Afghani women on work trip to Gujarat

A team of 35 Afghani women are visiting Ahmedabad to learn more about how they can develop their own businesses.

This is a positive leap for them after years of living in a Taliban controlled Afghanistan, where the role of women was limited.

Stepping out of their burqas, these women are now taking part in their country’s economic development.

One of the country’s best known NGOS working on empowering women, the Self-Employed Womens’ Association or SEWA as it is more popularly known, has set up training centres in Afghanistan and they say the response has been very enthusiastic.

Mariyam, one of the trainee at SEWA in Ahmedabad said, ”I want to go back to Afghanistan and help other women who have no means of earning due to their children and family. I want to help them earn respect this way.”

Kamlia, a business woman from Majar-E-Sharif said, ”We now want to rebuild a new Afghanistan in the new rule. I have started my own business from a disturbed place like Majar-E-Sharif.”

Uma Devi, co-ordinator at SEWA in Afghanistan said, ”One of the major problems with women in Afghanistan is lack of education and so while we are trying to provide them vocational training on food processing, agricultural processing, garmenting, we are also working out ways for better education for women living in Afghanistan.”

Yet another Indian cabbie brutally beaten in Australia

An Indian cabbie was brutally beaten by two men in Adelaide who allegedly also stole his taxi in a second such incident in the past three weeks.

Balraj Singh was severely injured on face and his nose was broken in an attack by the two men who had boarded his cab at the weekend, Australian media reported.

Last month, a 23-year-old Indian student taxi driver Jalvinder Singh was brutally stabbed and left bleeding on the roadside in Melbourne.

A number of taxi drivers on Monday protested the attack on Balraj, causing chaos in Adelaide city even as they sought justice for the victim.

Drivers parked about 50 taxis in front of the court building and protested for about 45 minutes, chanting, ”we want justice” over the bashing of Singh, media reports said.

From his hospital bed, Singh said he was punched in the right eye and had his seatbelt wrapped around his neck by a man in the back seat.

”You’re not safe at night time. You don’t know the people you pick up, who they are,” he told ABC TV.

He was being treated for facial injuries, including a broken nose.

Driver Mohsin Mirsa, 26, said cabbies regretted disrupting customers but feared for their safety every day.

”We are prepared to protest until the Government says security screens have to be put in taxis,” he said adding ”we have no protection. If they can do it in Melbourne why not here.”

Meanwhile, ABC reported on Monday that one of the two men charged with bashing Singh and stealing his cab at the weekend made an application for bail.

Driver Balraj Singh was taken to hospital after the attack in the southern suburbs of Adelaide.

Two 24-year-olds, Nathan Morrison and Owen Calyun, appeared in the Adelaide Magistrates Court this afternoon.

Calyun made no application for bail but Morrison will seek to be released on home detention.

Lawyers for both men asked for their names to be suppressed but the request was denied by Magistrate Joanne Tracey.

Goa’s beach safety plan caught up in bureaucratic process

Goa’s ambitious beach safety plan to arrest increasing drowning deaths is caught up in bureaucratic formalities delaying its implementation, confirmed the tourism officials.

The plan envisages beach safety including lifeguards and constant monitoring of the beach stretches by installing CCTV cameras.

Tourism department officials confirmed that an agency has already been finalized to implement the plan but the financial sanction is awaited.

The state tourism minister Fransisco Pacheco said that the department was in the process of giving final touches to the proposal for the life safety along the beaches, which he said, is designed to reduce fatalities to near zero.

Commenting on increasing deaths due to drowning, the minister said that the guests should execute self-caution and remain away from danger zones.

”Self caution is the best option to counter inadequacy of the prevailing system of life guards,” he added.

Elaborating further the life safety system, he said that the every visitor will be under the care of the arrangements by the agency.

”The functioning of the system will be monitored by high ranking officials through a specially designed software. It is an outcome of elaborate analysis and will involve state of art equipments,” Pacheco said.

There is a requirement of well-equipped lifeguards to deal with any emergency, he added.

Send Bangladeshis to camp: Centre to Raje

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has told NDTV that the Centre asked her government to round up all Bangladeshis staying illegally in the state and put them in a transit camp.

Speaking to Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of Indian Express in Walk The Talk programme Raje said her government has been writing to the Centre since June 2006 about the problem of illegal Bangladeshi migrants, and this was the suggestion the Union Home Ministry made in formal written replies.

With investigators suspecting the role of Bangladesh based militant group HuJI in the Jaipur serial blasts, Bangladeshis staying illegally in Rajasthan have come under the scanner.

Many of them have been held for questioning.

Excerpts of the interview:

Vasundhara Raje: I will give you an example on the deportation and of the Bangladeshi national residents finding ways to Rajasthan.

We have written letters to them (Centre) many times. We wrote to them in June 2007 saying we need to do something about this. We got a reply back from them: ”Why don’t you collect them and put them into a transit camp somewhere.

