MONTH THAT WAS

Freedom gone wonky: JNU Saga

New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University authorities have taken disciplinary action on an average against seven students every month in the last six-and-a-half years for violation of rules, according to an RTI query. Action was taken and fines slapped for a range of violations such as consumption of intoxicants, not vacating hostel rooms after stipulated time, creating ruckus, getting into brawls with fellow students, blackmailing, using abusive language etc.

Replying to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by Delhi-based activist Gopal Prasad, The Central Public Relations Officer's office of the university informed that from 2010 to June 2016, disciplinary action was initiated on 537 complaints received by the university authorities.

Of these, more than 300 were related to allegations of consumption of alcohol, marijuana and other intoxicants. Hence, on an average, action was taken against around seven students every month during the said period of six-and-a-half years (78 months).

The complaints were also related to instances of misbehaving with fellow students or the security staff deployed at the university campus under the influence of alcohol, marijuana and other intoxicants.

Usually, the guilty are fined between Rs 1,000 and Rs 6,000 in such cases but there was also an instance when on July 27, 2013, a student was fined Rs 52,000 for consumption of alcohol at Mahi Mandavi Hostel.

 It also informed that one student was fined Rs 72,000 for not vacating the hostel room without notifying the authorities even after the stipulated time.

Similarly, three students were fined Rs 1.93 lakh, Rs 1.45 lakh and Rs 1.36 lakh respectively for not vacating hostel rooms in spite of being full-time employees elsewhere. 

Two students were fined Rs 1.34 lakh and Rs 87,760 respectively as they were found guilty as per the rules of hostel facilities for married research scholars.

Besides, disciplinary action was taken for staying at the hostel premises after the stipulated time, disturbing peace, creating ruckus and consumption of alcohol with outsiders on campus.

Action was taken against 21 students in connection with the February 9 incident on campus.

Of them, Aniraban Bhattacharya was banned for a period of five years from July 25 and Sayeed Umar Khalid was suspended for the monsoon semester of the 2016-17 academic year and fined Rs 20000.

Car swallowed by sinkhole

London: A sinkhole has opened up outside a graveyard in south London partially swallowed a people carrier.  Police were called in the early hours to Woodland Terrace in Greenwich, where officers found the front of family car poking out of the hole, which had appeared outside Benefice of Charlton St Thomas’ church. No one was injured, said police. But one local man Jamie Thornton, who spotted the hole as he drove to work, said he feared the worst.

“I have never seen anything like this before. You don’t expect dirty great holes opening up in the ground,” he said. “I do hope it isn’t a portal to hell and the apocalypse is coming.”

It seems that the sudden collapse of the road may have been caused by torrential rain in the capital over the past couple of days. Thornton, 45, told the Mirror that the weather overnight was abysmal.

Edward Simmons, who lives down the road from the sinkhole, said he heard nothing overnight and only learned about the collapse when a friend texted him a few hours later and he walked down to take a look. “Someone down the road [who] was outside said they heard a big bang but went back to bed,” Simmons said. 

A Metropolitan police spokesman said officers had cordoned off the area. A spokeswoman for Thames Water said: “We’ve got engineers at the scene checking there is no damage to our clean water or sewer pipes.”

Greenwich council was working with emergency services to secure the area. “We are urgently investigating the matter and will update residents the moment we have more information,” he added.

Alarming Climate Change: UN study

United Nations: Global temperatures for the first six months of this year have shattered previous records, setting 2016 on track to be the hottest year ever, the UN weather agency has said. Arctic sea ice melted early and fast, another indicator of climate change and carbon dioxide levels, which are driving global warming, have reached new highs, said World Meteorological Organization (WMO). “Another month, another record. And another. And another. Decades-long trends of climate change are reaching new climaxes, fuelled by the strong 2015/2016 El Nino,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

The El Nino event, which turned up the Earth’s thermostat, has now disappeared, but “climate change, caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases, will not,” Taalas said. He said it will result in more heatwaves, more extreme rainfall and potential for higher impact tropical cyclones. The average temperature in the first six months of 2016 was 1.3 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial era in the late 19th century, according to NASA. To calculate global temperature statistics for its annual state of the climate report,

WMO uses datasets from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA GISS) and the UK’s Met Office and reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF).   NOAA said the global land and ocean average temperature for January–June was 1.05 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average, beating the previous record set in 2015 by 0.20 degree Celsius. Each month in 2016 was record warm. Most of the world’s land and ocean surfaces had warmer to much-warmer-than-average conditions.

The El Nino event which developed in 2015 and was one of the most powerful on record contributed to the record temperatures in the first half of 2016. It dissipated in May.

June 2016 marked the 14th consecutive month of record heat for land and oceans and marked the 378th consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th century average.

The last month with temperatures below the 20th century average was December 1984.

Carbon dioxide concentrations have passed the symbolic milestone of 400 parts per million in the atmosphere so far this year and CO2 levels vary according to the season, but the underlying trend is upwards, the report said.

