Govt to scrap Rs 3,546 crore Finmecccanica chopper deal

NEW DELHI: The Rs 3,546 crore deal for 12 AgustaWestland AW-101 helicopters is going to be scrapped. The defence ministry on Friday initiated action for cancellation of the contract inked in February 2010. It issued a formal show-cause notice to the UK-based subsidiary of Finmeccanica to explain within a week why the contract should not be cancelled.

The Times of India had reported on Thursday that the government was fast veering around to cancelling the VVIP helicopter deal after it first put on hold all further payments to AgustaWestland since the deal was fast emerging as a test-case for defence minister AK Antony, who has built his entire political career on probity, with fingers being raised about the year-long delay in ordering a CBI probe despite allegations of huge kickbacks in the deal consistently emanating for almost an year.

"If the contracts for the Bofors howitzers and the HDW submarines in the mid-1980s could be terminated mid-way, even if they hit the operational readiness and modernization of the armed forces in a major way, these are just choppers meant for VVIP travel," said a top government source had said on Thursday.

Despite having inducted only three of the AW-101 helicopters till now, with the remaining nine slated for delivery in batches of three each in March, May and July, the defence ministry has earlier this week put on hold all further payments to AgustaWestland. India so far has paid a little over 50% of the total amount to this UK-based subsidiary of Italian military giant Finmeccanica.

With the budget session of Parliament fast approaching on February 21, there were indications that the MoD would not even wait for the CBI to submit a formal report. The MoD has also written to the chief executive officer of AgustaWestland to "categorically" state the "clear position" in view of the current developments, asking him to specifically indicate if any financial transaction has taken place with any Indian individual or entity.

Both the contract and integrity pact inked with AgustaWestland contain specific provisions by which "strict action including the cancellation of contract, recovery of payment, blacklisting and penal action" can be unleashed against the vendor.

Article 22 of the inked contract, for instance, deals with the penalty for the "use of undue influence". It entitles the "buyer" to cancel the contract with the "seller" and recover from him the amount of any loss arising from such cancellation.

Article 23, in turn, deals with agents and agency commission, requiring the "seller" to confirm and declare that the company has not engaged any individual or firm - Indian or foreign - to intercede or facilitate in any way with the Indian government or its officials. Any breach of the integrity pact, in turn, entitles the "buyer" to take actions against the "seller", ranging from forfeiture of the earnest money and performance bond to contract cancellation and recovery of the sum already paid with interest.

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Why We Walk … and Run … And Walk Again to Get Where We're Going

You have to get to a bus stop to catch the once-an-hour express ... or to a restaurant to meet a friend ... or to a doctor's office. You've got maybe a half a mile to cover and you're worried you'll be late. You run, then you stop and walk, then run some more.

But wait. Wouldn't it be better to run the whole way?

Not necessarily.

A new study by an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State University tests the theory that people subconsciously mix walking and running so they get where they need to. The idea is that "people move in a manner that minimizes energy consumption," said the professor, Manoj Srinivasan.

Srinivasan asked 36 subjects to cover 400 feet (122 meters), a bit more than the length of a football field. He gave them a time to arrive at the finish line and a stopwatch. If the deadline was supertight, they ran. If they had two minutes, they walked. And if the deadline was neither too short nor too far off, they toggled between walking and running.

The takeaway: Humans successfully make the walk-run adjustment as they go along, based on their sense of how far they have to go. "It's not like they decide beforehand," Srinivasan said. (Get tips, gear recommendations, and more in our Running Guide.)

The Best Technique for "the Twilight Zone"

"The mixture of walking and running is good when you have an intermediate amount of time," he explained. "I like to call it 'the Twilight Zone,' where you have neither infinite time nor do you have to be there now."

That ability to shift modes served ancient humans well. "It's basically an evolutionary argument," Srinivasan said. A prehistoric human seeking food would want to move in a way that conserves some energy so that if food is hard to find, the hunter won't run out of gas—and will still be able to rev it up to escape predators.

