14 Coaches Derailed Of Delhi-Guwahati Rajdhani

New Delhi, May 25 : Fourteen coaches of the Delhi-Guwahati Rajdhani derailed in Bihar this morning. The incident took place near Naugachiya between the Katihar and Khagaria stations.


No casualties have been reported yet. Police have said there are no reports of passengers being injured either.

But the Delhi-Guwahati rail route, up and down, has been disrupted.

While five passenger trains, including the Tatanagar -Chapra Express, have been cancelled, at least three express trains have been diverted. These include the Awadh Assam Express, Mahananda Express and the Barmer-Guwahati Express.

The driver of the train said he applied emergency brakes after hearing a loud explosion. But no Maoists link is being indicated as of now.

PK Thaku, Additional Director General, Bihar sadi: "This particular area is not Maoist affected."

The top policeman said investigation would reveal what had happened, but "this stretch...has had a history of the tracks generally giving in. Last year also, not with Rajdhani but with another train, there was a similar incident on this stretch itself."

He said the 14 coaches had tilted but not overturned.

Helpline Numbers:  Naugacchia 06421-223152; Baruni 06279-232220; Khagaria 06244 -222049; Hajipur 06224-272230

Why GPS Will Soon Guide You to an Arm's Length of Your Destination

GPS is getting an $8-billion upgrade

Improvements, including the replacement of satellites, aim to make the system more reliable, more widespread and much more accurate.

By W.J. Hennigan

Without it, ATMs would stop spitting out cash, Wall Street could blunder billions of dollars in stock trades and clueless drivers would get lost.

It's GPS, and it's everywhere.

Although most people may associate the Global Positioning System with the navigation devices that are becoming standard equipment on new cars, GPS has become a nerve center for the 21st century rivaling the Internet — enabling cargo companies to track shipments, guiding firefighters to hot spots and even helping people find lost dogs.

"It's a ubiquitous utility that everybody takes for granted now," said Bradford W. Parkinson.

He should know. Three decades ago, as a baby-faced Air Force colonel just out of the Vietnam War, Parkinson led the Pentagon team that developed GPS at a military base in El Segundo.

Now, scientists and engineers — including those at a sprawling satellite-making factory in El Segundo — are developing an $8-billion GPS upgrade that will make the system more reliable, more widespread and much more accurate.

The new system is designed to pinpoint someone's location within an arm's length, compared with a margin of error of 20 feet or more today. With that kind of precision, a GPS-enabled mobile phone could guide you right to the front steps of Starbucks, rather than somewhere on the block.

"This new system has the potential to deliver capabilities we haven't seen yet," said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst for aerospace research firm Teal Group. "Because GPS touches so many industries, it's hard to imagine what industry wouldn't be affected."

The 24 satellites that make up the GPS constellation — many of them built at the former Rockwell plant in Seal Beach — will be replaced one by one. The first replacement was scheduled to be launched from Cape Canaveral this weekend. The overhaul will take a decade and is being overseen by engineers at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, where Parkinson and his team developed the current system.

"We know that the world relies on GPS," said Col. David B. Goldstein, the chief engineer for the upgrade.

San Diego found out firsthand in 2007, when the Navy accidentally jammed GPS signals in the area, knocking out cellphone service and a hospital's emergency hospital paging system for doctors. New York experienced a similar problem a year later.

The upgrade is designed in part to prevent such outages by increasing the number of signals beamed to Earth from satellites that orbit 12,000 miles above. By triangulating the signals from four satellites, GPS receivers — and there are now more than a billion of them — can pinpoint your location on the ground.

Although "positioning" is an obvious application of the technology, it's also become a crucial timekeeper for the financial industry. Transactions made everywhere, from ATMs to Wall Street stock trades, are time-stamped using precise atomic clocks ticking within the GPS satellites. The clocks are accurate to one-billionth of a second. It's a crucial technology for Wall Street, where a fraction of a second could mean billions of dollars.

Before GPS, explorers and seafarers figured out where they were by looking at the sun and the stars. Even with the advent of gyroscopes and radios, navigation was still imprecise, with an average margin of error of a mile or two.

The Cold War sparked the necessity for something better.

When the Soviet Union launched the world's first orbiting satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, scientists at Johns Hopkins University scrambled to track it. They soon realized they could determine Sputnik's position by monitoring the radio waves it emitted.

That led to a breakthrough concept. If radio waves could be used to track a satellite from Earth, the radio waves from the satellite could also be used to determine the position of an object on the ground.