They showed a surprising increase for the first half of 2016, rising in June 2016 to nearly 407 ppm, 4 ppm greater than June 2015, the agency said.

“This underlines more starkly than ever the need to approve and implement the Paris Agreement on climate change, and to speed up the shift to low carbon economies and renewable energy,” Taalas said.

India 2nd most ‘unequal’ country

New Delhi: India is the second most ‘unequal’ nation in the world where millionaires, or those with net assets of USD 1 million or more, control over half of its total wealth, says a report. According to wealth research firm New World Wealth, after Russia, India is the most unequal country as 54 per cent of its wealth is in the hands of millionaires.

India is among the 10 richest countries in the world with total individual wealth of USD 5,600 billion, but the average Indian is quite poor. Globally, Russia is the most unequal country where millionaires control over 62 per cent of total wealth. In order to determine the level of inequality in the world, New World Wealth looked at the proportion of wealth controlled by millionaires, or high net worth individuals. “The higher the proportion the more unequal the country is. For instance, if millionaires control over 50 per cent of a country’s wealth then there is very little space for a meaningful middle class,” the report said.

On the other hand, Japan is considered to be the most equal country on Earth. Millionaires in Japan control only 22 per cent of total wealth there. Australia is also very equal – millionaires control only 28 per cent of total wealth.

 Regarding the United States, the report said it is also ‘surprisingly’ equal as millionaires control around 32 per cent of total wealth there. “This is surprising low considering all the negative press that the US gets in terms of income inequality,” it added. The United Kingdom is slightly less equal than the US – millionaires control around 35 per cent of total wealth there. Another interesting measure is the proportion of a country’s wealth held by billionaires (with net assets of USD 1 billion or more). Russia again tops this list with 26 per cent of total Russian wealth held by billionaires. Japan again is the most equal with billionaires only controlling 3 per cent of total wealth there.

Wealth refers to net assets of a person. It includes all their assets (property, cash, equities, business interests) less any liabilities, the report said adding that it excludes government funds from its figures.

Forced sourcing of organs?!

Hong Kong: A controversy has got a fresh lease of life. Practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation and exercise-based spiritual practice that China outlawed in 1999, are claiming that many of its followers who were jailed have been made secret source of organs for transplants.

Falun Gong adherents say that after it was banned, many were blood-typed in detention, and thousands became a source of organs Chinese governments and the Anti-Cult Association, which according to its site, promotes “Confucian thinking and science,” deny this.

The searing debate over forced organ extraction is not new. But as hundreds of the world’s leading transplant surgeon, including from China, gathered at the Transplantation Society’s meeting in Hong Kong, the issue seemed more explosive than ever-perhaps because the meeting was on Chinese soil for the first time, bringing the debate closer home.  

More Americans are choosing cremation

United States: For Decades, the American way of death has been the same: embalmed bodies, engraved tombstones, graveside ceremonies and, finally, burials. Not so anymore. According to state-by-state data compiled by the Cremation Association of North America and the National Funeral Directors Association, cremation is the new custom, accounting for almost 49% of all dispositions last year, vs. 45% for burials- “a seismic shift,”says Barbara Kemmis, CABA’s executive director.

Although cremation’s popularity has steadily grown for years (thanks in part to increasing acceptance by organized religions), the biggest reason for its newfound dominance is cost. Burials are complex affairs that require a plot, a tombstone and a coffin which all told can cost thousands of dollars. Cremations, by contrast, are simple and cheap. They’re also seen as a more flexible option for American, who are increasingly mobile and may live and die far from home and their family plots.

The growth of cremation is shaking up the $16 billion death industry; it’s one of the reasons the number of funeral homes has fallen almost 10% since 2005. Now, alongside caskets and grave plots, many funeral directors sell personalized urns and spots in cremation gardens, which tend to cost a fraction as much. “Funeral directors are starting to see that cremation is not going anywhere,” says Mike Nicodemus, the NFDA’s vice president of cremation services. Indeed, the NFDA projects that by 2030, cremation rates will top 70% nationwide, a complete reversal with burials in roughly 30 years.

Dant Kanti proved to be most effective

New Delhi: Dant Kanti by Patanjali after testing and trial on the Indian community proved most effective in antimicrobial action, reduction of dental plaque and gingival inflammation signs and symptoms, in an all India dental symposium held at Constitution Club of India recently. Theme of the symposium was ‘comparative efficacy of toothpaste with herbal extract and conventional toothpastes for antimicrobial action and improvement of oral hygiene’. Its aim was to create awareness in general public through professional acknowledgment of facts.

Dentists Association of India national president Dr Anil Dhalla said, “There’s a dire need to regulate false and misleading claims of toothpaste manufacturers.” Companies should revive their products and produce brands best suited for Indian population, he added. Dental college researchers from Chennai, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh presented their comparative studies on herbal formulations in toothpastes.