Cabinet approves Lokpal Bill amendments; Govt not serious on giving autonomy to CBI, BJP says

NEW DELHI: The amended Lokpal Bill, which delinks the central government from creation of state Lokayuktas, was on Thursday approved by the Union Cabinet, paving the way for its consideration by Parliament.

The revised Bill incorporates a number of changes recommended by the Rajya Sabha select committee, including appointment of the director of prosecution by the CVC.

The government, however, has not accepted a key recommendation of the panel that an official facing an inquiry by the Lokpal should not be given an opportunity to be heard at the stage of the preliminary inquiry.

The select committee, to which the controversial Bill was referred in view of sharp differences between political parties, has recommended delinking of the creation of Lokayuktas from the Lokpal Bill.

This was one of the most controversial provisions with several parties contending that it amounts to the central government encroaching upon the rights of the states.

The Bill had said state governments will have to set up Lokayuktas within one year of enactment of Lokpal.

On the issue of giving opportunity to an official to present his or her view, the government feels that such a protection is required and depriving the officials facing allegations the opportunity to present their views was against the "principle of protection".

Another recommendation made by Rajya Sabha select committee was that when a CBI officer investigating a case is sought to be transferred for any reason, prior approval of the Lokpal should be required.

The Cabinet has not favoured the proposal and has suggested an amendment saying transferring any official would remain the exclusive right of the government and the CBI chief as it was an administrative matter, sources said.

Another amendment to the select committee report approved by the Cabinet is that societies and trusts which receive government aid and not funds have been kept out of the ambit of the Lokpal.

But organisations which receive major funding from the government have been kept under the ambit of the proposed ombudsman.

The amendments will now be be put to vote in the Rajya Sabha where the measure is stuck since last year. After getting cleared from the Upper House, the legislation will travel back to Lok Sabha for fresh approval of the amendments.

The Bill has already been passed by the Lok Sabha but government's efforts to provide Lokpal with constitutional status did not succeed in the lower house.

Govt not serious on giving autonomy to the CBI: BJP

BJP on Thursday said that the government was not serious on giving autonomy to the CBI. BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the party had recommended that CBI should be made an independent body but the government did not consider it.

Prasad also said that the process of appointment of Lokpal should be transparent and free from the government control.

Cannot trust PM, Sonia to bring stringent Lokpal Bill : Anna Hazare

Questioning the UPA government's commitment to root out corruption in the country, anti-graft activist Anna Hazare on Thursday said he does not trust Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi for enactment of a stringent Lokpal Bill.

"Both PM and Sonia Gandhi can no more be trusted to bring a stringent Lokpal bill to root out corruption ... Had they been committed to the issue it would not have taken two years to take concrete decision in this regard," Hazare told reporters in Patna.

Describing the Lokpal Bill approved by the Union Cabinet as 'a farce', Hazare said he had written a letter to the Congress president in reply to her letter to him seeking clarification whether the proposed Bill will be a stringent one and whether CBI and the CVC will be kept out of the government's control.

But she has not responded to these clarifications, he said and trashed the proposed Lokpal Bill. "The Centre is trying to befool the people by going ahead with it."

If the government went ahead with the enactment of a 'weak' Lokpal Bill, he would launch another agitation, Hazare, who had sat on indefinite hunger strike at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi last year to press for the Jan Lokpal Bill, said.

Present Lokpal Bill will not check corruption: Kejriwal

Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal has criticised the UPA government for not coming out with a "strong" Lokpal bill, saying that the proposed law would not check corruption.

"Why should you have any Lokpal? If an agency is created which will not stop corruption, will lead to increased corruption and provide protection to ministers, then what is the point," Kejriwal said.

(With inputs from PTI)

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New Theory on How Homing Pigeons Find Home

Jane J. Lee

Homing pigeons (Columba livia) have been prized for their navigational abilities for thousands of years. They've served as messengers during war, as a means of long-distance communication, and as prized athletes in international races.

