Artists to thank MPs for Copyright Act Eminent musicians, writers and composers will come together to present a concert as a “thanksgiving” (‘shukrana’) to parliamentarians for passing the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2012. The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on the last day of the budget session. The artistes include Lata Mangeshkar, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, A.R. Rahman, Sonu Nigam and Sunidhi Chauhan. Shabana Azmi will conduct. This Bill amends the Copyright Act, 1957 and seeks to make the provisions of the law in conformity with relevant international treaties. It expands the definition of “copyright” and introduces a system of statutory licensing to protect the owners of literary or musical works. Song writers, artistes and performers can claim royalty for their works, as amendments to the Copyright Act entitles artistes to lifelong royalty. Sonia is sixth in Forbes list of 100 most powerful women The Forbes magazine ranked United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi the sixth most powerful woman in the world, in its list of 100 women. German Chancellor Angela Merkel tops the list for the second year in a row; Ms. Gandhi is placed ahead of the U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama.Ms. Gandhi (65) is among the five Indian women, who have been named in the ‘World’s 100 Most Powerful Women’ list released by the magazine on Wednesday. She was ranked 7th last year. Giving Ms. Gandhi company is Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi, who was ranked 12th, followed by Cisco Systems Chief Technology and Strategy Officer Padmasree Warrior at 58th, ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Chanda Kochhar at 59th and Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw at 80th rank. Tamil Nadu student wins U.K. MBA scholarship Sruthi Vijayachandran, a postgraduate student from Tamil Nadu, has been awarded a scholarship to study MBA at the London School of Business Finance after being awarded the First Prize in the final of the Best Young Speaker from Asia competition held at Robinson College, University of Cambridge. Ms. Vijayachandran, was among nine young English language students from across Asia flown to Britain to take part in the competition that involved giving two presentations with a business theme and answering a series of questions put to them by an expert panel. She also recently passed Cambridge English: Business Vantage (BEC) – a high level business English qualification developed by Cambridge ESOL. Engine factory clocks 25 years The Indian Army’s battle tanks the Ajeya, Bhishma and Sarath may differ in their speed, agility and firepower, but they share a common umbilical cord. The engines that power these armoured vehicle variants hail from the Engine Factory, Avadi (EFA) that celebrates its silver jubilee. Uniquely placed as the sole supplier of diesel engines for various battle tank versions in the Indian Army, the EFA is now embarking on a major plan to double its installed capacity and scale up its technical workforce in tune with the expanding needs of the country’s defence establishment. The three main variants of diesel engines are the V 46-6 for use in the Ajeya (T-72), V92S2 that powers Bhishma tanks and the UTD-20 for Sarath infantry combat-cum-armoured personnel carrier. The engine variants also have multi-fuel options. Manmohan to watch ISRO’s 100th mission Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in-charge of Space and Atomic Energy, will be at Sriharikota on September 9 to watch the launch of a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C21) that will put French remote- sensing satellite SPOT-6 and Japanese micro-satellite PROITERES in orbit. The launch will be the 100th mission of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). According to ISRO, if a satellite built by it is put in orbit by another country’s launch vehicle, it is counted as one mission. If India’s or other countries’ satellites are put in orbit by an ISRO-built rocket such as SLV-3 or PSLV from Sriharikota, it is counted as two missions. The four stages of the PSLV have been assembled in the first launch pad on the seafront of the spindle-shaped island. The launch vehicle, weighing 230 tonnes and 44 metres tall, will be a core-alone version without strap-on booster motors. SPOT-6, weighing about 716 kg, is built by Astrium SAS, a subsidiary of EADS, France. PROITERES that weighs 16-kg “is basically a technology demonstrator for earth observation” and has a high-resolution camera. A team of students and faculty of the Osaka Institute of Technology (OIT) developed PROITERES, which stands for Project of OIT Electric Rocket Engine Onboard Small Space Ship. India’s space journey began when satellite Aryabhatta lifted off from the Volgograd launch station at Kapustin-Yar (now in Russia) on