews and Wiktionary. All the material, including text and figures, in all these sites can be copied, modified and used freely for any purpose without violating copyright rules. This really is freedom in knowledge.
Another related project is WikiMapia (http://wikimapia.org/). To quote Wikipedia, “WikiMapia is an online map and satellite imaging resource that combines Google Maps with a wiki system, allowing users to add information [in the form of a note] to any location on earth.
“It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, and was launched on May 24, 2006 with the aim of ‘describing the whole planet Earth’. It is one of the top 1,000 websites visited, and has over 6 million places marked. While registration is not required to edit WikiMapia, over 153,000 users from around the world are currently registered.”
The word “knowledge” is used here to denote a wide spectrum of material including articles, books, stories, pictures, music, movies and so on. It has to be remembered that each of these has certain features that are not present in the others. Thus, for example, an article on Indian astronomy would largely contain material culled from various sources, though the actual form of presentation may be the author’s own. But a story would be the creative work that has emerged totally from the author’s imagination.
Thus, for human beings, knowledge has a fundamental difference with software. This is because, unlike software, it may not be advisable for some forms of knowledge to be allowed to be modified by anyone. For example, an interview with a personality has to retain its form and content since it is a report of an actual conversation. It may become dangerous to allow anyone to modify it.
On the other hand, freedom could be given, for instance, to publish it elsewhere without any modification. Again, an artist may not wish anyone else to modify his or her painting, though it may not cause any problems. Thus, it is not sufficient to have a single licence for all forms of knowledge as we can do with in the case of software. Then what is the solution?
Creative Commons
S.R. RAGHUNATHAN
Jimmy Donal Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, at the "Wiki-AMP" meet in Chennai in February 2007.
The solution was first offered by Creative Commons (CC) in December 2002. CC ( http://www.creativecommons.org) was launched by Lawrence Lessig, Professor at Stanford Law School, and friends precisely to address this problem. “Creative Commons took its idea ‘give away free copyright licences’ from the Free Software Movement. But the problem we aimed to solve was somewhat different,” says Lessig.
And how was it different? “We didn’t begin with a world without proprietary culture. Instead, there has always been proprietary culture meaning work protected by an exclusive right. ... But for most of our history, the burdens imposed by copyright on other creators, and upon the culture generally, were slight. And there was a great deal of creative work that could happen free of the regulation of the law. ... All that began to change with the birth of digital technologies, and for a reason that no one ever fully thought through” (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5668).
There was another reason that prompted the formulation of these licences. After the Berne Convention in 1886, it became unnecessary to register for copyright. Any original material is automatically copyrighted. Eventually it became unnecessary even to mark a document as copyrighted. Unless otherwise declared, every document not in the public domain is copyrighted.
Thus, it becomes difficult even to know whether a work is protected under copyright laws or not. This puts considerable difficulties in reusing material that is already available. And authors who may be willing to allow others some freedoms had no means of doing so. It was either copyright or public domain (which allows all rights to everyone).
Creative Commons offers several licences through which the creator can offer certain freedoms to the people – or, as CC puts it, Some Rights Reserved as opposed to All Rights Reserved under copyright. CC has four core licences, namely, Attribution (denoted as by), Noncommercial (nc), No Derivative Works (nd) and Share Alike (sa). These licences can be combined to produce new licences such as by-sa, by-nc-nd and so on that are more useful than the core licences (http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses).
CC has also developed a Sampling licence that permits others to use portions of a work in their own work. Remember a young author, Kaavya Viswanathan, of Indian origin being penalised some time back for using parts of other books in her novel, even though people liked her novel?
An interesting consequence of CC was demonstrated through the creation of a piece of music through collaboration between people who never knew each other. Colin Mutchler, an advocate for using media and technology to inspire people and cultures to take action toward a sustainable economy, submitted “My Life”, an acoustic guitar song, to Opsound, a music registry that requires Attribution-Share Alike licensing; Cora Beth, a total stranger to Colin, then layered a violin onto the song to create “My Life Changed”. No copyright lawyers were consulted – or harmed – in the process. Gilberto Gil, Brazil’s Minister of Culture and a Grammy-award winning musician, has been supporting freedom in culture and has released some of his music under the CC Sampling licence.
Can earn money too
A natural question is whether the creator will not lose revenue by allowing people to use his or her creations freely. The experience has been that he or she does not. For instance, music groups have said that free music downloads, in fact, help them get more concerts. And their main income is from concerts (http://www.news.com/2010-1071-944488.html). A Google search will find several such reports. And there are ways in which they can earn money, too.