The study, published on January 30 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, doesn't answer that question of how we make such adjustments.

Runners: Take a Break if You Need It

The mix of walking and running is also something that nonelite marathoners are familiar with. Covering 26.2 miles might take less of a toll if the runner stops running from time to time, walks a bit, then resumes a jogging pace. "You use less energy overall and also give yourself a bit of a break," Srinivasan noted. (Watch: An elite marathoner on her passion for running.)

One take-home lesson is: Runners, don't push it all the time. A walk-run mix will minimize the energy you expend.

Lesson two: If you're a parent walking with your kid, and the kid lags behind, then runs to catch up, then lags again, the child isn't necessarily trying to annoy you. Rather, the child is perhaps exhibiting an innate ability to do the walk-run transition.

Potential lesson three: The knowledge that humans naturally move in a manner that minimizes energy consumption might be helpful in designing artificial limbs that feel more natural and will help the user reduce energy consumption.

The big question for Manoj Srinivasan: Now that he has his walk-run theory, does he consciously switch between running and walking when he's trying to get somewhere? "I must admit, no," he said. "When I want to get somewhere, I just let the body do its thing." But if he's in a rush, he'll make a mad dash.

"Talk to you tomorrow," he signed off in an email to National Geographic News. "Running to get to teaching now!"

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Nightmare Ends: Passengers Leave Disabled Ship

After five days without power in the Gulf of Mexico, the more than 4,200 people aboard the Carnival Triumph returned home to the U.S., with many of them telling their horror stories for the first time.

Passengers began to disembark the damaged ship around 10:15 p.m. CT Thursday in Mobile, Ala. The last passenger disembarked the ship at 1 a.m. local time, according to Carnival's Twitter handle.

Passenger Brandi Dorsett was thankful to be home, especially for her mother who was with her on the ship. Dorsett said she wasn't pleased with the doctor on staff.

"My mother is a diabetic and they would not even come to the room because she cannot walk the stairs to help her with insulin. She hasn't had insulin in three days," Dorsett said.

Click Here for Photos of the Stranded Ship at Sea

The Carnival Triumph departed Galveston, Texas, last Thursday and lost power Sunday after a fire in the engine room disabled the vessel's propulsion system and knocked out most of its power.

After power went out, passengers texted ABC News that sewage was seeping down the walls from burst plumbing pipes, carpets were wet with urine, and food was in short supply. Reports surfaced of elderly passengers running out of critical heart medicine and others on board squabbling over scarce food.

"It's degrading. Demoralizing and then they want to insult us by giving us $500," Veronica Arriaga said after disembarking the ship.

Passengers were already being given a full refund for the cruise, transportation expenses and vouchers for another cruise. Carnival Cruise Lines is now boosting that offer to include another $500 per person.

As the ship docked, passengers lined the decks of the Triumph, waving and whistling to those on shore. "Happy V-Day" read a homemade sign made for the Valentine's Day arrival and another, more starkly: "The ship's afloat, so is the sewage."

AP Photo/John David Mercer

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Some still aboard chanted, "Let me off, let me off!" and "Sweet Home Alabama."

Kendall Jenkins was one of many passengers that were photographed kissing the ground when they exited the ship. Jenkins, like many passengers, created makeshift beds out of lounge chairs on the ship's deck after the raw sewage smell became too much to contend with.

"We kind of camped out by our lifeboat. We would have nightmares about Titanic basically happening," passenger Kendall Jenkins told ABC News Radio.

"I am just so blessed to be back home," she added.

Cruise Ship Newlyweds Won't Be Spending Honeymoon on a Boat

Approximately 100 buses were waiting to take passengers on the next stage of their journey. Passengers had the option to take a bus ride to New Orleans or Galveston, Texas, where the ill-fated ship's voyage began. From there, passengers will take flights home, which Carnival said they would pay for.