The Pentagon jumped at the idea. The Navy in particular needed help guiding its submarines that carried nuclear missiles. Because the submarines spent months underwater and only surfaced sporadically, they did not have a precise way of knowing where they were, which diminished the accuracy of the missiles.

In the 1960s, the Pentagon launched more than a dozen satellites under a program called Transit to help the submarines, which were outfitted with an antenna that could receive satellite signals when they surfaced.

But the system was accurate only to within 100 feet — and only when a submarine wasn't moving. The government needed something better.

That's where Parkinson came in. In 1972, the Pentagon tapped him to develop a satellite-based navigation system that had more naysayers than supporters. Parkinson recalled frequent trips to Washington to deflect criticism from politicians and even some Pentagon brass that decried the project as a waste of taxpayers' money.

"I was told that the system was useless and that it had no future," said Parkinson, 75, who is now professor emeritus at Stanford University. "I guess we proved them wrong."

In addition to Rockwell, Parkinson enlisted engineers at Aerospace Corp., also in El Segundo. The first satellite was launched in 1978 and the system began partially operating with 21 satellites in 1993.

The military seized on the technology quickly, using GPS to guide troops through sand storms during the first Gulf War. A few years later, in 1995, GPS became a household name after Air Force Capt. Scott F. O'Grady used his hand-held unit to guide rescuers to his position after his jet was shot down over Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Since then, GPS has revolutionized warfare. GPS is used to direct the drones seeking out insurgents in Afghanistan, and has made "smart bombs" so accurate that they can be dropped from 40,000 feet and still land within 10 feet of their target.

The Pentagon operates and controls the GPS satellite system used in every country around the world. Until 2000 it deliberately degraded the signals that could be read by civilian devices. Commercial applications soared in 2000, when President Bill Clinton ordered the Pentagon to stop making the signals fuzzy.

Worried that the U.S. could flip the switch and shut off GPS to the rest of the world, several countries are developing their own satellites to wean themselves from relying on technology controlled by the U.S. military. The European Union, China and Russia are spending billions of dollars to develop their own versions.

Commercial applications, meanwhile, continue to multiply.

NavCom Technology Inc. in Torrance makes a remote-control system for tractors that steers by GPS. The company refines GPS signals with other ground-based navigation devices so that farmers can watch their tractors plant seeds in straight rows without overlapping in their fields.
Oil riggers pay a monthly subscription for a GPS service that enables them to zero in on oil fields that lay thousands of feet below the surface on the ocean floor.

The number of users who subscribe to such services is expected to balloon to at least 15 million this year, up from 100,000 six years ago, according to Frost & Sullivan, a San Antonio research firm.

"That's not including the hundreds of millions of people who get the signals for free on applications through their cellphones," said Daniel Longfield, industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan.

Under the $8-billion upgrade, Boeing Co.'s Space and Intelligence Systems in El Segundo is building 12 satellites the size of sport-utility vehicles, and 18 others will be assembled by Lockheed Martin Corp. in Denver. Twenty-four will go into orbit and six will be reserved as spares.

The first phase is more than three years behind schedule, costing taxpayers about $1 billion. Much of the delay has been blamed on Air Force demands for new features, including the ability to upgrade the satellites' software while they are in space.

The new satellites will also triple the amount of signals available for commercial use and will have atomic clocks that are even more precise — keeping time to a fraction of a billionth of a second.

"GPS has truly become the lighthouse of the world," Parkinson said. "It's just remarkable how the system has evolved over the past 30 years. It'll be just as interesting to see what will come in the next 30."

[ via Latimes ]

Jailed Chinese professor Says Orgies Disturbed No One

A Chinese college professor has been jailed for running a sex club, whose members were the first to be convicted of "group licentiousness" in 20 years, media reported on Friday.

Ma Yaohai, a 53-year-old computer science professor, was jailed for three and a half years after pleading not guilty to holding orgies and said he would appeal against his sentence, the official China News Service said.

"What we did, we did for our own happiness," Ma told media at a news conference in April at his home, where 14 of his 18 orgies, or "swinging games" as he called them, were held.

"People chose to do it of their own free will and they knew they could stop at any time," he said at the time. "We disturbed no one.

"Marriage is like water. You have to drink it. Swinging is like a cup of wine. You can drink it if you like. If you don't like it, don't drink it."

Eighteen people charged with taking part in the orgies were jailed for up to two and half years.

"Ma received a more severe punishment because he did not admit the malicious and illegal nature of his conduct," the court in eastern Nanjing said.

