Celebrating 84 Years of 'Raman Effect'

India celebrated 84 years of ‘Raman Effect’ yesterday on 28th February to mark the achievement by Nobel laureate CV Raman. Seminars, lectures and symposiums were organized reportedly in Lucknow to commemorate this National Science Day.

Raman scattering or the Raman Effect is named after the great scientist of India, CV Raman, who first propounded the theory. It is the inelastic scattering of a photon. It was discovered by Raman and K S Krishnan in liquids and by Grigory Landsberg and Leonid Mandelstam in crystals. He eventually got the Nobel Prize for this.

In 1922, Raman published his work on the "Molecular Diffraction of Light," the first of a series of investigations with his collaborators that at last led to his discovery of the radiation effect on 28 February 1928 which is called ‘Raman Effect’.

Celebrating the occasion at the Regional Science City, BN Dhawan, former director, Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) presented an excellent speech. He wanted the students to follow the footsteps of the ancient Indian eminent scientists like Aryabhatta, Ramanujam, Sushrut and Charak.

He commended the legendary inventions and discoveries of these great scientists with the limited resources and scopes available then.

In Amity University the event was also celebrated to promote the scientific and innovative abilities of the students and teachers. 'Clean energy options and nuclear safety' was this year’s topic to be focused.

On this occasion, Prof Kripa Shankar presented his speech on renewable energy and energy efficiency and another learned Professor P K Seth orated on India’s prospect in Biotechnology.

Journalists heckled by TMC Cadres in Kolkata

In a shocking development today, two journalists from TV channels in Kolkata were assaulted by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) supporters during the 'Bharat Bandh'.

The TMC supporters had attacked a zonal office of the CPI-M to protest against the support for the bandh call given by 11 trade unions in India. As the journalists tried to capture the event, the TMC hooligans went berserk and attacked them.

Two journalists of '24 Ghanta' and 'Star Ananda' had to bear the ire of the TMC supporters. Their camera and other equipments were smashed. They were badly beaten up, as the police remained mute spectators.

Star Ananda said that their journalist Partha Pratim Ghosh was injured in the attack. The incident occurred in Ganguly Bagan area of south Kolkata.

While the journalists across West Bengal and many parts of India, have condemned the attack on mediapersons, the CPI-M has also termed it "unprovoked". However, the Trinamool Congress alleged that the journalists first hurled abuses, resulting in retaliation by its activists.

TV footage clearly showed that the TMC cadres pushed the journalists to the ground and kicked them without mercy. Some other cadres tried to prevent the media from filming the incident.

WikiLeaks to publish Confidential Emails on Website

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks has announced to publish confidential emails from the global geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor, detailing everything of the company.

The company emails from July 2004 to December 2011 will be exposed on WikiLeaks on Monday. It will reveal Stratfor's "web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods.

WikiLeaks said that the contents of more than five million confidential emails of the US-based intelligence firm in past seven years are being exposed on the anti-secrecy group site.

The documents have been analysed with the help of 25 publications around the world including Rolling Stone in the United States, L’Espresso in Italy and The Hindu in India.

However, it did not disclose how the emails were obtained by the site. But Stratfor acknowledged that its data severs were hacked in December by a group of hackers known as Anonymous.

WikiLeaks claimed that Stratfor has kept many documents of the group and its founder Julian Assange, who is now under house arrest in Britain in connection with allegations of sex crimes. The documents contain information about the US government's attack against WikiLeaks and Assange.

Cellcast India: This is 'my' television

Research shows that the majority of us are getting tired of ads. Because they are everywhere — on television, in newspapers and radio, across billboards, magazines, cars… they even pop up on the ATM screen as we wait for it to dispense our cash. At least one channel promises to offer ad-free television, MyTV, which was launched last month by Cellcast India, a subsidiary of Cellcast Plc.

But there is a caveat. As Ashutosh, chief operating officer-television, Cellcast India, points out, “It is an ad free channel which will integrate brands in the content. For us, TV is a platform just like the internet and IVR (interactive voice response). While we don’t have a commercial ad slot, we are open to sponsorships and branding.” Free-to-air MyTV promises another novel feature-it is interactive. Customer interaction will be through three platforms — television, mobile and internet (including social media platforms).

“The theme of the channel is simple: pay and participate,” says Ashutosh. The content offered by MyTV includes contests as well as informative shows. “The DNA of the channel is different as others don’t produce what we do,” adds Ashutosh. “The anchor on any show would ask the viewer to call up, and we can receive more than one call at a time.”