As Stallman and others have suggested, there can be a link on the download page that makes it possible for a user to make a payment voluntarily. For a reasonably good work, this could fetch the author a good sum. In any case, illegal copies of most movies and music are freely available in almost all parts of the globe, especially in developing countries, and nothing has happened to either the music industry or the movie industry.
However, in the long run, the publishing industry, the recording industry and the film industry may have to move to a new paradigm that may be defined by the new technologies that are bound to emerge, though these industries have always shown a strong tendency to cling on to old paradigms and try their best not to change. Remember how the music industry protested when the tape recorder was invented. Until then, however, no drastic changes can be foreseen.
The music industry in the U.S. succeeded in bringing legislation to support themselves through the DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology and an associated law and the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Stallman and free software enthusiasts call the DRM Digital Restrictions Management. DRM technology actually prevents people from copying material recorded using the technology, or even play the recording on another player. Therefore, the word Restrictions seems to be more appropriate.
Music enthusiasts have been protesting against this and one can find a lot of material on the Web about this. They say that DRM even prevents their fair right to make a back-up copy. Opponents have created software that can overcome DRM technology. But the DMCA makes it illegal to create or use such technology to break DRM. Fortunately, these laws are now present only in a few countries. India is under pressure from the recording industry in India and abroad to implement these laws. But let us hope that India would choose to give the benefits of technology to society than to the industry.
Publication of journals in science was started with the intention of communicating the results of research to other scientists. The first scientific journal in the modern sense was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London which started publication in 1665. In those days, the only means of such communication was through print. Most of the first journals were published by societies of researchers such as the Royal Society. As the number of journals and researchers increased, publication companies found this a good business.
A number of large publishing houses entered the business and, interestingly, the price of journals too started increasing. Eventually, the scientific community started revolting against journals that charged heavily. In 2001, two organisations jointly published Declaring Independence ( http://www.arl.org/sparc/DI/).
Funding the publisher
K. GOPINATHAN
At The inauguration of FOSS.IN, free and open source software conference, at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in November 2006.
Scientific or scholarly publishing is in many ways different from other forms of publishing. Here, articles are written by researchers and peer-reviewed by researchers. The editors of journals are also often researchers. The publishing house only prints and sends the journals to subscribers. The researchers are mostly paid by the public. Their research work is also supported by the public. Yet, the copyright of the articles is owned by the publishing house.
Researchers and the public need to subscribe to these journals (that is pay the publishers) in order to access the information that was generated through public funds. And the journals were becoming more and more expensive that even some of the well-to-do universities in developed countries found it increasingly expensive to subscribe to all the relevant journals. These were the circumstances in which scientists began to revolt. The movement seems to have started in 2001 with a petition initiative by Patrick Brown and Michael Eisen, though there were sporadic protests from scientists even earlier.
Thus, Prof. Donald Knuth, author of the classic Art of Computer Programming and the inventor of TeX, a language for typesetting technical documents, writes, “I love my library and the other libraries I visit frequently, and my blood boils when I see a library being overcharged. Therefore, I wrote a strong letter to Elsevier in August 2001… expressing serious concerns about their future pricing policy for the Journal of Algorithms. Elsevier, however, ignored my letter and did not reply.” (http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Eknuth/joalet.pdf)
The Brown-Eisen petition called for all scientists to pledge that from the September of 2001 they would discontinue submission of papers to journals, which did not make the full text of their papers available to all, free and unfettered, either immediately or after a delay of several months.
The establishment of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) was the next important event in the move towards freedom in scholarly publishing. Though they had support from an eminent Nobel laureate, Dr. Harold Varmus, they had to wait for some time before they could become fully operational, with the publication of the journal PLoS Biology in 2003.
Today, they publish seven journals, the contents of which are freely available on the Internet. They follow an author-pays model where authors of articles have to pay for publishing. They, and similar other journals, have provisions to waive payment for authors from developing countries or authors who do not have provision for payment.
In Europe, the Budapest Open Access Initiative, which was, at the same time a statement of intent, a statement of strategy and a statement of commitment, was signed by several scientists at a meeting convened by the Open Society Institute in December 2001. Today, the initiative has been signed by thousands of scientists. This initiative has made a significant impact the world over, especially in Europe.
Several research and funding agencies, such as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), have mandated open access for all publications arising out of research funded by them.
Open Access (OA) means that the publications are available freely to other scientists and to the public. In fact, it asks for all freedom for users and only demands that the author be acknowledged and the integrity of the material be maintained. Of course, it does not permit republication of the material in its original form or in a modified form, as CC licences do. Open Access to scholarly publications is very important in a country like India.