TN govt’s cheaper idli inflation strategy

In a bid to shield people from the heat of inflation, the DMK government in Tamil Nadu has urged hotel owners to slash the prices of common items like idlis, dosas and pongal.

This step is despite the fact that cost of the ingredients are steadily shooting up.

E V Velu, TN Food Minister, said, ”We hope to get a favourable response from hotels in a week. The government will take all steps to reduce prices.”

Hotel owners find this move impossible. ”We are running commercial establishments not government canteens,” is what most of them say.

The initial request, many fear, may soon give way to strong arm tactics.

P Rajagopal, owner of Sangeetha chain of restaurants said, ”It’s not only the production cost but the administration cost, rental cost, everything has gone up. Threatening us with an ordinance is not the solution. They must calculate just how we businessmen can survive.”

A plate of idli costs between Rs 10 to 15 and dosa about Rs 20. S Viswanathan, a customer said, ”Unless the government reduce the prices of essential commodities, nobody can do any miracle.”

Hotel owners have convened a meeting this weekend to decide on the government directive.

Gold rises further on aggressive buying

Gold prices surged further by Rs 150 per 10 gram on the bullion market in New Delhi on Wednesday on increased buying influenced by firming trend in overseas markets.

The gold, which gained Rs 150 on Tuesday, rose further by Rs 150 to Rs 11,820 per 10 gram on heavy buying by stockists and jewellery fabricators, marketmen said.

The buying activity picked up on reports that the gold rose in Asia for a fourth day as crude oil traded near $122 a barrel, boosting the appeal of the precious metal as a hedge against inflation, they added.

Gold has gained 5.2 per cent this year in overseas markets, while oil soared 27 per cent. Bullion for immediate delivery gained $5.03 to $881.43 an ounce. The domestic bullion market normally take guidance from global markets.

Standard gold and ornaments rose by Rs 150 each to Rs 11,820 and Rs 11,670 per 10 gram respectively. Sovereign held unchanged at Rs 9875 per piece of eight gram.

Silver also rose further on brisk buying by funds. Silver ready rose further by Rs 320 to Rs 22,620 per kg and weekly-based delivery by Rs 500 to Rs 22,450 per kg. 

Silver coins, on the other hand, continued to be asked at previous levels of Rs 26,600 for buying and Rs 26,700 for selling of 100 pieces.

Mumbai Cops become marriage counsellors

The Mumbai Police is best known for hunting down the baddies and pounding the beat to solve baffling crimes.

However at six police stations in the north zone of Mumbai, the cops play an unlikely role of a marriage counsellor, reconciling couples, who have eloped due to their distraught and angry parents.

”These families have differences. We bring them together, counsel them and get them married,” says Shivaji Bokade, DCP, Mumbai.

Kamini, a 21-year-old post-graduate literature student who married her sweetheart of four years, is now living with her husband Rupesh and her in-laws.

The bone of contention in this case was that Kamini’s parents felt that Rupesh, a sales executive with a supermarket, was not good enough for their daughter.

Then, there was 19-year-old Shalini, a runaway bride-to-be, who slipped off the train on her way to her wedding in Benaras. Today, Shalini and Shiva’s families have agreed to get the couple married when her boyfriend Shiva turns 21.

With the Rizwanur case still fresh in public memory, the Mumbai Police feel that reconciliation is better than recrimination and they are more than happy to play the role of marriage counsellor. They say that ever since frightened couples began turning up at the six police stations in this zone six months ago, they have resolved differences in 150 cases.

D P Khamkar, an assistant police inspector at the Kurar Police Station, who is a de facto marriage counsellor, has helped 10 families stay together despite serious differences.

”There were 40 cases at this police station between January and April. Of these, I have successfully handled 10 cases,” says Khamkar.

Love is blind, especially to caste differences, something the police officers say is the bane of most families they counsel. But helping Cupid overcome something so deep-rooted is very rewarding.

Indian student murdered in UK

A 23-year-old Indian postgraduate student was killed at her hostel in Handsworth, a suburb of Birmingham on Tuesday night, police said on Wednesday.

Jyotirmayee Nagasaibabu, a student of the University of Wolverhampton, was found dead in her hostel, they said.

According to official sources, Nagasaibabu was in the hostel along with four other Telugu-speaking students shortly before her tragic death.

A man was also found at the scene with serious injuries when the police were called last evening.

He is said to be in a stable condition in hospital. The cause of the Nagasaibabu’s death or injuries to the man has not been revealed, but police have initiated house-to-house inquiries at the scene.

The West Midlands police said forensic tests were being carried out at the property and a post-mortem examination would be carried out on the body later.

Transport in Delhi on a transition spree

The newly introduced Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) might still be struggling but it is part of the government’s strategy to introduce new means of public transport in the city.