April 19, 1975. ISRO’s first indigenous mission took place on August 10, 1979, when it tried to put satellite Rohini in orbit with the help of a SLV-3. But the satellite could not be placed in orbit. However, the launch was a success when attempted on July 18, 1980. Page 1 of 4 23rd August 2012 Fresh water on ocean surface raises cyclone intensity: study A new study by a team of scientists in the United States has revealed that tropical cyclones become intense when they pass over freshwater plumes on the ocean surface. The study was published in the ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ in USA. Dr. Karthik Balaguru , who hails from Andhra Pradesh and completed his B. Tech and M. Tech from IIT, Madras, explaining the implications of the study, said the heat energy supplied by oceans was the fuel for cyclones. Oceans receive heat from the sun. The warmer the ocean surface temperature, the greater would the chance of the cyclone to get intense. “Cyclones intensify when ocean supplies heat”. When tropical cyclone passes over an ocean, its winds travelling at high speed get mixed up with the surface water and in the process the cold sea water would move up to the surface. This would affect the intensity of the cyclones which gather their energy from the ocean surface temperature. But in certain regions lot of freshwater is ‘dumped” on the ocean surface. This freshwater would stay at the top of ocean as it would be lighter than the salty sea water. Because of this layer, when the cyclones pass over the ocean the strong winds do not mix as much as during the absence of freshwater. As a result, more heat would be ‘pumped” into cyclone leading to its intensification. Such freshwater plumes could be found in large river systems as Ganga-Brahmaputra-Irawati in the Indian Ocean and Amazon-Orinoco in Atlantic Ocean. Dr. Karthik said the intensity of cyclone could be predicted by knowing the distribution of freshwater plumes on ocean surface, depending on the path it would traverse. SIDBI allowed to access ECB window for on-lending to MSME sector As part of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s mission mode exercise to boost investment in various sectors of the economy to revert to the high growth track, the government has decided to permit Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) as an eligible borrower for external commercial borrowings (ECB) for on- lending to the MSME (micro small and medium enterprise) sector. According to a Finance Ministry statement here, the decision taken by the High-Level Committee on External Commercial Borrowings (HLCECB) to include the SIDBI in the list of eligible borrowers will be subject to certain conditions to be finalised in consultation with the Reserve bank of India. In the housing sector, while the utilisation of the ECBs is already permitted for low-cost housing projects, it has now been decided that entities such as the National Housing Bank (NHB) and HFCs (housing finance companies) will be included as eligible borrowers for financing such low-cost housing projects. Annasree cash transfer scheme to be integrated with Aadhaar scheme The Delhi Government is working towards integrating the Annasree scheme of providing cash transfer of Rs.600 per month to nearly two lakh poor families for purchase of foodgrains by linking it to the UIDAI Aadhaar scheme to exclude bogus ration card holders. Delhi Food & Supplies Minister Haroon Yusuf said that the Annasree scheme, which will be launched in November, will cover people not holding Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) cards. The UIDAI is the most authentic identification and it will help in weeding out bogus card holders. CBI files charge-sheet in Queen’s Baton Relay case The award of contracts pertaining to the Queen’s Baton Relay held in London prior to the Commonwealth Games 2010 to two London-based companies at exorbitant rates resulted in a loss of £1.19 lakh to the Exchequer, the Central Bureau of Intelligence has alleged in charge-sheets filed against three former senior CWG Organising Committee (OC) functionaries, the firms and their director. Those charge-sheeted in the two cases are former OC Joint Director-General T.S. Darbari, former Deputy Director-General Sanjay Mohindroo and Joint Director-General (Finance and Account) M. Jayachandran, besides London-based Ashish Patel and two companies AM Car and Van Hire Limited and AM Films, of which he was the director. Sweden unlikely to extradite Assange to US: Australia WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was unlikely to be extradited from Sweden to the United States if there was a risk of the death penalty or a military court. British authorities won their case to extradite Assange to Sweden to face sex assault allegations, but because he sought asylum in Ecuador’s Embassy in London they have so far been unable to send him there.