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SEP 11

Government is serious to ensure that IAS officers’ genuine initiative is not deterred:
Dr Jitendra Singh

IAS officers' delegation calls on the Minister

The Union Minister of State (I/C) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER),
MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr.
Jitendra Singh has said that Government is serious to ensure that IAS officers’ genuine
initiative is not deterred on any account. He was addressing, here today, a delegation of
Central IAS Officers’ Association, led by its Honorary Secretary, Shri Sanjay
Bhoosreddy, who called on him and urged him to ensure that honest and sincere
officers are protected for taking ‘bona-fide’ decisions in public interest and that they do
not feel deterred or shy in their initiative to take administrative decisions.

The delegation has suggested to revisit the laws including the Prevention of Corruption
Act, 1988 and the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, and sought protection for both the
working as well as retired officers. They also sought appropriate legal assistance for
fighting court cases.

While assuring the officers that government is seriously keen to make sure that IAS
Officers’ initiative is not deterred on any count, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Prevention
of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013 pending in Parliament also takes care of many of
these aspects. He said, for example, the provision to prosecute an officer, which was
earlier available only at the level of Joint Secretary and above, is now sought to be made
applicable in case of officers at every level.

In case of IAS officers working in the States, Dr Jitendra Singh disclosed that recently
the government has revised the guidelines according to which, in case of any IAS officer
being placed under suspension by a State Government, the Department of Personnel &
Training (DoPT), Government of India will have to be intimated within 24 hours.
Likewise, the charges framed against the officer will also have to be intimated to DoPT
within a period of 45 days, he added.

The delegation also handed over a memorandum to Dr Jitendra Singh which sought to
highlight some of the issues relating to officers who come on Central deputation
resulting in difference in their pay scale, sometimes resulting in heavy financial loss. As
a consequence to this, the memorandum sought to point out that many officers in the
rank of Joint Secretary are sometimes reluctant to come on Central Deputation because
of issues related to their pay scale.
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BRICS Wellness Workshop and AROGYA fair inaugurated

Union Minister of State for Ayush (Independent Charge) Shri Shripad Yesso Naik and
Union minister for Fertilisers and Chemicals and Parliamentary Affairs Shri Ananth
Kumar inaugurated the National Fair on comprehensive Indian Medicine system
(AROGYA) in Bengaluru on Saturday.

Addressing the gathering, Shri Naik said that the fair has been organised to project the
strength of Indian System of Medicines and Homeopathy alongside BRICS Wellness
Workshop. He said, he is happy to see that the representatives from BRICS countries are
participating for the first time in Arogya exhibition for display of their traditional
medicines and healthcare products. All this has happened because of awareness
building about the holistic principles of AYUSH for healthy living and its inherent
preventive strengths.

Shri Ananth Kumar also lauded the efforts of AYUSH Ministry in organising the fair.
He said, AYUSH system was there much before the modern day system of medicines.
There is nothing wrong in going to basics, he added.

The two days BRICS Wellness Workshop and AROGYA fair is being organized by the
Ministry of AYUSH, in collaboration with Research and Information System for
Developing Countries (RIS). Secretary level Officers and Traditional Medicine/wellness
experts from the BRICS countries are participating in the BRICS Wellness Workshop.

The Workshop is designed to have sessions related to Traditional Systems of Medicine,

Trade and Economy, Wellness and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Wellness
indicators for BRICS and Wellness and Tourism among others. It also includes a session
on WHO strategy for Traditional Medicine.

The Arogya fair provides a good exposure for manufacturers/importers of Traditional

Medicines/Raw Materials of the BRICS Countries to have firsthand experience of
Indian Traditional Medicinal products/manufacturing facilities. At the same time they
got a good opportunity to showcase their products and services.

The Ministry of AYUSH was formed on 9th November 2014 to ensure the optimal
development and propagation of AYUSH systems of health care. Earlier it was known
as the Department of Indian System of Medicine and Homeopathy (ISM&H) which was
created in March 1995 and renamed as Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and
Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) in November 2003, with
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focused attention for development of Education and Research in Ayurveda, Yoga and
Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy.

 US, Japan scramble for 'strongest' sanctions against NKorea

Tokyo, Sep 11 (AFP) Washington and Tokyo are seeking "the strongest possible"
measure to be taken against North Korea after its latest and most powerful nuclear test,
a top US envoy said today.

Sung Kim, the US State Department's special representative for North Korea policy, also
suggested that the US may launch its own sanctions in response to "the provocative and
unacceptable behaviour by the North Koreans."

