Pin Pointing Sound

11/21/2012 02:50 PM CST

U.S. Airmen try to pinpoint the source of gunfire outside the perimeter of their base during combat readiness training on Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, Nov. 15, 2012. The training tested their ability to defend their base through use of force, cultural awareness, indirect fire and unexploded ordnance scenarios. The airmen are assigned to the 606th Air Control Squadron.

IDPD appealed

Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 5:02 PM
Australia should not supply Uranium to India

Courtesy Photo

Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) while welcoming the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on visit to India has appealed that Australia should not supply Uranium to our country for any purpose. Dr.L.S.Chawla – National President, Dr.Arun Mitra – General Secretary and Dr.Bharti Uppal – Finance Secretary said that there are many fields where both countries can strengthen trade relations to the benefit of both countries. Australia is the second biggest producer of Uranium in the world. But it is to the credit of Australia not to have any nuclear power plant. Nuclear energy is inherently dangerous and nuclear power plants are neither safe nor economical. Moreover they can be a potential for the production of  nuclear weapons any time in future. That Australia would supervise India over the use of Uranium supplied by it does not sound realistic. India has ample number of renewable resources for energy. It will be pertinent that the two countries work together in the field of renewable resources.
IDPD appealed 
For more detail contact Dr Arun Mitra,General Secretary IDPD on Mobile No. 94170 00360

“Various Grooming Workshops” by SikhiSidak

Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 11:11 PM

“The Youth can Revolute The Wings Of Time”

Jagminder Singh

SikhiSidak have decided to organize “Various Grooming Workshops” which ignition a spark in our youth who are unemployed due to various reasons. These classes will cover areas like communication skills, presentation skills, personality development, interview techniques etc. exciting session such as “Interview Skill Sharing Session” for college/engineering graduates/undergraduates by industry experts S. Parvinder Singh (Senior Consultant) & Sdn. Samneet Kaur(Manager) in MNC on 21st October 2012. The session will take place at Singh Study Circle, Rajouri Garden, New Delhi (near Tagore Garden metro station) from 1 P.M. to 3 P.M. with support from other organization wiz. Gyan Sewa Trust, Bibek Trust, Better Sikh School and Young Sikh Leaders

“The Youth can Revolute The Wings Of Time” is very much believed by every volunteer. Keeping this in mind SikhiSidak started Spark in year 2011. The motive is only to make the youth successful on professional grounds.

This session is for open for all. One can register FREE on www.sikhisidak.com.

SikhiSidak, a Sikhism based organization, which started the journey in the year 2005 from cob-webbed city, Delhi. It is headquartered in New Delhi with more than 250 volunteers covering every bit of Delhi, NCR and even few parts of Punjab and Haryana.
Contact at Mobile Number:+91-9212408777

Joint Press Communique

Ministry of Defence, Republic of India and
The Ministry of National Defence, People's Republic of China
At the invitation of Defence Minister, Shri A. K. Antony, General Liang Guanglie, State Councillor and Minister of National Defence of the People's Republic of China is on an official visit to the Republic of India from 02 to 06 September,2012.

Defence Minister Liang and his delegation visited Mumbai and Delhi. He inspected a Guard of Honour at South Block, New Delhi.

The two Defence Ministers had an extensive exchange of views on defence and military exchanges and cooperation between the two countries. They also discussed the regional security situation and international issues of common interest and concern. Both Ministers agreed that expanding bilateral cooperation between the Defence Ministries and Armed Forces of India and China helps enhance mutual trust, deepens friendship and promotes comprehensive development of the India-China Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity. The two Defence Ministers agreed to work together to enhance mutual trust in the security field and continue to maintain peace and tranquility in the India-China border areas. They noted that the leaders of India and China have designated 2012 as the Year of India-China Friendship and Cooperation.

The two Ministers reached the following consensus on defence and military exchanges and cooperation to be conducted in 2012 and beyond:

(a) Strengthen high level exchanges between the two Defence Ministries and the Armed Forces of both sides. The Chinese side invited the Defence Minister of India to visit China in 2013. RakshaMantri thanked the Chinese Defence Minister for the invitation and conveyed that the timing of his visit could be settled through diplomatic channels.

(b) Promote exchange of visits by personnel at different levels and in various fields.

(c) Establish a mechanism for exchange of visits by young officers from the Armed Forces of both sides.

(d) Conduct the next round of joint military exercises at the earliest.

(e) Strengthen border security cooperation between the border troops of the two sides so as to enhance and maintain peace and tranquility in the India-China border areas.

(f) Strengthen exchanges in personnel training, academic research and between educational institutions of the Armed Forces of both sides.

(g) Promote port calls by naval ships of the two sides and conduct joint maritime search and rescue exercises.

(h) Further enhance and strengthen cooperation between the Naval forces of both sides, in counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia.