The Government of India, therefore, should mandate OA for all publications arising out of publicly funded research. This can be in either of two ways: the author can put up the article in his/her own website, in his/her institute’s website or in a centralised website (journals that permit this are called OA Green); or, they can publish in Open Access journals that put up their contents on their own websites (called OA Gold). Fortunately, a large fraction of Indian journals are OA. But most good papers from India are published in journals abroad that are not necessarily OA.
Freedom in Commerce
This is about a new experiment being conducted in India. The idea is to bring total transparency to businesses. An IT company called WikiOcean has started functioning in Pune. Details about the company can be found at www.wikiocean.net. This company is unique in that its website shows all details of its functioning, including financial transactions. They call this kind of a system Wekosystem, a play with wiki and ecosystem. As its website explains, “WikiOcean is a participatory, non-proprietary organisation where professionals join on revenue-sharing model as explained in the wekosystem.”
This company was inspired by the transparency of free software, and, in fact, one of the so-called catalysts (the ones who regulate the structure and dynamics of Wekosystem) is the chairperson of the Free Software Foundation of India, Prof. G. Nagarjuna. The company is already working on projects. But, it is too early to see how well such a company can survive. Let us hope for the best.
Another absurdly exotic idea is to copy the free software model for other products. In other words, make all needs freely available to everyone. Though this may sound totally absurd, we may not be able simply to rule out the possibility since some small-scale efforts are already on and seemingly running.
This idea is being discussed by a not-so-small group of people that calls itself Oekonux (derived from oekonomie, the German word for economy, and Linux). Details can be found at www.oekonux.org and you could join their active mailing list if you are really interested.
As we have seen, new technologies bring new challenges and new ideas. And we may have to rewrite old laws that were created for an entirely different situation, a different technological paradigm.
When new technology appears, we need to change our laws to suit the new situation so that society can fully benefit from the new technology. Or else, a small section of society would garner all the benefits. And, at the pace at which technology is changing, it is not going to be easy to keep track of all its implications. Our technocrats and policymakers need to keep pace.
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 licence. For details about this licence, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/2.5/in/
Frontline
Volume 25 - Issue 10 :: May. 10-23, 2008
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU •
TECHNOLOGY
A new wave of freedom
V. SASI KUMAR
The new freedom movement , in software, knowledge, publishing and commerce, will change the way we think, do things and interact.
H. SATISH
Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation.
Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral.
– Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
INDIA became a sovereign republic on January 26, 1950. India became free. Or, more precisely, political power was transferred from the British to the Indians. That was a period when a number of countries that were living under the yoke of imperialism broke free.
Politically, that is. We still do not enjoy certain freedoms that we deserve. A new wave of freedom movements, to achieve these freedoms, is now sweeping the world – a movement that is bound to change the way we think, the way we do things and the way we interact. It started in the United States and aims to free people from the clutches of monopoly corporations. And the role of Gandhiji is being played by an extraordinary person with long hair and a long beard; a man called Richard Mathew Stallman, who vehemently rejects any comparison with Gandhiji or Nelson Mandela.
“Till we are fully free, we are slaves,” said Gandhiji. Developments in technology have made it possible for mankind to enjoy greater freedom in certain ways. However, vested interests, with help from legislators, are now succeeding in preventing society from enjoying this freedom. For instance, with the advent of computers and the Internet, it has become possible for data, information and knowledge to be communicated instantaneously, provided a computer with Internet connection is available at both ends. However, some of our laws that were designed for an earlier era are preventing societies from benefiting fully from this technology.
The new freedom movement is finding means to circumvent these laws. And, interestingly, this movement is not led by political parties or activists, but, of all people, by computer programmers (or hackers). Let us look at some of the ways in which our freedoms are being curtailed, and how there are ways by which we can regain them even within the existing paradigm.
When you switch on your computer, you are making a political statement. This may sound absurd, trying to find politics in even mundane matters. But this is a fact. In the early days of the computer, users used to write their own programs and they used to exchange these programs according to need. No one used to hold exclusive rights over these programs. Those days, computers were big and expensive, often occupying whole rooms, but were much less powerful compared even to the small PCs of today. As technology developed, computers became smaller and, interestingly, more powerful.
It was around the early 1980s that computer manufacturers started enforcing what was called a non-disclosure agreement on programmers who were engaged to write software. These agreements prevented programmers from disclosing the human-readable source-code of the programs. And software became a product for which users had to pay. Of course, some users continued to write programs for their own purposes, and still do so, but ready-made programs became available on payment and computer users increasingly started using them.
Software for all
It was as a reaction to this productisation of software that Richard Stallman, then working in the Artificial Intelligence Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), decided to create an operating system (OS) and applications that gave users freedom. He believed that software was like knowledge (as he often says, like a recipe) and, like knowledge, software should not be the property of any individual or organisation. It should belong to all humanity.