Ma started his online group in 2007. Participants included office workers, taxi drivers and sales clerks. They were arrested after five were caught having a "party" in a hotel room last August.

Ma's case has sparked debate on whether group licentiousness should be scratched from the law books.

"If noone is being harmed, people's privacy should be protected," one sociologist was quoted as saying.

Others felt Ma's conduct was outrageous.

"Law is based on respect for traditional customs and civilised ethics," said a columnist named Zhi Feng on Xinhuanet.com. "They confounded right and wrong and poisoned the social atmosphere. How dare you say they did no harm to others?"

(Reporting by Liu Zhen and Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Meet The Worlds Worst's Drivers

Some people are good for nothing and some people are bad drivers….and here are some..

As the title suggests, it’s best to not steal someone’s parking space! This might happen to you.

We should all know that pedestrians have the right of way. Don’t rush them. Or else!

Who hasn’t dreamed of doing something like this? Things can get out of hand pretty quickly…

Funny commercial teaching someone to drive. Sad thing is, there really are people who drive like this!

Here’s a little compilation of some funny moments, and hopefully, some situations we will never be in, or never have been in!

Effigies of Manipur CM Turned Into Target Practise

Tadubi rally demands removal of State forces

Tadubi, May 25 : Protesting against the May 6 Mao gate incident in which two students were shot dead in police firing and demanding withdrawal of State forces including IRB from Mao, a mass rally was taken out in Tadubi area while a large number of womenfolk's staged a sit-in protest at Mao Gate today.

Organized under the aegis of Mao Council, the mass rally was flagged off from Tadubi ground.
After passing through Tadubi Bazar and its surrounding areas, the rallyists converged at Tadubi ground again.

During the mass rally participated, mostly by men, the protestors carried placards inscribed with slogans like 'We want peace', 'We support Muivah to visit homeland', 'Down with Ibobi', 'Peace not War', 'Let us be good neighbors', 'Go back Manipur forces from Nagalim', 'Do not murder democracy', 'Meitei cannot decide Nagas' destiny', 'We want self-governance', etc.

Tadubi rallies against continued deployment of State forces and CM's effigy makes the perfect target

At the end of the rally, the protestors enacted an age-old customs of the Mao Nagas and speared the effigy of Chief Minister O Ibobi turning it into some sort of a target practice.
Talking to media persons in this regard, spokesperson of Mao Council, S Loli Mao explained that it is a ritual performed to drive away the evil force or a person who poses threat to the communal harmony.

This ritual is known as Rodzii Kaphi among Mao Nagas and is normally performed once in a year, he added.

Stating that the decision of the Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh-led Government to prevent Muivah from visiting his native village is against the wishes of the Nagas, Loli alleged that Ibobi has committed crimes against the Nagas and he is responsible for the killing of two innocent students.

Contending that Meiteis and Nagas have their own separate identities since time immemorial, Loli said that Nagas would not compromise even an inch of land.

Alleging that Ibobi has been suppressing the Nagas, Loli said that deployment of large number of security forces at Mao area has defeated the very purpose of democracy and denied the rights of the people.

He also demanded that State forces including IRB being deployed in Mao area be withdrawn at once, without further delay.

On the other hand, talking to media persons after the sit-in-protest staged by a large number of womenfolk at Mao, spokesperson of Mao Women's Society Lolia Lucy said people of Mao area want peace and so the State forces presently deployed are not needed and should be withdrawn.

''We are very afraid ( of the State forces). We want freedom. We have enough security of our own'', she said, adding that the ongoing agitation would continue until withdrawal of the State forces from Mao.

''Out time will come and we are waiting for that to give a fitting reply through proper channel', she added.

The Silent Bangladeshi Invasion of Assam

By Subir Ghosh​

A week ago, an unsettling incident occurred in Assam that went largely unnoticed in the Indian media.

Over a thousand suspected illegal migrants crossed the Dhansiri river and, with impunity, took over parts of Orang National Park in Darrang district in the early hours of May 6.

They came from the innumerable chars (riverine islands) that dot the Brahmaputra river.

They did not come empty-handed - they brought along building materials and cattle.

They apparently had come to stay. For good.

By the time forest guards spotted the invaders that afternoon, the migrants had already erected a hundred makeshift houses or more. The unnerved forest personnel called back for more hands and resources; they did not dare take on the illegal migrants who were armed with sharp weapons. The latter had not only come here to stay, but seemed inordinately determined to do so.

The forest department, in turn, sought the Army's help.