But there are places around the world that seem to confuse these birds—areas where they repeatedly vanish in the wrong direction or scatter on random headings rather than fly straight home, said Jon Hagstrum, a geophysicist who authored a study that may help researchers understand how homing pigeons navigate.

Hagstrum's paper, published online Wednesday in the Journal of Experimental Biology, proposes an intriguing theory for homing pigeon disorientation—that the birds are following ultralow frequency sounds back towards their lofts and that disruptions in their ability to "hear" home is what screws them up.

Called infrasound, these sound waves propagate at frequencies well below the range audible to people, but pigeons can pick them up, said Hagstrum, who works at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.

"They're using sound to image the terrain [surrounding] their loft," he said. "It's like us visually recognizing our house using our eyes."

Homeward Bound?

For years, scientists have struggled to explain carrier pigeons' directional challenges in certain areas, known as release-site biases.

This "map" issue, or a pigeon's ability to tell where it is in relation to where it wants to go, is different from the bird's compass system, which tells it which direction it's headed in. (Learn about how other animals navigate.)

"We know a lot about pigeon compass systems, but what has been controversial, even to this day, has been their map [system]," said Cordula Mora, an animal behavior researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who was not involved in the study.

Until now, the two main theories say that pigeons rely either on their sense of smell to find their way home or that they follow the Earth's magnetic field lines, she said.

If something screwed up their sense of smell or their ability to follow those fields, the thinking has been, that could explain why pigeons got lost in certain areas.

But neither explanation made sense to Hagstrum, a geologist who grew interested in pigeons after attending an undergraduate lecture by Cornell biologist William Keeton. Keeton, who studied homing pigeons' navigation abilities, described some release-site biases in his pigeons and Hagstrum was hooked.

"I was just stunned and amazed and fascinated," said Hagstrum. "I understand we don't get dark matter or quantum mechanics, but bird [navigation]?"

So Hagstrum decided to look at Keeton's pigeon release data from three sites in upstate New York. At Castor Hill and Jersey Hill, the birds would repeatedly fly in the wrong direction or head off randomly when trying to return to their loft at Cornell University, even though they had no problems at other locations. At a third site near the town of Weedsport, young pigeons would head off in a different direction from older birds.

There were also certain days when the Cornell pigeons could find their way back home from these areas without any problems.

At the same time, homing pigeons from other lofts released at Castor Hill, Jersey Hill, and near Weedsport, would fly home just fine.

Sound Shadows

Hagstrum knew that homing pigeons could hear sounds as low as 0.05 hertz, low enough to pick up infrasounds that were down around 0.1 or 0.2 hertz. So he decided to map out what these low-frequency sound waves would have looked like on an average day, and on the days when the pigeons could home correctly from Jersey Hill.

He found that due to atmospheric conditions and local terrain, Jersey Hill normally sits in a sound shadow in relation to the Cornell loft. Little to none of the infrasounds from the area around the loft reached Jersey Hill except on one day when changing wind patterns and temperature inversions permitted.

That happened to match a day when the Cornell pigeons had no problem returning home.

"I could see how the topography was affecting the sound and how the weather was affecting the sound [transmission]," Hagstrum said. "It started to explain all these mysteries."

The terrain between the loft and Jersey Hill, combined with normal atmospheric conditions, bounced infrasounds up and over these areas.

Some infrasound would still reach Castor Hill, but due to nearby hills and valleys, the sound waves approached from the west and southwest, even though the Cornell loft is situated south-southwest of Castor Hill.

Records show that younger, inexperienced pigeons released at Castor Hill would sometimes fly west while older birds headed southwest, presumably following infrasounds from their loft.

Hagstrum's model found that infrasound normally arrived at the Weedsport site from the south. But one day of abnormal weather conditions, combined with a local river valley, resulted in infrasound that arrived at Weedsport from the Cornell loft from the southeast.

Multiple Maps

"What [Hagstrum] has found for those areas are a possible explanation for the [pigeon] behavior at these sites," said Bowling Green State's Mora. But she cautions against extrapolating these results to all homing pigeons.

Some of Mora's work supports the theory that homing pigeons use magnetic field lines to find their way home.