Inside the buses, Carnival handed out bags of food that included French fries, chicken nuggets, honey mustard barbecue sauce and apples.

Deborah Knight, 56, decided to stay in Mobile after the arduous journey was over rather than board a bus for a long ride. Her husband Seth drove in from Houston and they checked in at a downtown Mobile hotel.

"I want a hot shower and a daggum Whataburger," said Knight.

She said she was afraid to eat the food on board and had gotten sick while on the ship.

For 24-year-old Brittany Ferguson of Texas, not knowing how long passengers had to endure their time aboard was the worst part.

"I'm feeling awesome just to see land and buildings," Ferguson said, who was in a white robe given to her aboard. "The scariest part was just not knowing when we'd get back," she told The Associated Press.

Carnival president and CEO Gerry Cahill praised the ship's crew and told reporters that he was headed on board to apologize directly to its passengers shortly before the Carnival Triumph arrived in Mobile.

"I know the conditions on board were very poor," Cahill said Thursday night. "I know it was very difficult, and I want to apologize again for subjecting our guests for that. ... Clearly, we failed in this particular case."

Luckily no one was hurt in the fire they triggered the power outage, but many passengers aboard the 900 foot colossus said they smelled smoke and were living in fear.

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Postmaster takes case for five-day mail delivery to skeptical senators

Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe took his controversial plan for five-day mail delivery before a congressional hearing Wednesday, where he told senators that the Postal Service “needs your help.”

Donahoe’s refrain was familiar.

●The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is losing $25 million a day.

●Last year, the Postal Service lost $15.9 billion.

●It defaulted on $11.1 billion owed to the Treasury.

As he has before, Donahoe pleaded with Congress, this time the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to approve comprehensive postal reform legislation. Now, more than before, it looks as though Congress will do so.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told the Senate panel that after two months of negotiations, “we are close, very close” to agreement on a bipartisan, bicameral bill.

Without some assistance from Congress, said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate committee, “the Postal Service will drift toward insolvency and, eventually, the point at which it must shut its doors. . . . We have never been closer to losing the Postal Service.”

Although in some ways Donahoe’s appearance echoed his many other pleas for congressional action, this hearing drew a standing-room-only crowd on the third floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. That was probably influenced by all the attention generated by his surprise announcement last week that Saturday mail delivery will end in August.

Donahoe’s written testimony outlined several key legislative goals, but five-day mail delivery was not specifically listed among them. After repeatedly urging Congress to end the six-day requirement, Donahoe said postal officials had determined that he could take that action without congressional approval.

Moving to five-day delivery would close just 10 percent of the postal budget gap, Donahoe said, yet the controversy surrounding it stole the focus from other important financial issues.

Among them is a controversial proposal to move postal employees from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which serves all federal workers, to a health insurance program run by the USPS.

Donahoe presented an updated health insurance proposal, but it received little attention compared with his five-day delivery plan.

Last year the Senate approved legislation, co-sponsored by Carper, that would allow five-day delivery two years after its enactment. The delay was designed to allow the Postal Service to study the impact of five-day delivery. Carper was among those who have expressed disappointment with Donahoe’s plan to implement it unilaterally.

“We are taking every reasonable and responsible step in our power to strengthen our finances immediately,” Donahoe told the committee. “We would urge Congress to eliminate any impediments to our new delivery schedule.

“Although discussion about our delivery schedule gets a lot of attention, it is just one important part of a larger strategy to close our budgetary gap,” he added. “It accounts for $2 billion in cost reductions while we are seeking to fill a $20 billion budget gap.”

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Athletics: Pistorius charged with murder

PRETORIA - South Africa's Olympic sprint star Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius has been charged with the Valentine's Day murder of his model girlfriend, police confirmed Thursday ahead of his expected court appearance.

"I can confirm that a suspect has been charged, he has been charged with murder," said Lieutenant-Colonel Katlego Mogale. Officials said there was no other suspect in the case.