Sometime in the evening, the eviction drive began.

As the dismantling of the houses got under way, the settlers predictably began attacking the forest personnel. This they did after lining up women and children in front of them. The Armymen present had to fire in the air to ward them off.

The expulsion operation went on for three grueling hours, with the forest department having to even use elephants to chase away the recalcitrant encroachers. Finally, at the end of the day, the national park had been cleared.

Even in a state where the issue of illegal migrants has dominated the political landscape for the last 30 years or so, this came as exceptionally alarming.

Unprecedented, arguably, is the word.

Illegal migrants can tilt the electoral scales in close to half of the state's 126 Assembly constituencies.

If that is not enough, this was the first sign of Bangladeshi migrants asserting themselves – over land.

The buzz in forest circles is that this was the first such try; they fear more intrepid and brazen attempts from these illegal migrants in the days to come.

The riverine islands and reserved forests of Assam have been falling bit by bit to Bangladeshis for years now. But all this while, the encroachment of the state's reserved forests and wildlife sanctuaries/national parks had been a silent and ghostly invasion.

That is why the incident of May 6 needs to be taken more seriously.

It is the first ominous indication of the illegal migrants from Bangladesh asserting themselves physically. They need more land, you see.

Let's look prima facie just at the issue of reserved forests and protected areas in the state.

Settlers in the char areas on the Brahmaputra near the national parks, especially Kaziranga and Orang, are known to be involved in rhino poaching. Most of these people, not surprisingly, are Bangladeshi migrants.

During a raid conducted by security personnel at a few villages on the fringe areas of Orang in March, weapons and traps used in poaching were recovered along with body parts of animals. All those arrested were suspected Bangladeshi nationals. But then, you can never prove that they are Bangladeshis.

Protected areas in Assam, like elsewhere in the country, are in a precarious state. The problems they face are the same – that of rampant encroachment, illegal logging, stone mining, and burgeoning human settlements in contiguous areas, among others. Illegal migrants compound these already existing headaches.

The state government has time and again made half-hearted attempts to jettison encroachers from forest areas; each time these had to be withdrawn after a few days of the launch.  The hue and cry raised by vested interests was too much for the government of the day to handle.
Most of these encroachers were projected as Muslims and not as Bangladeshis. In these days of political correctness, no political dispensation, least of all the Congress, wants to be seen as anti-minority.

Then there were those who talk of people and forest rights. For them too, these settlers were not foreigners. They never are.

The result was inevitable. The encroachers, most of them illegal Bangladeshi migrants, stayed on.

How far-reaching the result was, is now there for us to see.

It is no more a question of people's rights over forest resources. It has degenerated into a sinister issue of illegal migrants asserting their "unfettered" right to take over Indian forests and sanctuaries.

Incidentally, Assam has the largest amount of forest land under encroachment – 485,674 hectares. Andhra Pradesh, which is much larger, comes next with 268,853 hectares. Statistics always denote something, unless you are as blind as a bat.

What has been distressing is the scant coverage the May 6 incident received in the media. Do a search on Google News and you will get the tally.

No media coverage means no one knows about it. No one knows means that no one is scared of this disconcerting episode. That's what makes it so scary.

As it is, according to official Indian records there are hardly any illegal migrants in Assam.
Bangladesh denies the existence of its nationals in the state, or even elsewhere in India.

Most political parties in the state – from the Congress to the Left parties – too don't believe there are any. Neither the regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) or the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been able to do anything about the issue when they were in power either in the state or at the Centre.

There are only two kinds of people in Assam. The first lot sees no evil, the second has no idea how to tackle this evil.

Add to this unconfirmed reports that the takeover attempt of Orang was done at the behest of a Congress leader of the area. Even while they were being pushed out of the national park, the encroachers were heard issuing threats and making references to this Congress leader.

The All-Assam Students Union (AASU), that had led the Assam Agitation in the Eighties, has taken umbrage, and made its anger known after the incident. But that is all that it can probably do in today's Assam.

The invidious invasion of Assam has been taking place for several decades and successive governments have failed to arrest this demographic onslaught.

One need not delve too much into history or figures that are not authentic to make one's point; even recent official figures will suffice.

Enumeration of electors in Assam by the Election Commission showed more than 30 per cent increase in 17 Assembly constituencies and more than 20 per cent increase in 40 constituencies between 1994 and 1997.

Whereas the all-India average growth in electors between 1994 and 1997 was 7 per cent, the growth in Assam for this period was as high as 16.4 per cent.