What homing pigeons are using as their map probably depends on where they're raised, she said. "In some places it may be infrasound, and in other places [a sense of smell] may be the way to go."

Hagstrum's next steps are to figure out how large an area the pigeons are listening to. He's also talking to the Navy and Air Force, who are interested in his work. "Right now we use GPS to navigate," he said. But if those satellites were compromised, "we'd be out of luck." Pigeons navigate from point to point without any problems, he said.

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Obama Prods GOP on Immigration Negotiations

Jan 31, 2013 6:00am

                                                                        (Image Credit: John Gurzinski/Getty Images)

President Obama has apparently had enough of leading from behind.

During the health-care push, Obama left Congress to its own devices. On immigration, he’s doing just the opposite, attempting to prod Republican legislators to the middle by demanding a vote on his own plan.

The president insisted Tuesday that Congress vote on his plan as soon as possible, barring agreement on something else.

“It’s important for us to recognize that the foundation for bipartisan action is already in place,” Obama said, referring to a bipartisan Senate bill offered up by the so-called Gang of Eight senators, which looks much more palatable to Republicans than Obama’s own plan. “And if Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away.”

In doing so, Obama dared Congress to say “no” to something specific.

It’s the same strategy Obama used in the “fiscal-cliff” talks. With a year-end deadline approaching, he pushed Congress to vote on his own plan: to let higher income tax hikes go into effect if lawmakers couldn’t cut a deal themselves. Obama asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada to call “an up-or-down vote” on that plan, the president announced in a Dec. 28 appearance before cameras at the White House.

“If members of the House or the Senate want to vote ‘no,’ they can, but we should let everybody vote,” Obama said then.

Republicans hate such a negotiation tactic. Throughout Obama’s White House tenure, GOP aides have griped that the president and congressional Democrats have sought political gain while refusing to negotiate in good faith. On immigration, it’s the same.

The Obama plan includes a faster path to citizenship and nothing to trigger border-security enforcement. It would also clear an easier path for same-sex couples.

Before Obama rolled out his immigration plan in Nevada Tuesday, Sen. Marco Rubio of  Florida raised concerns that the president would launch a “bidding war.”

In a radio interview with Rush Limbaugh, Rubio dismissed the notion of an up-or-down vote: “It’s going to have to go through committees and people are going to have their input. There’s going to be public hearings.  I don’t want to be part of a process that comes up with some bill in secret and brings it to the floor and gives people a take it or leave it.

“I want this place to work the way it’s supposed to work, with every senator having input and the public having input,” Rubio said.

A Senate Republican aide jabbed, “The president’s been gone from the Senate a long time and perhaps he has forgotten that it’s a lot easier to pass legislation if he works with Congress.”

Obama has presented Republicans with a plan they will like much less than what’s been crafted by the bipartisan Senate group. The group plan includes triggers to enforce border-security measures, more unmanned drones and no provisions making it easier for same-sex couples seeking to immigrate or naturalize.

Unless other Republicans come up with a plan of their own, the president has given Republicans a choice between the left and the middle. It’s not hard to tell which they’d prefer.

SHOWS: Good Morning America World News

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Cricket: Warne calls for new Australia coach

SYDNEY: Test great Shane Warne on Wednesday called on Australia coach Mickey Arthur to be replaced by former New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming days after branding the nation's cricket chiefs "muppets".

The outspoken leg-spinner, who said he was "frustrated on many levels at present", praised Fleming as "the best opposition captain we played against" on his website www.shanewarne.com.

"I believe he brings a lot to the table, a calmness, an intelligent understanding of the game and a very good cricket brain. He's a good communicator too as well as a good leader of men."

Warne, 43, who also wants former Test wicketkeeper Rod Marsh as chairman of selectors, said the current Australian set-up was not working as the players gear up for two Ashes series against England over the next year.

In a post entitled "Where is Australian cricket at? Part 1" on his website, Warne said: "The next 12 months is the biggest 12 months of cricket for the Australian cricket team in a long, long time.