Stallman wrote: “What does society need? It needs information that is truly available to its citizens, for example, programs that people can read, fix, adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners typically deliver is a black box that we can’t study or change. Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own lives” (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html).
Stallman started a project that he named GNU to create free software, and he decided to model his free OS on the then very popular Unix. Unix was a proprietary OS that could handle multiple users simultaneously, it could interconnect computers and was very secure. In those days, many programmers used to name a new program that was similar to an existing one by creating an acronym saying this is not that.
Thus, for instance, a new text editor similar to the existing Emacs editor was called Eine for Eine Is Not Emacs. In a similar manner, Stallman called his operating system GNU for GNU is Not Unix. This was later used with the Linux kernel (the core part of an OS) and thus was born the GNU/Linux OS. We now have different kernels that can be used with GNU software, such as Free BSD, Open Solaris and so on.
“Free software is a matter of freedom, not cost. It is a matter of liberty, not price. The word ‘free’ in free software has a similar meaning as in free speech, free people and free country and should not be confused with its other meaning associated with zero cost. Think of free software as software which is free of encumbrances, not necessarily free of cost. Think of it as swatantra software,” says the Free Software Foundation of India ( www.fsf.org.in). Free software gives users four freedoms, namely,
1. Freedom to use on any number of computers for any purpose;
2. Freedom to share the software with your family and friends;
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) website and the first issue of its free biology journal. PLoS publishes seven such journals today.
3. Freedom to study and modify the software; and
4. Freedom to redistribute the modified software.
The third freedom means that the so-called source-code (the human-readable text) of the programs should be available to any user who wants it. But one may wonder of what use it is to the users. While most users may not be able to even study or understand the program, let alone modify it, this freedom makes it possible for anyone to get a programmer to modify it and also makes it possible for programmers around the world at least to study the program and ensure that no part of it causes any harm to the users. In reality, business houses and other organisations are able to modify programs to suit their needs.
Stallman soon left his job at MIT fearing that MIT may claim the copyright for his work. He was virtually a one-man industry when he started the GNU project in 1984, but was later joined by tens of thousands of people from all over the world. In 1985, he started the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Today, apart from the FSF in Boston, United States, (see www.fsf.org) there are FSFs in Europe ( www.fsfeurope.org), India ( www.fsf.org.in) and Latin America ( www.fsa.org). And free software has become powerful enough, and popular enough, to challenge the might of many proprietary software companies.
Free and popular
For instance, all schools in Kerala use only free software, and the government of Kerala is in the process of migrating all its computers to free software. Schools in the Extramadura province of Spain do the same. But much before them, the city of Munich had decided to migrate all its computers to free software. Many companies and government bodies have already migrated (such as ELCOT in Tamil Nadu) or are in the process of doing so (the Kerala State Electricity Board, for instance). Though the Government of Kerala has adopted an IT policy that explicitly promotes free software, the Government of India is yet to take such a step. Let us hope that the Government of India, too, will soon declare freedom in software.
Now, software is like knowledge, as Stallman found. The similarity can be established in a very detailed manner. Instead of listing all the arguments, it may be pointed out that a lot of knowledge is available in digital format today and, for a computer, there is little difference between a program and digitised knowledge such as a text file, an image file or a video file. In this situation, it should be possible to make knowledge also free, just as the GNU project made software free.
In March 2000, Jimmy Wales, an American Internet entrepreneur, started Nupedia, a free content online encyclopaedia, the forerunner of today’s Wikipedia. The content of the encyclopaedia was licensed under the Nupedia Open Content Licence, which permitted anyone to copy, modify and distribute it but prohibited anyone from charging for the content. The content was written by volunteers whose capability in the area was assessed by a committee and the content they submitted was peer reviewed before publishing. The cost of running Nupedia was underwritten by Bomis, an Internet company owned by Wales.
However, Nupedia was wound up in 2003 after Wikipedia became a success. Many contributors were unhappy with the extent of editorial control over contributions, and Stallman and the FSF were in favour of allowing much greater freedom to contributors. As a consequence, FSF started a new free encyclopaedia called GNUPedia in 2001. But since Wales already owned the domain name gnupedia.org, this was renamed GNE (for GNE is Not an Encyclopedia) along the lines of GNU.
GNE had an even shorter life, partly because it was going through a struggle to decide on the extent of editorial control but mainly because Nupedia started Wikipedia in 2001, which offered total freedom and licensed its content under the GNU Free Documentation Licence. Apparently, it was Stallman who first put forward the suggestion for a free online encyclopaedia in 1999.
