India on Tuesday successfully test-fired indigenously developed nuclear-capable Prithvi-II missile with a strike range of 350 km from a test range at Chandipur in Odisha as part of a user trial by defence forces.
The surface-to-surface missile was test-fired at around 10:05 a.m. from a mobile launcher in salvo mode from launch complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range, about 15 km from Balasore, defence sources said.
Describing the launch of the sophisticated missile as a complete success, ITR Director M.V.K.V. Prasad said all the mission parameters were met during the trial.
“The missile was randomly chosen from the production stock and the launch activities were carried out by the specially formed Strategic Force Command (SFC) and monitored by scientists of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as part of training exercise,” the sources said.
“The missile trajectory was tracked by DRDO radars, electro-optical tracking systems and telemetry stations located along the coast of Odisha,” they said.
“The downrange teams onboard a ship deployed near the designated impact point in Bay of Bengal monitored the terminal events and splashdown,” they said.
Inducted into India’s Strategic Forces Command in 2003, Prithvi, the first missile developed by DRDO under India’s prestigious IGMDP (Integrated Guided Missile Development Program), is now a proven technology, said a defence official.
“The launch was part of a regular training exercise of SFC and was monitored by DRDO scientists,” he said.
Such training launches clearly indicate India’s operational readiness to meet any eventuality and also establishes the reliability of this deterrent component of India’s strategic arsenal, the official said.
Prithvi is capable of carrying 500 kg to 1,000 kg of warheads and is thrusted by liquid propulsion twin engines. It uses advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory.
The last user trial of Prithvi-II missile was successfully carried out from the same base on October 7.
Mars orbiter is now the farthest Indian space object
The Current Account Deficit (CAD) of the country has narrowed down sharply to $5.2 billion, or 1.2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), for the second quarter — July to September — in the current financial year.
This was much lower than 5 per cent of the GDP ($21 billion) recorded in the corresponding period of the last financial year and 4.9 per cent of the GDP in the first quarter of the current fiscal.
“The lower CAD was primarily on account of a decline in the trade deficit as merchandise exports picked up and imports moderated, particularly gold imports,” said the Reserve Bank of India on Monday.
On a Balance of Payments (BoP) basis, merchandise exports increased by 11.9 per cent to $81.2 billion in the second quarter of 2013-14 “on the back of significant growth, especially in the exports of textile and textile products, leather and leather products and chemicals,” the RBI added.
On the other hand, merchandise imports, at $114.5 billion, recorded a decline of 4.8 per cent in the second quarter of the current financial year as compared to a decline of 3 per cent in the second quarter of 2012-13. This was “primarily led by a steep decline in gold imports, which amounted to $3.9 billion, as compared to $16.4 billion in the first quarter of 2013-14 and $11.1 billion in the second quarter of 2012-13.”
'It will remain within limit': Business Page
Despite strains, India, Sri Lanka deepen naval ties
India and Sri Lanka have agreed to a slew of naval cooperation measures to target pirates and terrorist groups operating in the Indian ocean, highly-placed government sources have told The Hindu . The measures were discussed at an unpublicised meeting between Sri Lanka’s permanent Defence Secretary, Lieutenant-Colonel Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and India’s National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon on Thursday.
The meeting, as well as separate dialogues with Indian naval commanders, took place amidst tensions in diplomatic relations between the countries. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had stayed away from a recent Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Colombo, amidst criticism of Sri Lanka’s human rights record.
A Ministry of External Affairs official confirmed that Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakse made what it called a “courtesy call” on External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, but said he had no comment to offer on military meetings. A spokesperson for the Indian Navy also confirmed that meetings between the Defence Secretary and the naval commanders took place on Thursday and Friday, but said he could not share details. Mr. Menon’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Indian government sources, however, said Thursday’s meetings were focussed on pushing ahead military-to-military cooperation to secure both countries’ common security interests. Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa also discussed the wider strategic environment, including the possible impact of political tensions on India-Sri Lanka relationship.
The two countries, along with the Maldives, had signed a security cooperation agreement in July this year, designed to make operations by the three navies seamless.
India’s military-to-military relationship with Sri Lanka has grown despite political tensions. The Sri Lankan navy has ordered two modern offshore patrol vessels from the public-sector Goa Shipyards. It already operates the 101-metre offshore patrol vessel Sayura, sold by India in 2000.
The training has continued despite protests from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who on Sunday expressed dismay over the Indian Navy’s offer of further training cooperation to Sri Lanka.