"If we do nothing now, we will be where we were 30 years ago. There needs to be urgent action and a new strategy/plan put in place."

In Twitter comments on Monday, Warne blasted Cricket Australia's policy of rotating players, which has attracted stinging criticism from other greats of the game.

Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland has told Warne he is happy to discuss Warne's ideas but has expressed disappointment with the manner in which he expressed his concerns, CA said on its website.

Australia, third in the Test and one-day rankings, lost the recent Twenty20 series against Sri Lanka after drawing the one-day series and beating the visitors in the Test series.

Warne was last week fined A$5,000 (US$5,250) for a code of behaviour breach in the domestic Big Bash League.

And he apologised earlier this month after a foul-mouthed rant against West Indian all-rounder Marlon Samuels that earned him a ban and a A$4,500 fine.

Warne claimed 708 Test wickets in a celebrated career that also courted controversy, including a fine for taking money from a bookmaker. He was sent home from the 2003 World Cup for taking a banned diuretic.

Also on Wednesday, CA said that Australian pace great Dennis Lillee has been appointed to CA's's high-performance team as a fast bowling advisor.

- AFP/al

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Delhi HC stays non-bailable warrants against Raj Thackeray

NEW DELHI: In a relief to MNS chief Raj Thackeray, the Delhi high court on Wednesday stayed the execution of non-bailable warrants (NBWs) issued against him in 2008 for his alleged anti-Bihari remarks.

"The operation of the NBWs is stayed," Justice Sunil Gaur said after hearing brief arguments advanced by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi seeking to quash the summoning orders passed in 2008 by a lower court at Muzaffarpur in Bihar on two private complaints lodged against him.

The court also issued a notice to Sudhir Kumar Ojha, a Bihar-based advocate, and sought his response on the plea of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief while posting the matter for further hearing on April 16.

Initiating the arguments, Rohatgi said, "The summons have been issued on bald complaints of a lawyer and, moreover, the complaints do not satisfy the ingredients envisaged under section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code."

The court, after going through the content of the alleged speeches, said, "It seems it is insulting..."

In response to the observation, the senior lawyer said, "Anybody can have the right to have his or her personal opinion about an issue and they (statements) cannot be held as offensive without being tested".

The counsel for Thackeray sought exemption from personal appearance for the MNS leader during trial court proceedings, saying there were as many as 16 private criminal complaints filed against him and they have been transferred to Delhi following an order of the Supreme Court.

The high court granted exemption from personal appearance for a day to the MNS chief who was to appear in a Delhi court on Thursday in connection with the two cases.

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Timbuktu’s vulnerable manuscripts are city’s "gold"

French and Malian troops surrounded Timbuktu on Monday and began combing the labyrinthine city for Islamist fighters. Witnesses, however, said the Islamists, who claim an affiliation to al Qaeda and had imposed a Taliban-style rule in the northern Malian city over the last ten months, slipped into the desert a few days earlier.

But before fleeing, the militants reportedly set fire to several buildings and many rare manuscripts. There are conflicting reports as to how many manuscripts were actually destroyed. (Video: Roots of the Mali Crisis.)

On Monday, Sky News posted an interview with a man identifying himself as an employee of the Ahmed Baba Institute, a government-run repository for rare books and manuscripts, the oldest of which date back to the city's founding in the 12th century. The man said some 3,000 of the institute's 20,000 manuscripts had been destroyed or looted by the Islamists.

Video showed what appeared to be a large pile of charred manuscripts and the special boxes made to preserve them in front of one of the institute's buildings.

However, a member of the University of Cape Town Timbuktu Manuscript Project told eNews Channel Africa on Tuesday that he had spoken with the director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, Mahmoud Zouber, who said that nearly all of its manuscripts had been removed from the buildings and taken to secure locations months earlier. (Read "The Telltale Scribes of Timbuktu" in National Geographic magazine.)

A Written Legacy

The written word is deeply rooted in Timbuktu's rich history. The city emerged as a wealthy center of trade, Islam, and learning during the 13th century, attracting a number of Sufi religious scholars. They in turn took on students, forming schools affiliated with's Timbuktu's three main mosques.