Though he started GNE, since its failure, he has been supporting Wikipedia. Wikipedia today is the most popular encyclopaedia with more than two million articles in English alone and has many pages in other languages. Eight of these other languages have more than 300,000 articles each and eight other languages have more than 100,000 articles each.
As many as 254 languages of the world have at least one Wikipedia page. Indian languages are not well represented in Wikipedia. Telugu tops with 38,000 articles, followed by Bishnupriya Manipuri at 23,000, Bengali (17,000), Hindi (16,500), Marathi (16,200) and Tamil (13,000). All other Indian languages have less than 10,000 articles. It is understood that the Malayalam encyclopaedia being published by the Government of Kerala will put all its articles in Wikipedia.
Though, admittedly, the number of Internet users is a tiny fraction of the country’s population, this is bound to grow and the availability of information in Indian languages would certainly be of great help to all Indians, in India and abroad.
Wikipedia is today run by a non-profit organisation called Wikimedia Foundation with the help of contributions from the public. It has several other projects today, such as Wikibooks, Wikinews and Wiktionary. All the material, including text and figures, in all these sites can be copied, modified and used freely for any purpose without violating copyright rules. This really is freedom in knowledge.
Another related project is WikiMapia (http://wikimapia.org/). To quote Wikipedia, “WikiMapia is an online map and satellite imaging resource that combines Google Maps with a wiki system, allowing users to add information [in the form of a note] to any location on earth.
“It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, and was launched on May 24, 2006 with the aim of ‘describing the whole planet Earth’. It is one of the top 1,000 websites visited, and has over 6 million places marked. While registration is not required to edit WikiMapia, over 153,000 users from around the world are currently registered.”
The word “knowledge” is used here to denote a wide spectrum of material including articles, books, stories, pictures, music, movies and so on. It has to be remembered that each of these has certain features that are not present in the others. Thus, for example, an article on Indian astronomy would largely contain material culled from various sources, though the actual form of presentation may be the author’s own. But a story would be the creative work that has emerged totally from the author’s imagination.
Thus, for human beings, knowledge has a fundamental difference with software. This is because, unlike software, it may not be advisable for some forms of knowledge to be allowed to be modified by anyone. For example, an interview with a personality has to retain its form and content since it is a report of an actual conversation. It may become dangerous to allow anyone to modify it.
On the other hand, freedom could be given, for instance, to publish it elsewhere without any modification. Again, an artist may not wish anyone else to modify his or her painting, though it may not cause any problems. Thus, it is not sufficient to have a single licence for all forms of knowledge as we can do with in the case of software. Then what is the solution?
Creative Commons
S.R. RAGHUNATHAN
Jimmy Donal Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, at the "Wiki-AMP" meet in Chennai in February 2007.
The solution was first offered by Creative Commons (CC) in December 2002. CC ( http://www.creativecommons.org) was launched by Lawrence Lessig, Professor at Stanford Law School, and friends precisely to address this problem. “Creative Commons took its idea ‘give away free copyright licences’ from the Free Software Movement. But the problem we aimed to solve was somewhat different,” says Lessig.
And how was it different? “We didn’t begin with a world without proprietary culture. Instead, there has always been proprietary culture meaning work protected by an exclusive right. ... But for most of our history, the burdens imposed by copyright on other creators, and upon the culture generally, were slight. And there was a great deal of creative work that could happen free of the regulation of the law. ... All that began to change with the birth of digital technologies, and for a reason that no one ever fully thought through” (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5668).
There was another reason that prompted the formulation of these licences. After the Berne Convention in 1886, it became unnecessary to register for copyright. Any original material is automatically copyrighted. Eventually it became unnecessary even to mark a document as copyrighted. Unless otherwise declared, every document not in the public domain is copyrighted.
Thus, it becomes difficult even to know whether a work is protected under copyright laws or not. This puts considerable difficulties in reusing material that is already available. And authors who may be willing to allow others some freedoms had no means of doing so. It was either copyright or public domain (which allows all rights to everyone).
Creative Commons offers several licences through which the creator can offer certain freedoms to the people – or, as CC puts it, Some Rights Reserved as opposed to All Rights Reserved under copyright. CC has four core licences, namely, Attribution (denoted as by), Noncommercial (nc), No Derivative Works (nd) and Share Alike (sa). These licences can be combined to produce new licences such as by-sa, by-nc-nd and so on that are more useful than the core licences (http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses).
CC has also developed a Sampling licence that permits others to use portions of a work in their own work. Remember a young author, Kaavya Viswanathan, of Indian origin being penalised some time back for using parts of other books in her novel, even though people liked her novel?