On eve of GoM meet, Minister says Bill on Telangana is ready
As the Union government on Monday continued wide consultations on fine-tuning the contours of Telangana, a senior Union Minister said the Bill to create a new State out of Andhra Pradesh was ready and would be cleared by the Group of Ministers (GoM), which will meet on Tuesday evening.
However, the Minister, who did not wish to be named, said “no comments,” when asked about the Rayala-Telangana issue.
Highly placed government sources said “very wide consultations” were held to work out the finer details of how to go about the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. The Minister did not comment whether Kurnool and Anantapur, the two districts of Rayalaseema, would be added to the 10 districts that form Telangana to constitute a Rayala-Telangana State.
“You will have to wait for the recommendations of the GoM, which will submit its report to the Union Cabinet,” the sources said.
On the eve of the meeting, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh held marathon consultations with Secretaries who assisted the GoM. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde attended a meeting that went into the finer details.
The GoM will send the final report to the Union Cabinet for consideration and approval of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill. Once it is approved, the Bill will be forwarded to President Pranab Mukherjee. He, in turn, will refer it to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly. However, the Assembly’s approval is not mandatory for the Centre to introduce the Bill in Parliament.
The senior Union Minister told The Hindu that the proposal for inclusion of two districts from Rayalaseema in the proposed Telangana was not without issues. “Had the proposal been cleared by the Congress Working Committee in its July 30 resolution in favour of the creation of Telangana, we could have pushed through the idea without difficulty; bringing it up at this stage could lead to complications. We are not sure if the proposal would have the approval of the BJP, because without its support we cannot get the Constitution Amendment Bill through both Houses of Parliament.”
Speaking on informal terms, a senior BJP leader indicated that any major deviation in the creation of Telangana would entail a rethink by the party. As things stand now, the BJP is committed to creation of Telangana, without Anantpur and Kurnool districts.
According to another Union Minister, sections of Seemandhra are not averse to inclusion of the two districts in the proposed State as it would automatically disqualify Kurnool as a possible capital of Seemandhra. “If the Centre decides to include two more districts of Rayalaseema in the proposed State of Telangana, the fate of the Bill is likely to be decided only in Parliament. The BJP might insist on moving a resolution, excluding the two districts, and as a bargaining point the government could accept it.”
The issue of Hyderabad remains contentious, as Seemandhra leaders are demanding protection for the lives and property of their people settled in Hyderabad after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
Meanwhile, the government has said it will try to bring the Bill in the winter session of Parliament, which will be held from December 5 to 20.
Nuclear deal with Japan on the anvil
Japan has said the main purpose of Emperor Akihito’s ongoing visit to India was to add ballast to the bilateral relationship.
One of the elements that would add greater depth to the ties would be a civil nuclear agreement. “We are close to a bilateral deal on the peaceful use of nuclear energy,’’ said senior Japanese diplomats accompanying the Emperor, who is on a six-day visit to India.
India and Japan share the goal of total elimination of nuclear weapons and Parliaments of both countries pay tributes to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But a section of Japanese opinion, including senior Ministers, wants India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India has been averse to this idea and wants to sign a civil nuclear deal with Japan on the basis of its existing strong anti-proliferation credentials.
“We are touched by the gesture of your Parliament paying tribute every year to Japanese victims of the nuclear bomb. Japanese people have strong feelings about nuclear weapons, but this aspect is not known to our people,’’ conceded an official.
Relations with Beijing, facing difficult times recently, remained very important and the Emperor’s visit should not be interpreted as an attempt to check China, said the diplomats. They quoted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as cautioning against ties with China being arrested due to a single territorial issue.
On the first full day of official engagements, the Emperor laid flowers at Rajghat followed by a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Scheduled for 45 minutes, the meeting went beyond the scheduled time.
Dr. Singh preferred to focus on the economic aspects of the relationship, beginning with the Suzuki days that eventually helped the Indian automobile industry become globally competitive. The partnership is now manifest in Delhi Metro and will grow further due to Japanese involvement in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and the Delhi Mumbai Freight Corridor.
In the afternoon, the Emperor visited Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for East Asian Studies.
China hopes for ‘conducive’ India-Japan ties
China on Monday said it hoped India’s relations with Japan would be “conducive” to regional peace and stability, against the backdrop of rising tensions between Beijing and Tokyo and a high-profile visit by Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko to India.
The ongoing week-long and rare visit to India by the Japanese royal couple has underlined the deepening ties between the two countries. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office in December 2012, has made clear his intention to not only boost economic ties and investment, but also expand the strategic relationship. Mr. Abe is expected to visit India next month.