The scholars imported parchment and vellum manuscripts via the caravan system that connected northern Africa with the Mediterranean and Arabia. Wealthy families had the documents copied and illuminated by local scribes, building extensive libraries containing works of religion, art, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, history, geography, and culture.

"The manuscripts are the city's real gold," said Mohammed Aghali, a tour guide from Timbuktu. "The manuscripts, our mosques, and our history—these are our treasures. Without them, what is Timbuktu?"

This isn't the first time that an occupying army has threatened Timbuktu's cultural heritage. The Moroccan army invaded the city in 1591 to take control of the gold trade. In the process of securing the city, they killed or deported most of Timbuktu's scholars, including the city's most famous teacher, Ahmed Baba al Massufi, who was held in exile in Marrakesh for many years and forced to teach in a pasha's court. He finally returned to Timbuktu in 1611, and it is for him that the Ahmed Baba Institute was named.

Hiding the Texts

In addition to the Ahmed Baba Institute, Timbuktu is home to more than 60 private libraries, some with collections containing several thousand manuscripts and others with only a precious handful. (Read about the fall of Timbuktu.)

Sidi Ahmed, a reporter based in Timbuktu who recently fled to the Malian capital Bamako, said Monday that nearly all the libraries, including the world-renowned Mamma Haidara and the Fondo Kati libraries, had secreted their collections before the Islamist forces had taken the city.

"The people here have long memories," he said. "They are used to hiding their manuscripts. They go into the desert and bury them until it is safe."

Though it appears most of the manuscripts are safe, the Islamists' occupation took a heavy toll on Timbuktu.

Women were flogged for not covering their hair or wearing bright colors. Girls were forbidden from attending school, and boys were recruited into the fighters' ranks.

Music was banned. Local imams who dared speak out against the occupiers were barred from speaking in their mosques. In a move reminiscent of the Taliban's destruction of Afghanistan's famous Bamiyan Buddha sculptures, Islamist fighters bulldozed 14 ancient mud-brick mausoleums and cemeteries that held the remains of revered Sufi saints.

A spokesman for the Islamists said it was "un-Islamic" for locals to "worship idols."

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All 20 on board Kazakh airliner "killed in crash"

ALMATY, Kazakhstan: All 20 people on board a domestic flight in Kazakhstan operated by the SCAT airline died Tuesday when their Bombardier jet crashed on approach to Almaty airport in thick fog, the airline said.

"Twenty people were on board -- five crew members and 15 passengers," the airline said in a statement, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

"According to preliminary information there are no survivors," the statement added, saying the aircraft was a CRJ-200 made by Canadian manufacturer Bombardier.

SCAT said the plane went down about five kilometres (three miles) short of the financial centre's main airport on a flight from the northern steppe city of Kokshetau.

Commercial KTK television said the plane crashed into a suburb of Almaty but gave no information of possible casualties or damage on the ground.

The Kazinform news agency reported that officials from both the interior and transportation ministry had travelled to the site of the crash.

The accident came just a month after a crash that killed 27, claiming the lives of much of the top echelon of the Kazakh state border service including the acting chief.

Aviation disasters remain a scourge across the former Soviet Union due to ageing hardware that often has not been replaced since the fall of the Soviet regime, as well as human error.

- AFP

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Syrian crisis: India to pledge Rs 14 crore for humanitarian needs

NEW DELHI: Deeply concerned about the hardships and sufferings of the people of Syria as a result of unabated violence there, India will be pledging about Rs 14 crore towards humanitarian assistance in a UN conference which will be held in Kuwait on Wednesday.

This assistance will be in the form of life saving drugs, food and other essential items required by the people of Syria, ministry of external affairs said here.

Minister of state for external affairs E Ahamed will be participating in the 'high-level international humanitarian pledging conference for Syria', an important initiative of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to express support to the humanitarian needs of the Syrian people. It is being hosted by the emir of Kuwait.

