'No nuke deals in India unless liability issue is resolved'

"There will not be nuclear deals in India unless and until the civil nuclear liability issue is resolved. And I am heartened that the Modi administration is beginning to come to terms with reform of liability. That would truly open up that market to US reactor vendors in a big way," Daniel Lipman, executive director of Supplier Programmes at the Nuclear Energy Institute told lawmakers at a Congressional hearing.

  

At the hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on "The Future of International Civilian Nuclear Cooperation," Lipman said India has plans to put out up to 50 nuclear reactors over the coming 30 years.

  

"But there are currently agreements in place and reactor deals that have been consummated with the Russians. At Kudankulam (Tamil Nadu) there are operating reactors of Russian design and there is a new set of units that have just been consummated with the Russians. Plus the French are in there," he said.

  

"We need this civil nuclear liability protection. I'm certain that American companies just will not put their companies at risk," Lipman said.

  

"What's interesting, it's not just American companies that get hurt.  My view is so do Indian companies get hurt. Now, why is that? I think there are many American companies that would like to leverage the fact that there are English-speaking, highly technically trained, very capable engineers and manufacturers in the country of India, but they're not going to partner with them until this liability issue is put behind us," he added.

  

"So to me, India represents phenomenal partnership opportunity for American nuclear companies," Lipman argued at the Congressional hearing chaired by Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

  

The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, which enables operator of nuclear power plants in India to seek partial compensation from suppliers in case of accidents, is hampering projects in the country.

  

Suppliers of nuclear equipment from US, Canada and other countries see the Nuclear Damage Act as a hurdle in selling nuclear reactors to India.

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Rajasthan Assembly pays tribute to Gopinath Munde, others

Speaker Kailash Meghwal made the obituary references on the first day of the budget session and recalled services and contributions of the departed leaders after mild protests by Congress and NPP members who wanted to raise other issues which the Speaker did not allow.

  

The House paid homage to former Rajasthan Assembly Speaker Samarth Lal Meena, former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Dr N Janardan Reddy, former Deputy CM of Maharashtra and Union Minister Gopinath Munde, former Rajya Sabha MP Bhuvnesh Chaturvedi, former members of the assembly Gangaram

Chaudhary, Ruparam Dudi, Jitendra Ninama, Hirala Arya, Laxmikumari Chundawat, Banshi Lal Saraswat, Laduram Sulania, Ramnarayan Verma.

  

Tributes were also paid to the victims of the bus accident in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh.

The members observed two-minute silence after which the House was adjourned for the day.

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Curbs on gold import can go after situation improves: Finance Minister

"Not at the moment (easing curbs on import of gold). If our situation gives me more comfort level, obviously these are flexible polices. They are not engraved in stone that you can't change them," the Finance Minister said in an interview.

  

He, however, said the government has to be careful on current account deficit (CAD) and fiscal deficit.

"On both CAD and fiscal deficit, I think we will have to be cautious and careful," he said.

In order to check rising CAD, the government had raised import duties on the yellow metal to 10 percent while RBI imposed curbs on import of gold and also laid down various pre-conditions for inward shipments of the precious metal.

As a result of combined efforts, imports of gold have been declining. They fell by 72 percent to USD 2.19 billion in May due to restrictions imposed by the government.

India's CAD, which is the excess of foreign exchange outflows over inflows, touched a historic high of 4.7 percent of GDP in 2012-13, mainly due to rising imports of gold and petroleum products.

  

During 2013-14 India's CAD sharply narrowed to 1.7 percent of the GDP or USD 32.4 billion.

For the January-March quarter, CAD stood at USD 1.2 billion or 0.2 percent of GDP, as against USD 18.1 billion, or 3.6 percent of GDP in the same period of the previous fiscal, according to the RBI.

The highest ever CAD reported in 2013-14 had led to a slew of problems, including a heavy drop in the value of rupee, which touched an all-time low of 68.85 against the US dollar last August.

However, it has strengthened since then and is hovering around the Rs 60 mark.

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Family, friends bid farewell to Zohra Sehgal

Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, theatre personality MK Raina and Prasar Bharti CEO Jawahar Sircar were among those who turned up to pay their last respect.

Zohra's body was kept in an open area for some time before being taken for the final rites.

Azmi remembered the actress for her vivacious personality.

"I worked with her for the first time in a play in 2002. She was around 90-year-old at that time. She was always punctual at the rehearsals. She was thorough professional and always had a smile on her face. She always used to crack jokes," Azmi said.

Akhtar said it was not possible to write the history of 21st century theatre without Zohra Sehgal.

"She had contributed a lot to every field where she had worked, be it dance, theatre or cinema. She had a cheerful personality," he added.

Dikshit said she had many inspiring memories of Sehgal.