It may be empirical, but the evidence is tell-tale.

The Assam Agitation, in hindsight, was successful only in the signing of an accord. The issue over which the movement was built, however, still rages on.

And now, a conniving Congress government in the state and an impotent Congress-led alliance at the Centre have allowed the problem of illegal migrants get out of hand. Yes, it is out of hand. If the May 6 assertiveness is no proof, what more can one possibly want?

Assam, today, is probably in dire need of another agitation.

The one of the Eighties was by and large peaceful. The Nellie massacre may have been a brutal and gory exception; but then, it was not officially engineered by the AASU. The next agitation, if one happens, will surely be a more virulent, violent one.

Subir Ghosh is a senior Delhi-based journalist. He blogs at write2kill

When Backpackers Came in as ‘Ganja Tourists’!

By Raju Das

Shillong, May 24 : Think cannabis. Think anti-drug laws world over. Flashback, sitting blissfully on the banks of Malana river near the Himalayas, high on Malana cream as ‘ganja tourists’.

India’s ancient philosophy, culture and tradition has always fascinated and baffled the world and been the subject of debates and discussions, and Malana cream is just one of them.

“Malana cream is a high quality cannabis extract (hashish/charas) that is named after this remote ancient village in Himachal Pradesh in Kullu valley where it is produced,” Director General of Narcotic Control Bureau, OPS Malik told The Assam Tribune.

Asked if it is legal to take this drug and Malik’s answer is intoxicatingly subdued. “We (NCB) are a drug trafficking control agency. We don’t disturb cultural traditions. So long the use of these substances does not lead to business and trafficking.”

Malik walks a tightrope between his professional callings and India’s age old tradition. “We don’t allow movement of drugs from one part to the other,” he said mildly.

Malana Cream, considered the world’s best Hash or Hashish, at one point of time became so popular that hoards of backpackers crossed continents heaving 3,029 feet above the sea level to Malana village, often dubbed as “Ganja tourists,” for the drug. One Tola (about 11 grams) of Malana Cream costs above Rs 2,000. However, fakes from Nepal now comes much cheaper.

Its not that Malanis are addicts, but use of the drug is closely associated with the socio-cultural practices of these ancient people, who some say, are the oldest practitioners of democracy in the world.

Not just in Malana, use of Cannabis or Marijuana has been closely associated with the socio-cultural lives of Indians, for thousands of years now.

In the West, there has been a growing debate on Cannabis’ medicinal properties, although it has not been proved beyond doubt, only that this plant induces euphoria amongst users. Prolonged use of the drug can cause mental disorders.

“There is research going on about the medicinal properties of Cannabis, but nothing has been proved beyond doubt so far,” Malik said.

NCB, meanwhile, has been conducting raids and seizures and busting international cartels involved in smuggling of Cannabis and other banned substances across India, Malik said.

Each year, India seizes around 1,000 kg of Heroin and 4,000 kg of Cannabis extracts like Hashish and Charas. “There has been a steady decline in the use of Hashish and Charas in India and hence lesser seizures over the years,” he informed.

[ via Assam Tribune ]

Bob Dylan’s 69th Birthday Celebrated

Kolkata, May 24 : Celebrating the 69th birth anniversary of the legendry American musician Bob Dylan, Jim Beam, owned by fourth largest spirits company Beam Global Spirits & Wine Ltd, hosted a rock concert at The Park in Kolkata; with celebrity performer Lou Majaw and sensational band The Bad Monkeys.

The soulful evening witnessed live rock performances which mesmerized the audiences. The marvelous performances set the mood just right for a perfect evening. It was indeed a beautiful night where the rock music lovers were seen enjoying great music with the world’s largest selling bourbon whiskey Jim Beam.

Lou Majaw (born 1947) is a Khasi guitarist popularly known as the "One of the Biggest Fans of Bob Dylan in the North-East". Born to a poor family, the Majaws could not afford a guitar or a radio. In a friend's house he was introduced to the music of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, and taught himself the guitar in school.

Majaw then moved on to Kolkata (Calcutta) where he played in bars and pubs for various groups such as the Dynamite Boys, Vanguards, Supersound Factory, and Blood and Thunder. In 1966, Lou was introduced to Bob Dylan's work.

Inspired by his music, he later organized a "Dylan's birthday concert" in Shillong on 24 May 1972. Since then he has organized the concert each year on 24 May to pay obeisance to Dylan, with the shows eventually gaining national and international fame.

[ via India Blooms News Service ]