An interesting consequence of CC was demonstrated through the creation of a piece of music through collaboration between people who never knew each other. Colin Mutchler, an advocate for using media and technology to inspire people and cultures to take action toward a sustainable economy, submitted “My Life”, an acoustic guitar song, to Opsound, a music registry that requires Attribution-Share Alike licensing; Cora Beth, a total stranger to Colin, then layered a violin onto the song to create “My Life Changed”. No copyright lawyers were consulted – or harmed – in the process. Gilberto Gil, Brazil’s Minister of Culture and a Grammy-award winning musician, has been supporting freedom in culture and has released some of his music under the CC Sampling licence.
Can earn money too
A natural question is whether the creator will not lose revenue by allowing people to use his or her creations freely. The experience has been that he or she does not. For instance, music groups have said that free music downloads, in fact, help them get more concerts. And their main income is from concerts (http://www.news.com/2010-1071-944488.html). A Google search will find several such reports. And there are ways in which they can earn money, too.
As Stallman and others have suggested, there can be a link on the download page that makes it possible for a user to make a payment voluntarily. For a reasonably good work, this could fetch the author a good sum. In any case, illegal copies of most movies and music are freely available in almost all parts of the globe, especially in developing countries, and nothing has happened to either the music industry or the movie industry.
However, in the long run, the publishing industry, the recording industry and the film industry may have to move to a new paradigm that may be defined by the new technologies that are bound to emerge, though these industries have always shown a strong tendency to cling on to old paradigms and try their best not to change. Remember how the music industry protested when the tape recorder was invented. Until then, however, no drastic changes can be foreseen.
The music industry in the U.S. succeeded in bringing legislation to support themselves through the DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology and an associated law and the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Stallman and free software enthusiasts call the DRM Digital Restrictions Management. DRM technology actually prevents people from copying material recorded using the technology, or even play the recording on another player. Therefore, the word Restrictions seems to be more appropriate.
Music enthusiasts have been protesting against this and one can find a lot of material on the Web about this. They say that DRM even prevents their fair right to make a back-up copy. Opponents have created software that can overcome DRM technology. But the DMCA makes it illegal to create or use such technology to break DRM. Fortunately, these laws are now present only in a few countries. India is under pressure from the recording industry in India and abroad to implement these laws. But let us hope that India would choose to give the benefits of technology to society than to the industry.
Publication of journals in science was started with the intention of communicating the results of research to other scientists. The first scientific journal in the modern sense was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London which started publication in 1665. In those days, the only means of such communication was through print. Most of the first journals were published by societies of researchers such as the Royal Society. As the number of journals and researchers increased, publication companies found this a good business.
A number of large publishing houses entered the business and, interestingly, the price of journals too started increasing. Eventually, the scientific community started revolting against journals that charged heavily. In 2001, two organisations jointly published Declaring Independence ( http://www.arl.org/sparc/DI/).
Funding the publisher
K. GOPINATHAN
At The inauguration of FOSS.IN, free and open source software conference, at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in November 2006.
Scientific or scholarly publishing is in many ways different from other forms of publishing. Here, articles are written by researchers and peer-reviewed by researchers. The editors of journals are also often researchers. The publishing house only prints and sends the journals to subscribers. The researchers are mostly paid by the public. Their research work is also supported by the public. Yet, the copyright of the articles is owned by the publishing house.
Researchers and the public need to subscribe to these journals (that is pay the publishers) in order to access the information that was generated through public funds. And the journals were becoming more and more expensive that even some of the well-to-do universities in developed countries found it increasingly expensive to subscribe to all the relevant journals. These were the circumstances in which scientists began to revolt. The movement seems to have started in 2001 with a petition initiative by Patrick Brown and Michael Eisen, though there were sporadic protests from scientists even earlier.
Thus, Prof. Donald Knuth, author of the classic Art of Computer Programming and the inventor of TeX, a language for typesetting technical documents, writes, “I love my library and the other libraries I visit frequently, and my blood boils when I see a library being overcharged. Therefore, I wrote a strong letter to Elsevier in August 2001… expressing serious concerns about their future pricing policy for the Journal of Algorithms. Elsevier, however, ignored my letter and did not reply.” (http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Eknuth/joalet.pdf)
The Brown-Eisen petition called for all scientists to pledge that from the September of 2001 they would discontinue submission of papers to journals, which did not make the full text of their papers available to all, free and unfettered, either immediately or after a delay of several months.
The establishment of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) was the next important event in the move towards freedom in scholarly publishing. Though they had support from an eminent Nobel laureate, Dr. Harold Varmus, they had to wait for some time before they could become fully operational, with the publication of the journal PLoS Biology in 2003.
Today, they publish seven journals, the contents of which are freely available on the Internet. They follow an author-pays model where authors of articles have to pay for publishing. They, and similar other journals, have provisions to waive payment for authors from developing countries or authors who do not have provision for payment.