MyTV has been funded by Canaan Partners and Vertex Venture Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings. The company reportedly has an investment outlay of Rs 750 million for MyTV. Its distribution partner is BAG Network and it will be available across India’s western, eastern and northern regions. It aims to reach out to over 35 million analog and digital homes, including multiple DTH (direct-to-home) platforms in the first phase. According to the company, the channel has reached 15 million homes in about three weeks.

Cellcast India has been operating in India for over seven years now. It has worked on a series of interactive TV programmes and shows based on mobile subscription. Cellcast has a dozen game shows on some Hindi channels as well as a handful of regional channels. It also has IVR based shows and subscription-based astrology content.

Cellcast became famous with its late night reverse auction show Bid2Win (launched in India in 2006 and was broadcast every evening simultaneously across four of India’s leading cable channels — Sony, Sahara One, Zoom and Zee Punjabi); some other popular shows in its portfolio are — Gold Safe and Bhavishyaphal Sitaron Se Hal on Imagine TV; Cricket Howzatt on India TV and Insomnia Sona Mana Hai on Zee TV, among others. Most of its shows air late night and they make money through premium calls made to mobile interactive voice response systems.

Last year, Cellcast provided 4,000 hours of content across various television channels; it plans to increase this to 10,000 hours this year. It will start an online channel in the next two months. “For us, a viewer is an active partner; thus we hope that the interactivity that we offer will help us score high,” says Ashutosh.

Will SBI bailout Kingfisher Airlines?

The State Bank of India seems to help the troubled Kingfisher Airlines to overcome the cash crisis as various media reports said that the bank will extend a relief extend a relief package.

However, the Bank refused to confirm the reports. The report suggested that the SBI has decided to extend Rs 1650 crore relief package to the Kingfisher Airlines.

In order to help the crisis-hit Kingfisher Airlines, the bank decided to extend a new line of credit, which included 7 billion rupees in short-term working capital and 5 billion rupees in bank guarantees.

However, the government said that there is no plan to give a bailout to the private airline. Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said that the government will not do the same for the Kingfisher airlines what are being done for Air India.

On the other hand, reports said that the Income Tax (I-T) department may defreeze the bank accounts of the airline after Kingfisher agreed to pay its dues partially.

The airlines has been asked to pay as much as Rs 53.8 crore for financial year 2011 and Rs 100 crore for financial year 2012 to the I-T department.

However, Kingfisher has paid Rs 21 crore till December 2011 and will pay Rs 130 crore TDS liability by FY 2012 end. It has been asked to pay Rs 43 crore service tax dues by March 2012.

The airline has cancelled 14 flights in Mumbai and four in Delhi on Wednesday. However, the operations in Kolkata resumed after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) asked the private carrier not to shut down the operation in the city.

Prioritize Value over Volume

Research has shown that multitasking results in mediocre outcomes. By putting into little attention on too many things, you fail to do anything well. However, the answer isn't single tasking either. 

Single tasking is far too slow to help you succeed in today's fast-paced world. Instead, identify the tasks that will create the most value and focus on those. By prioritizing value over volume and sharpening your focus on tasks that truly matter, you'll increase the quality of your work and, ultimately, the value you provide. What to do with all those tasks that didn't make the high-value list?

Put them on a "do later" list. If they continually fail to make it to the high-value list, ask yourself: Why do them at all?

New Telecom Policy -

The new telecom Policy was announced by the Communication and Information Ministry last Wednesday. The policy will be effective from April this year. This is the third time that India has announced a telecom Policy.

The first and second policies were announced in 1994 and 1999 respectively. The new telecom policy seems to have simplified licensing rules so as to bring transparency and to enhance consolidation.

An important requirement of the new policy is that Spectrum will have to be obtained separately. Communications Minister Kapil Sibal told that the new policy prescribes a single license for the entire country and also separates licenses from bandwidth.

With an intention to encourage consideration, the policy allows quick mergers with the resultant entities which have a market share within 35 percent. The earlier limit was 30 percent.

However, the merged entity cannot have more than 25 per cent of the assigned spectrum in a circle. Mr. Sibal also informed that the government is considering upon allowing mergers where the combined entities can hold up to 60% of market share.

The prescribed limit of spectrum has also increased from the current 6.2 MHz to 8 MHz across the country. For only Delhi and Mumbai, it has been further hiked to 10 MHz.

The spectrum pricing has not been finalized as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is yet to find a base price for the auction of 2G spectrum.