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TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu falls, suffers minor injuries

HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader N Chandrababu Naidu suffered minor injuries when a makeshift dais collapsed while he was garlanding a statue in Guntur district on Thursday, a party leader has said.

The incident took place at Kolakaluru village in Guntur district during Naidu's 'padyatra' (march).

A TDP leader said Naidu escaped with minor injuries to his leg as his security guards tried to hold him as the platform caved in. Doctors were examining the former chief minister and a decision on whether he should continue 'padyatra' would be taken later.

A local TDP leader also sustained minor injuries in the mishap, which occurred when about a dozen people climbed on the small platform as Naidu was garlanding a statue of BR Ambedkar.

This is the second time that Naidu has been injured in a similar incident during his march. He received minor back injuries when a dais collapsed during a public meeting at Gadwal in Mahabubnagar district Oct 27, 2012.

Naidu, who launched his state-wide 'padyatra' in October 2012 to interact with people to know their problems, has so far covered 2,000 km.

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Are Honeybees Losing Their Way?

A single honeybee visits hundreds, sometimes thousands, of flowers a day in search of nectar and pollen. Then it must find its way back to the hive, navigating distances up to five miles (eight kilometers), and perform a "waggle dance" to tell the other bees where the flowers are.

A new study shows that long-term exposure to a combination of certain pesticides might impair the bee's ability to carry out its pollen mission.

"Any impairment in their ability to do this could have a strong effect on their survival," said Geraldine Wright, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University in England and co-author of a new study posted online February 7, 2013, in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Wright's study adds to the growing body of research that shows that the honeybee's ability to thrive is being threatened. Scientists are still researching how pesticides may be contributing to colony collapse disorder (CCD), a rapid die-off seen in millions of honeybees throughout the world since 2006.

"Pesticides are very likely to be involved in CCD and also in the loss of other types of pollinators," Wright said. (See the diversity of pollinating creatures in a photo gallery from National Geographic magazine.)

Bees depend on what's called "scent memory" to find flowers teeming with nectar and pollen. Their ability to rapidly learn, remember, and communicate with each other has made them highly efficient foragers, using the waggle dance to educate others about the site of the food source.

Watch as National Geographic explains the waggle dance.

Their pollination of plants is responsible for the existence of nearly a third of the food we eat and has a similar impact on wildlife food supplies.

Previous studies have shown certain types of pesticides affect a bee's learning and memory. Wright's team wanted to investigate if the combination of different pesticides had an even greater effect on the learning and memory of honeybees.

"Honeybees learn to associate floral colors and scents with the quality of food rewards," Wright explained. "The pesticides affect the neurons involved in these behaviors. These [affected] bees are likely to have difficulty communicating with other members of the colony."

The experiment used a classic procedure with a daunting name: olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension reflex. In layman's terms, the bee sticks out its tongue in response to odor and food rewards.

For the experiment, bees were collected from the colony entrance, placed in glass vials, and then transferred into plastic sandwich boxes. For three days the bees were fed a sucrose solution laced with sublethal doses of pesticides. The team measured short-term and long-term memory at 10-minute and 24-hour intervals respectively. (Watch of a video of a similar type of bee experiment.)

This study is the first to show that when pesticides are combined, the impact on bees is far worse than exposure to just one pesticide. "This is particularly important because one of the pesticides we used, coumaphos, is a 'medicine' used to treat Varroa mites [pests that have been implicated in CCD] in honeybee colonies throughout the world," Wright said.

The pesticide, in addition to killing the mites, might also be making honeybees more vulnerable to poisoning and effects from other pesticides.

Stephen Buchmann of the Pollinator Partnership, who was not part of Wright's study, underscored how critical pollinators are for the world. "The main threat to pollinators is habitat destruction and alteration. We're rapidly losing pollinator habitats, natural areas, and food—producing agricultural lands that are essential for our survival and well being. Along with habitat destruction, insecticides weaken pollinators and other beneficial insects."