In Europe, the Budapest Open Access Initiative, which was, at the same time a statement of intent, a statement of strategy and a statement of commitment, was signed by several scientists at a meeting convened by the Open Society Institute in December 2001. Today, the initiative has been signed by thousands of scientists. This initiative has made a significant impact the world over, especially in Europe.
Several research and funding agencies, such as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), have mandated open access for all publications arising out of research funded by them.
Open Access (OA) means that the publications are available freely to other scientists and to the public. In fact, it asks for all freedom for users and only demands that the author be acknowledged and the integrity of the material be maintained. Of course, it does not permit republication of the material in its original form or in a modified form, as CC licences do. Open Access to scholarly publications is very important in a country like India.
The Government of India, therefore, should mandate OA for all publications arising out of publicly funded research. This can be in either of two ways: the author can put up the article in his/her own website, in his/her institute’s website or in a centralised website (journals that permit this are called OA Green); or, they can publish in Open Access journals that put up their contents on their own websites (called OA Gold). Fortunately, a large fraction of Indian journals are OA. But most good papers from India are published in journals abroad that are not necessarily OA.
Freedom in Commerce
This is about a new experiment being conducted in India. The idea is to bring total transparency to businesses. An IT company called WikiOcean has started functioning in Pune. Details about the company can be found at www.wikiocean.net. This company is unique in that its website shows all details of its functioning, including financial transactions. They call this kind of a system Wekosystem, a play with wiki and ecosystem. As its website explains, “WikiOcean is a participatory, non-proprietary organisation where professionals join on revenue-sharing model as explained in the wekosystem.”
This company was inspired by the transparency of free software, and, in fact, one of the so-called catalysts (the ones who regulate the structure and dynamics of Wekosystem) is the chairperson of the Free Software Foundation of India, Prof. G. Nagarjuna. The company is already working on projects. But, it is too early to see how well such a company can survive. Let us hope for the best.
Another absurdly exotic idea is to copy the free software model for other products. In other words, make all needs freely available to everyone. Though this may sound totally absurd, we may not be able simply to rule out the possibility since some small-scale efforts are already on and seemingly running.
This idea is being discussed by a not-so-small group of people that calls itself Oekonux (derived from oekonomie, the German word for economy, and Linux). Details can be found at www.oekonux.org and you could join their active mailing list if you are really interested.
As we have seen, new technologies bring new challenges and new ideas. And we may have to rewrite old laws that were created for an entirely different situation, a different technological paradigm.
When new technology appears, we need to change our laws to suit the new situation so that society can fully benefit from the new technology. Or else, a small section of society would garner all the benefits. And, at the pace at which technology is changing, it is not going to be easy to keep track of all its implications. Our technocrats and policymakers need to keep pace.
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 licence. For details about this licence, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/2.5/in/
Friday, May 9, 2008
Morning sexercise
Morning sex can keep you hale and hearty
March 11, 2008 17:12 IST
A steamy sex session in the morning can keep you in good health, say researchers.
According to a research from Queen's University in Belfast, a good morning session at least three times a week, decreases the risk of heart attack or stroke by half and a regular session improves circulation, thereby reducing blood pressure.
According to a study in New Scientist, a steamy session twice a week enhances IgA, an antibody that provides protection against microbes that multiply in body secretions, reports The Sun.
Morning sex also helps in alleviating arthritis and migraine. It burns around 300 calories an hour that simultaneously diminishes the risk of developing diabetes.
Moreover, an American study involving 300 sexually active women whose partners did not use condoms revealed that they were less prone to depression.
Sex increases the production of testosterone that provides stronger bones and muscles thus helping to stave off osteoporosis.
A good morning session can make the hair shine and skin glow by raising the output of oestrogen and other hormones associated with it.
According to Yale School of Medicine researchers, it can aid in averting endometriosis, a condition where the tissue that normally lines the uterus, grows in other parts of the pelvis.
However, the researchers have also warned that having sex more than three times a week can have a negative impact on our immune system thus lowering its resistance.
March 11, 2008 17:12 IST
A steamy sex session in the morning can keep you in good health, say researchers.
According to a research from Queen's University in Belfast, a good morning session at least three times a week, decreases the risk of heart attack or stroke by half and a regular session improves circulation, thereby reducing blood pressure.
According to a study in New Scientist, a steamy session twice a week enhances IgA, an antibody that provides protection against microbes that multiply in body secretions, reports The Sun.
Morning sex also helps in alleviating arthritis and migraine. It burns around 300 calories an hour that simultaneously diminishes the risk of developing diabetes.