"India has been closely following the developments in Syria and is deeply concerned about the hardships and sufferings of the people of Syria as a result of unabated violence in Syria," MEA said, adding it has already responded positively to the humanitarian needs of the people of Syria and had decided to provide humanitarian assistance to Syria in the form of life saving drugs and fortified biscuits.

"In keeping with India's commitment to extend support to the Syrian people, India will be pledging an amount of around Rs 14 crores towards humanitarian assistance to the people of Syria in the conference," the ministry added.

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Space Pictures This Week: Martian Gas, Cloud Trails

Image courtesy SDO/NASA

The sun is more than meets the eye, and researchers should know. They've equipped telescopes on Earth and in space with instruments that view the sun in at least ten different wavelengths of light, some of which are represented in this collage compiled by NASA and released January 22. (See more pictures of the sun.)

By viewing the different wavelengths of light given off by the sun, researchers can monitor its surface and atmosphere, picking up on activity that can create space weather.

If directed towards Earth, that weather can disrupt satellite communications and electronics—and result in spectacular auroras. (Read an article on solar storms in National Geographic magazine.)

The surface of the sun contains material at about 10,000°F (5,700°C), which gives off yellow-green light. Atoms at 11 million°F (6.3 million°C) gives off ultraviolet light, which scientists use to observe solar flares in the sun's corona. There are even instruments that image wavelengths of light highlighting the sun's magnetic field lines.

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 28, 2013

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5 Years Later, What's New on Immigration Reform?

The announcement of a proposal for immigration reform inspired renewed excitement for some involved in the fight Monday, but other players in the debate felt a sense of déjà vu.

Monday afternoon, senators introduced a framework of changes previewed over the weekend, with President Obama and a secret group from the House of Representatives expected soon to follow suit.

The press conference was held by Senators Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio, Michael Bennet and Jeff Flake. Menendez called it "meaningful and comprehensive" immigration reform.

But former Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who worked on this same issue under President George W. Bush in 2007, said this proposal "is a lot like what we did five years ago -- remarkably so."

Martinez said it puts "a little more emphasis" on dealing with legal immigrants who overstay their visas, shifts from framing the policies as reuniting families to rewarding skilled laborers, and the phrase "guest worker" -- which was a point of contention then -- is now absent.

But in terms of things like creating a path to citizenship and requiring an electronic verification system for employers to determine an applicant's legal status, "All of these things are exactly what we did before," Martinez said.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo| Susan Walsh/AP Photo

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To Martinez, this replay is a good thing. He said a "political evolution" and a new appreciation for Hispanic voters created a positive climate for reforms this time around.

But Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform said he is not impressed.

"It's essentially the same legislation that was offered and rejected in 2007," Mehlman told ABC News."It includes nothing for the primary constituency -- namely the American public. It's all based on what the immigrants and particularly the illegal immigrants want and what employers want."

The two plans focused on achieving bipartisan support, molding immigration law to meet the needs of the economy, and the condition that reform would only happen simultaneously with the strengthening of border security.

The difference, according to immigration lawyer Cori Alonso-Yoder of immigrant-focused non-profit Ayuda, is the messaging in this proposal.

"The message is very helpful to people who are used to hearing a not-welcoming tone towards immigrants," Alonso-Yoder said Monday. "I think that's sort of what distinguishes this from efforts that we saw in 2006, 2007 things that I think were more harsh on immigrants."

This time around the plan alludes to racial profiling and human trafficking, two issues Alonso-Yoder said her clients "confront on a daily basis and are dealing with on a daily basis."

Related: 'Dreamers' React to the New Immigration Reform Framework

She said she believes the intent in this legislation is good and that it will have some success -- at least outside of the House of Representatives.

"My concern is just seeing how this will all sort of play out in a system that is already filled with patchwork fixes, and how deep this reform will go, how broad it will sweep," Alonso-Yoder said.

The collapse of President George W. Bush's 2007 immigration bill may be a bad sign for Obama -- who is expected to announce his own plan today -- and others hoping to change the immigration system.

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