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'Blade Runner' Charged With Murder of Girlfriend

Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic and Paralympic athlete known as the "blade runner," was taken into custody in South Africa today and charged with the murder of his girlfriend, who was fatally shot at his home.

Police in the South African capital of Pretoria received a call around 3 a.m. Thursday that there had been a shooting at the home of 26-year-old Pistorius, Lt. Col. Katlego Mogale told the Associated Press. When police arrived at the scene they found paramedics trying to revive 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp, the AP reported.

At a press conference early Thursday police said that a 26-year-old man, whom they have not named, was arrested and has requested to be taken to court immediately. Police in South Africa do not name suspects in crimes until they have appeared in court.

RELATED: 'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius Faster Than a Horse

AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File

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Mogale said that the woman died at the house, and a 9 mm pistol was recovered at the scene and a murder case opened against Pistorius, the AP reported.

Police said this morning that there are no other suspects in the shooting, and that Pistorius is currently at the police station.

The precise circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear. Local reports say he may have mistaken her for a burglar, according to the AP.

Police said that they have heard reports of an argument or shouting at the apartment complex, and that the only two people on the premises were Steenkamp and Pistorius.

Police confirmed there have previously been incidents of a domestic nature at the home of Pistorius.

Pistorius, a sprint runner, had double below the knee amputations, and part of his legs have been replaced with carbon fiber blades. In 2012 he became the first double leg amputee to participate in the Olympics, competing in the men's 400 meter race. He also competed in the Paralympics, where he won gold medals in the men's 400 meter race, in what became a Paralympics record. He also took the silver in the 200 meter race.

Steenkamp, according to her Twitter bio, is a law graduate and model. On Wednesday she tweeted, "What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow??? #getexcited #ValentinesDay."

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Obama urges a move away from narrow focus on politics of austerity

Just about every argument in Washington since the 2010 midterm elections, which returned control of the House to Republicans, has centered on reducing the federal deficit. On Tuesday night, President Obama leaned into his second term by declaring that a single-minded focus on deficit reduction would jeopardize the nation’s future. And he sounded an urgent call to rebuild.

Reelected by an ascendent coalition, the president spoke from a position of strength in his fourth State of the Union address. The economy is improving. The Republican Party is in disarray. The time has come, Obama indicated, to pivot away from the politics of austerity.

“Most of us agree that a plan to reduce the deficit must be part of the agenda,” he said. “But let’s be clear: Deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan. A growing economy that creates good middle-class jobs — that must be the North Star that guides our efforts.”

The president rejected the fiscal brinkmanship that defined the past two years. Instead, he framed future fiscal debates as opportunities to shape a “smarter government” — one with new investments in science and innovation, with a rising minimum wage, with tax reform that eliminates loopholes and deductions for what the president labeled “the well-off and well-connected.”

Second-term presidents have a narrow window of time to enact significant change before they become lame ducks, and Obama, while echoing campaign themes of reinforcing the middle class, made an urgent case for a more pragmatic version of populism, one that emphasizes economic prosperity as the cornerstone of a fair society.

Over and over, he noted that the time to rebuild is now.

The “Fix-It-First” program that Obama outlined to put people to work on “urgent repairs,” such as structurally deficient bridges, bore echoes of President Bill Clinton’s call in his 1999 State of the Union address to “save Social Security first.” Clinton’s was an effective line, one that stopped — at least until President George W. Bush took office two years later — a Republican drive to use the budget surplus to cut taxes.

Although Obama’s speech lacked the conciliatory notes of some of his earlier State of the Union addresses, he did make overtures to Republicans and cited Mitt Romney, his presidential challenger, by name.

He combined tough talk about securing the border, which brought Republicans to their feet, with a pledge to entertain reasonable reforms to Medicare, the federal entitlement program that fellow Democrats are fighting to protect.