"It was hard to describe Zohra Sehgal. She was a great artiste and a very cheerful human being. She had a brilliant memory. Our country will always remember her. She never took anything negatively."

Raina said Sehgal's death marked the end of an era in theatre. "She was punctual and highly professional. She was always prepared with her dialogues. Her presence used to make the environment lively," he said.

The veteran star spoke about death at her 102 birthday in April this year, saying she was preparing herself to die with a smile. She had told her family that she wanted a simple funeral.

Sehgal had a great innings as an artiste, performer and actor that spanned more than seven decades. She started her career as a dancer with Uday Shankar in 1935. She had appeared in many Bollywood films as a character actor as well as in English language films besides television series and plays.

Often called the grand old lady of Bollywood, she last appeared in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's ‘Saawariya’ in 2007.

She worked with some of the biggest stars of this era, be it Amitabh Bachchan in ‘Cheeni Kum’, Shah Rukh Khan in ‘Dil Se’ or Salman in ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’.

A Padma Shri awardee, she also received the Padma Vibhshan in 2010.

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'Singham' has become a cult character: Ajay Devgn

"Singham has become a character which can go on and on. Like in Hollywood we had 'Rambo' (character). 'Singham' can combat at the age of 50 or 60. It becomes lovable whoever plays it. It has become a cult character," Ajay said in an interview here.

The actor feels doing action at the age of 45 is not difficult provided proper care is taken.

"It is fine (to do action) at the age of 45. Even after 40 it is ok. I think if you keep yourself fit and fine it is ok. But there are few things that you have to take care of, like the old injuries that we have had. When you do heavy duty action you have to take care of yourself," Ajay said.

Ajay feels there is a difference in the way action scenes are designed today. "Doing action scene in films has definitely changed. It has become safer and easier because of cables. I feel if I can do action directly without using cable, then I do it. You enjoy doing real action. Action was tiring and difficult earlier, today it is easier," he said.

"I keep working out on regular basis. In between I had left workout for a year or so and was eating a lot, so it took some time for me to get in shape. But, there were no special preparations that I did for the film," he said.   

Director Rohit Shetty and Ajay have worked together on several films and share a good rapport. Rohit plans all the action scenes keeping Ajay in mind.

With 'Singham Returns', Ajay says everything is multiplied, from script, to body, to scale of the film; they have done better than the first installment.

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Hostile people more likely to suffer stroke: Study

The research in stroke, a journal of the American Heart Association, also found that depression and high stress increased stroke risk.
  
For the study, more than 6,700 adults aged 45 to 84 answered questionnaires about their state of mind and behaviour.
  
These surveys assessed chronic stress, depressive symptoms, anger and hostility over two years, and low scores indicated a lesser frequency of these feelings.

Subjects reported no heart disease at the beginning of the study.
  
They were followed for between eight and 11 years, during which 147 had strokes and 48 transient ischemic attacks (TIAs), a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain.

Researchers found that those with the highest hostility scores, measured by assessing a person's cynical expectations of other people's motives, were more than twice as likely to have a stroke or TIA, compared to the lowest scorers.

Similarly, high scores on depressive symptoms meant an 86 percent higher risk, and the chronically stressed faced a 59 percent higher risk of stroke or TIA.
  
Perhaps surprisingly, anger was not associated with any risk of increased stroke.

The study included a broad mix of Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic and Asian people.

The associations between psychology and stroke remained even after researchers accounted for age, race, sex, health behaviors and other known risk factors of stroke.
  
"There's such a focus on traditional risk factors, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, smoking and so forth and those are all very important, but studies like this one show that psychological characteristics are equally important," said lead author Susan Everson-Rose, associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
  
"Given our aging population, it's important to consider these other factors that might play a role in disease risk," the author said.

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Play Angry Bird with a robot soon

Researchers envision the robot-smart tablet system as a future rehabilitation tool for children with cognitive and motor-skill disabilities.

"The robot is able to learn by watching because it knows how interaction with a tablet app is supposed to work," said Ayanna Howard, a professor in the school of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.

How does it happen? Kids teach the robot how to play Angry Birds by dragging their finger on the tablet to whiz the bird across the screen.

In the meantime, the robot watches what happens and records ‘snapshots’ in its memory.

The machine notices where fingers start and stop, and how the objects on the screen move according to each other, while constantly keeping an eye on the score to check for signs of success.

When it's the robot's turn, it mimics the child's movements and plays the game.

If the bird is a dud and does not cause any damage, the robot shakes its head in disappointment.

If the building topples and points increase, the eyes light up and the machine celebrates with a happy sound and dance.

The robot analyses the new information and provides appropriate social responses while changing its play strategy.

In the new study, children spent an average of nine minutes with the game as the adult watched. They played nearly three times as long (26.5 minutes) with the robot.

The findings were presented at the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) 2014 annual conference in Denver recently.

Source: Latest Tech News