Air defence zone
The Abe government’s keenness to push ties with India comes amid renewed tensions with China over the disputed Senkaku or Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. In recent days, China’s move to set up an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) that includes the disputed islands has further strained ties.
Asked how China viewed the ongoing visit by Emperor Akihito and recently warming India-Japan ties, the Chinese Foreign Ministry here said it hoped the relationship would be favourable to regional stability.
“We hope that development of bilateral relations by the relevant countries will be conducive to regional peace, stability and development,” spokesperson Hong Lei told reporters at a regular press briefing.
India has, so far, not commented on the rising tensions between China and Japan. China, on Monday, continued to strongly defend its move, announced last week, to set up an ADIZ, pointing out that several countries, such as the United States and Japan, had established such areas beyond their territorial airspace to track aircraft.
ADIZ areas are not territorial claims, but defined zones in international airspace within which countries monitor aircraft heading towards their territorial airspace, which extends 12 nautical miles from coastlines.
Mr. Hong said the “Japanese ADIZ, established in the 1960s [in 1969] illegally included the Diaoyu islands, and China is firmly opposed to it”.
He said China was willing to “increase dialogue and communication to safeguard flights in overlapping areas” of the two countries’ defence zones, but hit out at Japan for refusing dialogue, “creating frictions” and “undermining” regional stability.
Japan has, on the other hand, warned that China’s unilateral move to set up an ADIZ over disputed areas could trigger “unexpected incidents.”
China’s ADIZ announcement has caused concern among several countries in the region, including Japan and South Korea, as the air defence zone stretches over strategically important areas in the East China Sea. Both countries, as well as the U.S., have made it clear that their air patrols will not follow Chinese demands of filing flight plans in advance.
On Monday, Taiwan said its military jets had made around 30 flights into the Chinese ADIZ, indicating that it would also not comply with the rules.
South Korean media reports said the government now plans to widen its air defence zone to include the Leodo reef, which is under South Korea’s control but falls within both the Japanese and newly set up Chinese air defence zones.
Plan to give Juvenile Justice Boards more powers to try children draws flak
‘It will amount to violating children’s right to life, liberty and equality’
The Ministry of Women and Child Development’s plan to empower the Juvenile Justice Boards to try under the Indian Penal Code children involved in heinous crimes, such as murder and rape, has come under criticism.
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has said it was not taken into confidence before the plan was drafted. Child rights organisations have said the plan will amount to violating the right to life, liberty and equality of children.
At present, the Juvenile Justice Boards, which try children in conflict with law, can prescribe a maximum punishment of up to three years. But the draft of the proposal says children aged above 16 can be tried under the IPC if they are involved in heinous crimes. This can only be done by amending the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000.
“The proposal is expected to be finalised shortly,” a senior official in the Ministry of Women and Child Development told The Hindu .
Delhi gang rape case
The proposal is significant, given that the juvenile involved in the December 16 gang rape in New Delhi got away with a light punishment, even after the victim declared him the most gruesome among all perpetrators. According to the plan, the Juvenile Justice Boards will not hand down death and life sentences; nor will the age of the juvenile be reduced to 16 years as was planned earlier. The Juvenile Justice Boards will decide on what falls under the category of heinous crimes — the gravity of the crime or repeated offences. This has been done in keeping with India’s commitment to the United Nations Convention on Child Rights (UNCRC), which defines a child as anyone aged less than 18 years.
Dismissing criticism that the proposal is unlikely to receive Cabinet clearance since India is a signatory to the Convention, officials in the Ministry said this was factored in since there was no move to lower the age of juveniles. In July, the Supreme Court rejected petitions for lowering the age of juvenility from the existing 18 years.
However, in a letter to Minister for Women and Child Welfare Minister Krishna Tirath, NCPCR chairperson Kushal Singh said there could not be any “compromise” on the age of a child as defined by the U.N. The NCPCR had neither been informed nor consulted on the issue. “The NCPCR’s stand has all along been that there can be no compromise on the age of a child as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which India has ratified.”
The letters says the Commission had clarified the grounds on which it opposed the lowering of the age for juveniles in its submission to the Justice Verma Committee. The Verma Committee was constituted to recommend amendments to the criminal law so as to provide for quicker trial and enhanced punishment for those accused of sexual assault against women.