(i) Work together to maintain peace and stability of the Asia- Pacific region.

The Chinese Defence Minister General Liang Guanglie called on Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh.

The Minister of National Defence, People's Republic of China, General Liang expressed appreciation for the gracious hospitality extended by the Ministry of Defence, Republic of India during the visit. (PIB)   05-September-2012 11:52 IST

The Governance and taxation structure

   Punjab needs to fundamentally change-PPP A meeting of the Sanjha Morcha was held this morning at the residence of former Chief Minister S. Surjit Singh Barnala.

     The decision of Government of Punjab to impose punitive and savage taxes on the people of Punjab was discussed threadbare. The Sanjha Morcha is of the considered view that Punjab needs to fundamentally change the governance and taxation structure.

      It was felt that the piecemeal imposition of taxes is not a solution to the debt and deficit faced by the Government. It only distorts the economy and makes it uncompetitive while burdening the common man with unconscious able taxes

        Punjab needs a political solution to come out of this economic mess. It was also felt that before imposition of taxes, Government of Punjab must decrease its lavish and unproductive expenditure base.

        Therefore, it was decided that a memorandum will be presented by the leadership of Sanjha Morcha to the Hon. Governor on 14th September, 2012 requesting him to ask the Government of Punjab to withdraw these taxes immediately failing which it was decided to launch a Jail Bharo agitation on the lines of call given by the Morcha at the Barsi of Sant Harchand Singh Longowal. The Morcha activists will court arrest at all district headquarters on 21st of September, 2012. We will build an “Andolan” on this issue as we feel that there are more taxes in the pipeline.

      Insofar as the call given by the Congress Party to join their Dharna, it was felt that the time is too short for us to be a part of this Dharna. However, we are thankful to the Congress President Captain Amarinder Singh for this invite and view this step as a development in the struggle to build up consensus against the anti people policies of the Punjab Government.

       Besides S. Manpreet Singh Badal, President of the Peoples’ Party of Punjab, the meeting was attended by S. Gurpreet Singh Bhati, Senior Vice President, Shri Bhagwant Mann, Sh. Abhey Singh Sandhu, S. Kuldip Singh Dhose of the PPP and Dr.  Joginder Dyal and Bant Singh Brar of CPI and Com. Charan Singh Virdi, Ranbir Singh Virk and Vijay Mishra of CPI(M). Smt. Surjit Kaur Barnala , S. Gaganjit Singh Barnala with S. Baldev Singh Mann represented SAD (Longowal), said Arunjot Singh Sodhi spokesman PPP.

Convocation of IIT Bombay

PM addressed the Golden Jubilee Convocation 

Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressed the Golden Jubilee Convocation of IIT Bombay in Mumbai today. Following is the text of Prime Minister’s Speech: 

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressing at the Golden Jubilee Convocation of IIT Bombay, in Mumbai on August 18, 2012. The Governor of Maharashtra, Shri K. Sankaranarayanan and the Union Minister for Human Resource Development and Communications and Information Technology, Shri Kapil Sibal are also seen. 18-August-2012

“I am delighted to be here at your prestigious institution on this auspicious day. I wish each one you a life of purposive action and professional fulfillment. Standing here this afternoon, my thoughts go back to those early days after Independence when our national leaders built great institutions of learning to help lay the foundations of a new India. The Indian Institutes of Technology were part of this great nation building effort. I salute the memory of all those who dedicated their lives to building this and other such great institutions of academic excellence.

The IITs have become an integral constituent of what is known as ‘Brand India’, like our nuclear science institutions, that Dr Kakodkar has dedicated his life to, like Mr Premji’s Wipro and Mr. Narayanamurthy's Infosys and like so many other centres of research and teaching that have given several generations of young Indians new opportunities that my own generation could only dream of.

Today, as we celebrate the Golden Jubilee of IIT Bombay, we feel a sense of pride. But that pride must be tempered by the concern that we still do not have the required number of such institutions to offer adequate developmental opportunities to all our bright young women and men.

Every year when I see how many hundreds of thousands of students apply for admission to these institutions, and when I see how high have become the minimum cut-off marks for admission, my heart is pained by the limits we are placing on the opportunities available to our youth.

That is precisely why our government took the initiative to expand the opportunities for higher and technical education in India. During the last eight years Indian higher education, as well as secondary and technical education, have experienced a quantum jump in terms of the investment being made and the number of seats being created for students. I compliment my colleague Shri Kapil Sibal for leading this effort.

Our government has opened new IITs, new IIMs and new institutions for teaching and research in the sciences. We have increased investment in school education. We have increased scholarships for the disadvantaged sections of our society.

I am happy that IIT Bombay has made research a priority. I am told that a number of centres in the institute are engaged in research on several important areas. These include the National Centre for Photovoltaic Research and Education, the 1 Megawatt National Solar Thermal Test Facility and the Indo-US Clean Energy Centre for Photovoltaics. I am sure these efforts will result in very useful outcomes.