“Those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms,” he said.

Obama also pledged to cut U.S. dependence on energy imports by expanding oil and gas development. And he singled out one area where he and Romney found agreement in last year’s campaign: linking increases in the minimum wage to the cost of living.

Obama set a bipartisan tone at the start of his speech, quoting from President John F. Kennedy’s address to Congress 51 years earlier when he said, “The Constitution makes us not rivals for power, but partners for progress.”

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EU ministers to meet on horsemeat crisis

BRUSSELS: European Union farm ministers hold crisis talks in Brussels on Wednesday to agree a response to a scandal over mislabelled frozen meat products which is spreading across Europe.

The snap talks come a day after British police searching for the source of horsemeat found in kebabs and burgers raided two meat plants, the first such operation in the row, and France became the second EU nation after Britain to find horsemeat posing as beef in frozen food.

"If there is horsemeat in hamburgers or lasagne there should've been a label indicating this," EU commissioner for health Tonio Borg said ahead of the talks.

"Consumers are entitled to know what they are eating," he said at a news conference, "If anyone distributes and circulates meat products as beef, when it is not beef, that is in violation" of EU legislation.

It was up to member states to enforce current labelling legislation, he said, reiterating also that the European Commission believed that the scandal "up until now is a labelling issues" and "not a health issue".

"It is evident," he added, "that someone down the line has fraudulently or negligently -- probably fraudulently -- labelled a product in a deceptive way."

Wednesday's talks between EU agriculture ministers opening at 1630 GMT aim to have "an exchange of views and allow for sharing of information between the most affected member states" -- Britain, France, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania and Sweden.

The ministers will also look at "whatever steps may be necessary at EU level to comprehensively address this matter", said Ireland, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

On Tuesday, supermarkets in Switzerland and the Netherlands became the latest to pull ready-made meals as anger grows across Europe.

France has called for precise labelling on the origin of meat in ready-made dishes.

And President Francois Hollande warned on Wednesday that the scandal could seriously damage the country's frozen food sector.

"The president underlines that it is a serious affair in relation to consumer confidence and potentially serious for the consequences for the French sector," government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said.

Interbev, an association representing the French cattle and meat industry, has denounced the EU's failure to act, saying bth consumers and professionals wanted swift action on better labelling.

In Britain, police and officials from the Food Standards Agency on Tuesday raided a slaughterhouse in northern England and a meat-producing factory in Wales. They shut both sites and seized all meat there.

"The agency and the police are looking into the circumstances through which meat products, purporting to be beef for kebabs and burgers, were sold when they were in fact horse," the agency said.

Andrew Rhodes, operations director of the FSA, said he had ordered an audit of abattoirs that produce horsemeat in Britain when the scandal arose last month "and I was shocked to uncover what appears to be a blatant misleading of consumers."

The raids on the British meat premises opened a new front in the pan-European search for the source of the horsemeat: the allegations had so far focused on Romania.

In France, retailer Picard said tests had confirmed that horsemeat was present in two lots of frozen "beef" lasagne meals made by French firm Comigel.

Retailers in Britain, Sweden, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands have been removing Comigel products after the firm alerted Swedish frozen food giant Findus to the presence of horsemeat in its meals last week.

Swiss supermarket giant Coop said it had now withdrawn all frozen lasagnes produced by Comigel as a precaution.

Comigel denies any wrongdoing. It said it obtained its meat from another French firm, Spanghero, which said it was supplied from two abattoirs in Romania who allegedly passed off horsemeat as beef.

But Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta this week angrily denied his country was to blame and called on European Union officials to find out from where the fraud originated and identify the guilty parties.

Dutch supermarkets PLUS and Boni said Tuesday they had withdrawn Primafrost brand frozen lasagne as a precaution because it may contain horsemeat without being marked on the packaging.

-AFP/fl

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