Call for debate
“The Indian laws relating to children have evolved over several years and are the product of an extensive research and understanding of the issue, and therefore it is essential that any review of the child rights jurisprudence should take place only after an exhaustive deliberation on the pros and cons of the subject,” the letter said.
‘It will amount to violating children’s right
to life, liberty and equality’
At present, Juvenile Justice Boards can prescribe a maximum punishment of up to 3 years
Indian scientists identify genes behind oral cancer
A team of Indian scientists has identified new genes and new biological pathways that are specific to driving oral cancer associated predominantly with smokeless tobacco consumption in India. Further detailed study on these discoveries may lead to finding better therapies for oral cancer, the researchers point out. The findings have been published on Monday in the journal Nature Communications .
The Indian group is part of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), an initiative started in 2009, to understand the genomic basis of 50 different types of cancer with clinical and societal importance around the globe.
The Indian component is being conducted collaboratively by the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG), Kalyani, West Bengal, and the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), Mumbai. This is the first set of results to come out of the India Project, which has been noted as an important contribution to cancer genomics.
Oral cancer is the eighth most common cancer worldwide and is the leading cancer among males in India. Unlike in the West, where 65 per cent of oral cancers are tongue cancer, in India, oral cancer predominantly (60 per cent) is of the lining of the mouth, lower gum and other mucosal regions of the oral cavity, termed the Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the gingivo-buccal region (OSCC-GB). Tobacco chewing is a major cause of OSCC-GB, which accounts for over half of the oral cancers in India.
Cancer is known to be associated with changes in the DNA contained in the cells of the tumour tissues. However, these genetic changes — triggered by lifestyle or other environmental factors such as exposure to tobacco, chemicals and radiation — occur only in non-reproductive cells and are called somatic alterations. But, as Dr. Partha Majumder of the NIBMG, who led the research, explains, most somatic alterations do not cause the abnormal growth, which results in cancer. Gene alterations that do provide this growth advantage to cancerous cells over normal cells are called driver mutations. Though past studies have identified several genes associated with oral cancer, these have not been systematically catalogued. More pertinently, as the paper says, “Oral cavity comprises sub-sites with distinct biological features. It is therefore likely that genes driving cancers in these sub-sites may be different.”
The study included 110 subjects suffering from OSCC-GB, about half of who were between the age of 40 and 50, and nearly all were tobacco users. Eighty-eight per cent of the patients were male and 94 per cent were in advanced stages of cancer. Fifty patients, who had not undergone any treatment, were identified for investigation into the genetics of OSCC-GB and the data on the remaining 60 were used to test the validity of the discoveries.
Using the technique of massively-parallel DNA sequencing, blood and tumour DNA of each patient were screened for all genes — about 20,000 — in the human genome. On an average, 85 somatic alterations were found on each patient. But, as mentioned above, only some of these are potential drivers.
The study found 10 significantly mutated genes that were associated with OSCC-GB. These are TP53, FAT1, CASP8, NOTCH1, HRAS, USP9X, MLL4, UNC13C, ARID2 and TRPM3. Of these, the first five have been implicated earlier in the cancer called, the Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC), of which OSCC-GB is a subtype. The remaining five are new, which seem to be specific to OSCC-GB. These new genes were found to be altered in 10-22 per cent of the patients.
Any alteration in a ‘tumour suppressor gene’ means that it cannot perform its normal function of tumour suppression, which can lead to cancer. Sixty-two per cent of patients exhibited mutations in TP53, a very important tumour suppresser gene. In fact, four of the five genes identified earlier are tumour suppresser genes, according to Dr. Majumder.
While MLL4 acts in concert with TP53, and increases its expression, both MLL4 and ARID2 are involved in regulating key biological processes in the cell, such as programmed cell death, inefficiency of which can cause cancer. The authors note that TRPM3 may also be indirectly involved in tumour suppression. “Overall,” says the paper, “tumour suppresser genes, compared with oncogenes [cancer causing genes], are predominantly involved in oral cancer; this fact may have therapeutic implications.”
The remaining two new genes — UNC13C and TRPM3 — are involved in biochemical pathways associated with neurotransmitter release and, according to the authors, alterations in these could be related to predisposition to tobacco addiction, which enhances the risk of oral cancer.
“The characterisation of a large sample of the OSCC-GB subtype provides a unique contribution to the literature on characterisation of HNSCCs,” Dr. Carolyn Hutter of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), USA, observed in an e-mail message.
Overall, tumour suppressor genes are predominantly involved in oral cancer, says paper
Study finds 10 significantly mutated genes associated with OSCC-GB