"We will be working together very closely in the Security Council and beyond to come
up the strongest possible measure against North Korea's latest action," Kim told
reporters in Tokyo after meeting his Japanese counterpart Kenji Kanasugi.

"In addition to sanctions in the Security Council, both the US and Japan, together with
the ROK (South Korea), we will be looking at unilateral measures," Kim said, without
going into further detail.

North Korea has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since it first tested a nuclear
device in 2006, but has insisted it will continue, come what may.

The North carried out its fifth nuclear test on Friday, claiming that it had successfully
tested a nuclear warhead, and drawing global condemnation.

The international community has engaged in a flurry of diplomacy in an attempt to

persuade China to use its leverage to persuade Pyongyang to comply with UN sanction
resolutions.

China has said it "firmly opposes" the test, but analysts believe Beijing wants to avoid a
collapse of North Korea in order to prevent the balance of power on the Korean
peninsula from leaning towards the US.

Washington's "dialogue" with Beijing over the crisis will continue, Kim said.

"We continue to work together to urge China to implement existing Security Council
resolutions...and to work with us to make sure North Korea's behaviour and their
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deliberation change in a more productive and positive direction," Kim said.

"North Korea continues to present growing threats to the region, to our allies and to
ourselves. We will do everything possible to defend against that growing threat," he
said.

North Korea conducted four nuclear weapons tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, and 2016
claiming that the January 2016 test was a thermonuclear device; however, experts
remain skeptical.

Twin delight as Indians strike gold, bronze at Paralympics

Tamil Nadu’s Mariappan, Noida lad Varun scale new heights
For a country that missed the gold at the just-concluded Rio Olympics, it was
celebration time as two of its athletes — Thangavelu Mariappan (21) of Tamil Nadu and
Varun Singh Bhati of Noida — scripted history on Friday night winning the gold and
bronze medals respectively in the men’s high jump T-42 event at the Paralympics in Rio
de Janeiro.

While Mariappan jumped 1.89 metres, Bhati registered a personal best of 1.86 metres.

Piped irrigation system on pilot basis

The government is planning to introduce piped irrigation system on pilot basis in one of
the packages of Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project to study the impact of water
conservation compared to the conventional canal irrigation method.

NOTE: PRESSURE PIPED IRRIGATION SYSTEMS

A pressure piped irrigation system is a network installation consisting of pipes, fittings

and other devices properly designed and installed to supply water under pressure from
the source of the water to the irrigable area.

The basic differences between traditional surface irrigation and piped irrigation
techniques are:

• The water flow regime: With traditional surface methods the size of the stream should
be large, while in pressure piped irrigation systems very small flows, even 1 m3 /h, can
be utilized.

• The route direction of the flow: With traditional surface methods the irrigation water
is conveyed from the source and distributed to the field through open canals and
ditches by gravity following the field contours. The piped system conveys and
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distributes the irrigation water in closed pipes by pressure following the most
convenient (shortest) route, regardless of the slope and topography of the area.

• The area irrigated simultaneously: With traditional surface methods the water is
applied in large volumes per unit of area, while piped irrigation systems distribute the
water at small rates over a very large area.

• The external energy (pressure) required: Traditional surface gravity methods do not
need external energy for operation, while piped irrigation systems require a certain
pressure, 2–3 bars, which is provided from a pumping unit or from a supply tank
situated at a high point.

Tribal girl from MP all set to join Oxford school to study English
A 16-year-old tribal girl Asha Gond will soon be travelling to the UK to study English
Language in an Oxford school.

After the homeschooled Mumbai girl Malvika Joshi made it to the

prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a 16-year-old tribal girl, Asha
Gond, form Janwaar (Madhya Pradesh) will soon be travelling to the UK to study
English Language in an Oxford school.

The Hindustan Times on Sunday reported that Asha will be travelling to UK as soon as
her passport formalities are over. According to the report, Asha was introduced to the
language recently but she learned it very quickly and developed a predilection for the
same. She is able to pursue her dream with encouragement and support from a German
woman Ulrike Reinhard, who teaches skating and English language to school children
in Janwaar.