Moreover, an American study involving 300 sexually active women whose partners did not use condoms revealed that they were less prone to depression.
Sex increases the production of testosterone that provides stronger bones and muscles thus helping to stave off osteoporosis.
A good morning session can make the hair shine and skin glow by raising the output of oestrogen and other hormones associated with it.
According to Yale School of Medicine researchers, it can aid in averting endometriosis, a condition where the tissue that normally lines the uterus, grows in other parts of the pelvis.
However, the researchers have also warned that having sex more than three times a week can have a negative impact on our immune system thus lowering its resistance.
Spare Setu, it might be monument, ponders Court - National News – News – MSN India - News
Spare Setu, it might be monument, ponders Court - National News – News – MSN India - News
Friday, May 09, 2008
Spare Setu, it might be monument, ponders Court
Supreme Court
New Delhi:In a setback to the UPA government’s ambitious Setusamudram Shipping Canal Project, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked it to conduct an archaeological investigation to find out if ‘Ram Setu’ could be declared an ‘ancient monument’.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan also asked the government to explore the possibility of adopting some alternative route/alignment for completing it without damaging the Ram Setu, as suggested by the petitioners opposing the project.
“There is a specific direction of the Madras High Court that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should carry out investigations whether Ram Setu is an ancient monument or not,” the bench said. The court had already ordered that no damage be caused to the Ram Setu.
The latest development virtually puts the project — being pushed by UPA ally DMK — in a limbo. The government cannot proceed without presenting before the court the findings of the ASI and its decision regarding alternative routes. The ASI will examine if the Setu could be declared an ancient monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958.
In a way, the UPA government that had to withdraw its earlier affidavit denying the existence of Ram and Ram Setu as a manmade structure would heave a sigh of relief. It may indeed lose a few brownie points to the Opposition.
But at the same time, the Centre can put the issue on the backburner without offending the DMK, as the process ordered by the court may not be complete before the next round of assembly elections and the general election.
The court noted that Janata Party president Subramanium Swamy and Hindu Munnani senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan had advanced "serious" arguments for conducting an ASI probe and for taking forward the project through some other route. The two and others opposed to the project submitted that they wouldn't oppose the project if it could be completed without damaging the Setu.
They argued that alternative alignments would be economically more viable and won't cause damage to the environment besides respecting the religious faith of crores of Hindus.
Vaidyanathan had suggested a route through Dhanushkodi by removing the landmass in an area of about 800 metres. It could start from where the present route i.e. alignment no.6 begins in the Gulf of Mannar and take a turn towards Dhanushkodi in the southern part of Rameshwaram island and finally meet the same alignment in the Palk Bay to avoid the Ram Setu' altogether. The court posted the case for hearing on July 22.
© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Spare Setu, it might be monument, ponders Court
Supreme Court
New Delhi:In a setback to the UPA government’s ambitious Setusamudram Shipping Canal Project, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked it to conduct an archaeological investigation to find out if ‘Ram Setu’ could be declared an ‘ancient monument’.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan also asked the government to explore the possibility of adopting some alternative route/alignment for completing it without damaging the Ram Setu, as suggested by the petitioners opposing the project.
“There is a specific direction of the Madras High Court that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should carry out investigations whether Ram Setu is an ancient monument or not,” the bench said. The court had already ordered that no damage be caused to the Ram Setu.
The latest development virtually puts the project — being pushed by UPA ally DMK — in a limbo. The government cannot proceed without presenting before the court the findings of the ASI and its decision regarding alternative routes. The ASI will examine if the Setu could be declared an ancient monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958.
In a way, the UPA government that had to withdraw its earlier affidavit denying the existence of Ram and Ram Setu as a manmade structure would heave a sigh of relief. It may indeed lose a few brownie points to the Opposition.
But at the same time, the Centre can put the issue on the backburner without offending the DMK, as the process ordered by the court may not be complete before the next round of assembly elections and the general election.
The court noted that Janata Party president Subramanium Swamy and Hindu Munnani senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan had advanced "serious" arguments for conducting an ASI probe and for taking forward the project through some other route. The two and others opposed to the project submitted that they wouldn't oppose the project if it could be completed without damaging the Setu.
They argued that alternative alignments would be economically more viable and won't cause damage to the environment besides respecting the religious faith of crores of Hindus.
Vaidyanathan had suggested a route through Dhanushkodi by removing the landmass in an area of about 800 metres. It could start from where the present route i.e. alignment no.6 begins in the Gulf of Mannar and take a turn towards Dhanushkodi in the southern part of Rameshwaram island and finally meet the same alignment in the Palk Bay to avoid the Ram Setu' altogether. The court posted the case for hearing on July 22.
© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
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