Delhi has more cars than the three other metro cities put together and so far the only solution has been the Delhi Metro. However, the Delhi government has maintained that BRT is a cheaper option.

Brijendra Mohan Sahni, who is 50 year old, lives in south Delhi and works at Karol Bagh in Central Delhi. Every morning, he takes a bus that passes through the BRT corridor.

He gets off at Patel Chowk and then uses the Metro for the rest of the journey.

”The Metro is air conditioned. I also don’t have to face a rowdy conductor, so it is much better for me as a commuter,” says Brijendra.

Has the Metro been a success story so big that the BRT cannot compare, even if the Delhi government is able to make it glitch-free? Or is the combination of local trains and new bus corridors exactly right for a city that adds on 1000 cars every day to its roads?

Experts have said that one of the main reasons for the success of the Metro is that it has autonomy while it is commissioned by the government. It answers to its own board of directors and also has to raise more than half its costs.

”The good thing about the Metro is that it has managed to raise huge money from private sources at a very low rate of interest of around two per cent. So, it is not burdening the government. And such a funding model means that all deadlines are met, so that more funding comes through,” says K K Mohanty, an infrastructure funding expert.

The BRT on the other hand is funded and managed totally by the Delhi government.

Let us take a look at a comparison between few different aspects of the Metro and the BRT.

The Delhi Metro has to complete 186 km by 2010 while the BRT has to build 115 km by then.

The BRT is estimated to handle 18 thousand commuters per hour while the Metro handles 20 thousand currently.

For routes to be built by 2010, the Metro will cost Rs 18, 000 crore whereas the BRT’s estimated costs is merely Rs 1732 crore.

Experts point out that the way forward is to ensure that the BRT and the Metro are better linked.

”Co-ordination means that I get off from the BRT and get on to the Metro. Something like that is missing because there are so many agencies involved,” says Amit Agarwal, ex-professor of transport at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Currently, three out of the seven proposed bus corridors in the city have been planned to intersect with different Metro lines.

The Metro that will run from the airport, for example to Cannaught place, will link up with one of the proposed BRT corridors at the Shivaji Stadium terminal. It is this integrated model of planning that will perhaps ensure Delhizens enough incentive to actually leave their cars behind and use public transport systems in the years to come.

Electronics’ ‘missing link’ found

Details of an entirely new kind of electronic device, which could make chips smaller and far more efficient, have been outlined by scientists.

The new components, described by scientists at Hewlett-Packard, are known as “memristors”.

The devices were proposed 40 years ago but have only recently been fabricated, the team wrote in the journal Nature.

They have already been used to build novel transistors - tiny switches that are the building blocks of all chips.

“Now we have this type of device we have a broader palette with which to paint our circuits,” Professor Stan Williams, one of the team, told the BBC last year.

Total recall

Memristors were first proposed in 1971 by Professor Leon Chua, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.

They are the “fourth” basic building block of circuits, after capacitors, resistors and inductors.

Getting more from Moore’s Law Future computing

“I never thought I’d live long enough to see this happen,” Professor Chua told the Associated Press.

“I’m thrilled because it’s almost like vindication. Something I did is not just in my imagination, it’s fundamental.”

The memristors are so called because they have the ability to “remember” the amount of charge that has flowed through them after the power has been switched off.

This could allow researchers to build new kinds of computer memory that would would not require powering up.

Today, most PCs use dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which loses data when the power is turned off.

But a computer built with memristors could allow PCs that start up instantly, laptops that retain sessions after the battery dies, or mobile phones that can last for weeks without needing a charge.

“If you turn on your computer it will come up instantly where it was when you turned it off,” Professor Williams told Reuters.

“That is a very interesting potential application, and one that is very realistic.”

‘Industry anathema’

Professor Williams and his team have already shown that by putting two memristors together - a configuration called a crossbar latch - it could do the job of a transistor.

The team has built hybrid circuits using memristors and transistors

“A crossbar latch has the type of functionality you want from a transistor but it’s working with very different physics,” he explained.

Intriguingly, these devices can also be made much smaller than a conventional transistor.

“And as they get smaller they get better,” he said.

As a result, the new devices could play a key part in the future of the electronics industry, as it relentlessly pursues Moore’s Law.

This industry axiom, first stated by Gordon Moore, co-founder of chip-maker Intel, states that the number of transistors it is possible to squeeze in to a chip for a fixed cost doubles every two years.

However, according to some, it may be some time before the device is widely used.

“Even to consider an alternative to the transistor is anathema to many device engineers, and the memristor concept will have a steep slope to climb towards acceptance,” wrote Drs James Tour and Tao Heare of Rice University, Houston, in an accompanying article in Nature.

They said that some in the electronics industry would only accept the use of memristors “after the demonstration of a well-functioning, large-scale array of these densely packed devices”.

“When that happens, the race towards smaller devices will proceed at full steam.”