When Ulrike saw Asha’s brilliant performance in the language in 10th standard, she
promised Asha an education in UK. However, the path was not easy.
HT reported that it took Ulrike nearly eight months to convince Asha’s parents. Ulrike
said that the villagers wanted to marry her off as soon as she turned 18. She also took
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the help of Lokendra Pratap Singh, MLA of Panna constituency, and Asha’s school
teacher Awadh Bihari to help convince the parents.
Asha herself, HT reports, never backed down and kept trying to persuade her parents.
According to Ulrike, Asha’s parents had promised not to marry her off when she comes
back. Instead, she will be doing a job besides teaching students in Janwaar.
Trio of high-energy telescopes spots slowest known magnetar

Astronomers have found evidence of a magnetar — magnetised neutron star — that

spins much slower than the slowest of its kind known until now, which spin around
once every 10 seconds.

The magnetar 1E 1613 — at the centre of RCW 103, the remains of a supernova
explosion located about 9,000 light years from Earth — rotates once every 24,000
seconds (6.67 hours), the researchers found.

“The source exhibits properties of a highly magnetised neutron star, or magnetar, yet its
deduced spin period is thousands of times longer than any pulsar ever observed,”
NASA said in a statement.

On June 22, 2016, an instrument aboard NASA’s Swift telescope captured the release of
a short burst of X-rays from 1E 1613.

The Swift detection caught astronomers’ attention because the source exhibited intense,
extremely rapid fluctuations on a time scale of milliseconds, similar to other known
magnetars.

These exotic objects possess the most powerful magnetic fields in the universe —
trillions of times that observed on the Sun — and can erupt with enormous amounts of
energy.

Seeking to investigate further, a team of astronomers led by Nanda Rea of the

University of Amsterdam quickly asked two other orbiting telescopes — NASA’s
Chandra X-ray Observatory and Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR —
to follow up with observations.

New data from this trio of high-energy telescopes, and archival data from Chandra,
Swift and European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton confirmed that 1E 1613 has the
properties of a magnetar, making it only the 30{+t}{+h}known, said a paper published
online in the The Astrophysical Journal Letters .
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These properties include the relative amounts of X-rays produced at different energies
and the way the neutron star cooled after the 2016 burst and another burst seen in 1999.

The source is rotating once every 6.67 hours, much slower than the slowest magnetars
known until now, which spin around once every 10 seconds.

This would make it the slowest spinning neutron star ever detected, the researchers
found. Astronomers expect that a single neutron star will spin quickly after its birth in
the supernova explosion and will then slow down over time as it loses energy.

China has world’s longest bullet train network

China’s high-speed railway has completed over 20,000 kms of track network in the
country, becoming the world’s longest bullet train network.

A high-speed railway linking Zhengzhou in China’s central Henan Province with

Xuzhou in eastern Jiangsu Province opened on Saturday. With the operation of the new
line, China’s high-speed railway lines have exceeded 20,000 kms in total length, the
world’s longest.

The 360-km line connects high-speed railway in the west with two major north-south
lines, helping cut travel time between the west and east. The travel time between Xi’an
and Shanghai is cut to six hours from nearly 11 hours. The line has nine stations and
trains run at a speed of up to 300 kph in the initial period.

Construction of the line started in December 2012 and test operation started in April
2016

Families remember 9/11 victims 15 years after attacks

Americans remembered the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on Sunday at a
ceremony marking 15 years, with the recital of their names, tolling church bells and a
tribute in lights at the site where New York City's massive twin towers collapsed.

As classical music drifted across the 9/11 Memorial plaza in lower Manhattan, family
members and first responders slowly read the names and delivered personal memories
of the almost 3,000 victims killed in the worst attack on U.S. soil since the 1941 bombing
of Pearl Harbor.

Relatives in the crowd embraced and some held photos of loved ones and signs that
read: "Never to be forgotten," "We miss you," and "Gone too soon."
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Tom Acquarviva's 29-year-old son Paul was one of 658 employees of financial services
firm Cantor Fitzgerald who perished after the first plane struck the north tower just
below where they worked on the 101st to 105th floors.

"Not a day goes by that we don't remember him," Acquarviva told Reuters.

Angela Checo honored her brother, Pedro Francisco, 35, who was a vice president at
investment and wealth manager Fiduciary Trust on the 96th floor of the south tower.

"He was coming down but forgot someone and went back upstairs to save them," Checo
said. "That's why he never made it down."

The ceremony paused for six moments of silence: four to mark the exact times four
hijacked planes were crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon near
Washington D.C., and a Pennsylvania field. The last two record when the North and
South towers of the Trade Center crumpled.

It was held by two reflecting pools with waterfalls that now stand in the towers' former
footprints, and watched over by an honor guard of police and firefighters.