As India’s economy becomes bigger and more developed, so too must our knowledge base. A developing country like ours has to catch up with other more developed nations and this ‘catch-up’ process depends vitally on our ability to harness human resources for development.

Another challenge is to ensure that the investment we make in higher education in fact contributes more directly to nation building. Here the IITs face an immediate challenge of making their curriculum more relevant to our needs. I am aware that this is a subject of much lively discussion among your faculty and alumnus. How do we incentivize our engineering graduates to bring their professional knowledge to bear more directly on our development processes? This would be in keeping with the vision for IITs that Pandit Nehru articulated when he laid the foundation stone of IIT Bombay. He said, that the role of the IITs would be, and I quote, “to provide scientists and technologists of the highest caliber who would engage in research, design and development to help building the nation toward self reliance in her technological needs”.

Many of our best IIT students have, over the years, migrated abroad in search of better opportunities. I do not grudge that. Some of them have returned home to serve our Motherland. Some do so from where they are, in some of the best institutions of the world. A large number of our IIT graduates move away from their core disciplines into management, finance, marketing and even the civil services. Without doubt, they have much to contribute in their new fields of work.

The students graduating today have a long list of IIT Bombay alumni to inspire them. Each of the preceding 49 Convocations of this great institution has seen the graduation of a very talented group of young men and women. They have made important contributions in a wide range of disciplines and have added lustre to the global image of India. Several of them have risen to top positions internationally including Arun Netravali, former head of Bell Laboratories, and Nitin Nohria, the current Dean of Harvard Business School. One of our brightest Cabinet Ministers, Shri Jairam Ramesh is an alumnus of IIT Bombay, as is Shri Nandan Nilekani who carries the enormous responsibility of implementing India’s ambitious programme for providing all its citizens with a Unique Identification number.

India needs millions of engineers and millions more of technically qualified workers and skilled professionals. There was a time when engineers like M. Vishwesharayya and K. L. Rao provided leadership to our power projects and irrigation projects and were regarded as national leaders. Today India needs national leaders from the fields of engineering and science. Not just politics, sport and cinema!

Friends, India is on the move. And so, you enter a world of opportunities. How you make use of these opportunities, how you shape them, how you create new opportunities for newer generations of our youth will shape the future of this ancient land.

I know that in the recent past we have lived through a period of excessive pessimism and negativism. Some of this is natural. Our society has been experiencing a ‘revolution of rising expectations’. Hopes are high, but are often not realized. This breeds cynicism. The challenge before you is to retain your sense of hope and optimism even as you surmount the hurdles you face and overcome the challenges that are posed.

When I look back at my own life I am humbled and gratified by the distance my generation has travelled. I studied in the light of a kerosene lamp in a dusty village that had no power, no school or college. I had to walk miles to school. In all these matters, there has been an enormous improvement in the 65 years of independent India. Even then, the progress that has been registered has often fallen short of the expectations of our people, particularly the youth. In some ways, the enormity of the task ahead of us as a nation is daunting, but our achievements so far give us confidence and hope.

India’s journey, as indeed IIT Bombay’s journey, these past 65 years, is a matter of great pride. After half a century of zero rate of economic growth, from 1900 to 1950, we managed to register 3.5 per cent growth for three decades after Independence, from 1950 to 1980. But from 1980 to now, over the subsequent three decades, we have nearly doubled that rate of growth. In 2003-08 we showed that we can march forward at an even higher rate of growth of 9.0 per cent.

These are not just numbers. They translate into employment opportunities for newer generations. They create new incomes and new possibilities. They help increase the government’s revenues so that we can invest more in education, in health care, in eradicating poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy.

I know that in the past year India's economy has slowed down. But this is not an inevitable or irreversible outcome. The fundamentals of our economy are sound and with greater effort being made to mobilize all the latent physical and human resources, we can go back to the growth rate of 8 to 9 percent per annum achieved from 2003 to 2008. The large investments in the development of human resources that we have made in the last 8 years would facilitate that outcome.

Science and technology have to play a major role in the transformation of our economy. The educated youth of our country have to lead the process of social and economic change. I am confident that young people like you will take the flag from our hands and march forward. I am confident that your generation will make us proud. I am confident about the future of India, because YOU are that future.

As you enter a new phase of your life never forget those who have made it possible for you to be here today. Your parents, your family and friends, your teachers and the society around you that has enabled you to receive good quality education and build the foundation of your professional life.

May your path be blessed. Jai Hind!”   (PIB)
18-August-2012 17:39 IST
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66th Independence Day from the ramparts of Red Fort

 The PM, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressing the Nation'

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressing the Nation on the occasion of 66th Independence Day from the ramparts of Red Fort, in Delhi on August 15, 2012.  (PIB photo)      15-August-2012