More than 340 firefighters and 60 police were killed on the that sunny Tuesday morning
in 2001. Many of the first responders died while running up stairs in the hope of
reaching victims trapped on the towers' higher floors.
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War games show off Kremlin’s iron grip on Crimea

More than 100 jets and helicopters, approximately 12,000 troops and an advanced Kalibr cruise
missile join military drills in the Black Sea

Show of strength:Russian ships and helicopters take partin military drills on the Black
Sea coast on Friday.— Photo: AP

Large landing ships approached the shores of Crimea on Friday, simulating an invasion
of the peninsula that was annexed by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014. Tanks and
armoured vehicles lumbered out of the ships, only to be met by the superior forces of
the defenders, equipped with heavy artillery.

“Comrades, generals, admirals, officers,” said an announcer, who explained every

aspect of the elaborate war games intended to show Russia’s iron grip over Crimea. “A
self-sufficient group of forces has been created, capable of rebuffing aggression and
intrusion into the territory of the Crimean peninsula in a timely and successful fashion.”

More than 100 jets and helicopters, approximately 12,000 troops and an advanced
Kalibr cruise missile, all of which were involved in the exercises, left little doubt about
the strength of the forces.

Boosting defence

Such drills are held every year in various parts of Russia and are not intended to
demonstrate force or to provoke Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said, though officials
added that this is the first time such war games have been conducted in Crimea since
the time of the former Soviet Union.

“Nobody should have any doubt that Crimea will be defended,” said Maj. Gen. Igor Y.
Konashenkov, the Defense Ministry’s spokesman, who escorted a crew of foreign
journalists to the event. “We should be ready for any aggression.”
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The exercises in Crimea were part of much larger drills conducted across southern
Russia just weeks after the country’s President, Vladimir Putin, accused Ukraine of
sponsoring terrorism in Crimea’s territory.

Mr. Putin had planned to observe the exercises from the command point, according to
an advance script for the event, but his place was taken by Russia’s Defence Minister,
Sergei K. Shoigu.

U.S., Russia clinch Syria agreement

They will share intelligence and coordinate in fight against IS and al-Qaeda-linked militants

misery continues:A Syrian man carries a victim following an air strike on the rebel-held
northwestern city of Idlib on Saturday.— PHOTO: AFP

The United States and Russia working in lockstep against the Islamic State group and
al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. A rejuvenated truce that will compel President Bashar al-
Assad’s air and ground forces to pull back. New flows of badly needed humanitarian
aid.

Those details emerged on Saturday as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov capped another marathon meeting in Geneva to
present their latest ambitious push to end Syria’s devastating and complex war.

Cessation of hostilities

The potential breakthrough deal, which launches a nationwide cessation of hostilities

by sundown Monday, will hinge on compliance by Mr. Assad’s Russian-backed forces
and U.S.-supported rebel groups, plus key regional powers such as Turkey, Iran and
Saudi Arabia with hands directly or indirectly in Syria’s five-and-a-half years of
carnage.
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“We believe the plan as it is set forth if implemented, if followed has the ability to
provide a turning point, a moment of change,” Mr. Kerry said as he and Mr. Lavrov
laid out the contours, but admittedly not too much fine print, of the hard-won accord.

The ultimate hope is to silence the Syrian guns so that the long-stalled peace process
under U.N. mediation can resume between Mr. Assad’s envoys and representatives of
the opposition, while the two world powers focus on battling jihadists.

The U.S. and Russia Now, are also lining up in an unexpected new military partnership
targeting the IS and al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Washington must persuade Syrian rebels to break ranks with Fath al-Sham, an al-
Qaeda-linked group previously known as the Nusra Front. Moscow is to pressure Mr.
Assad’s government to halt all offensive operations against the armed opposition in
specific areas, which were not detailed.

“The Syrian government has been informed of these arrangements and is ready to fulfil
them,” Mr. Lavrov said. Basma Kodmani, a leader of the rebel's High Negotiations
Committee, expressed hope that the deal would aid civilians. Russia should pressure
President Assad’s government to abide by the agreement, she added.

Counter-terror alliance

The military deal would go into effect after both sides abide by the truce for a week and
allow unimpeded humanitarian deliveries. Then, the U.S. and Russia would begin
intelligence sharing and targeting coordination.

The new arrangement goes further by promising a new U.S.-Russian counter-terrorism

alliance, only a year after Mr. Obama chastised Mr. Putin for a military intervention that
U.S. officials said was mainly designed to keep Mr. Assad in power and target more
moderate anti-Assad forces.

Foreign exchange reserves at $367.76 bn

India’s foreign exchange reserves rose to $367.76 billion as on September 2, according

to data released by the RBI