Pregnant woman beaten to death in Delhi

Delhi:  A love story with a rather tragic ending. A 22-year-old pregnant woman was found beaten to death in a park in New Delhi on Thursday. The police suspect the involvement of her husband in the murder.

Neetu, the victim had married Amit Chandra (25) two years ago after they fell in love. The parents of the couple were against the union. The victim's parents claim that Amit started demanding money from their daughter after the marriage and that they would only speak to Neetu. Amit reportedly works with a private firm. Neetu was missing since Wednesday night. She was found dead the next morning.

The body was discovered lying in a pool of blood behind Shalimar Bagh Palace flats. The couple was living in a rented accommodation in the area. One of the neighbours informed the police when he saw Neetu's body. Police sent the body for post mortem and lodged a murder case.

Delhi school boys discover new asteroid

New Delhi: Wonders never cease to exist. Two Delhi students have discovered a new asteroid as part of a unique astronomy project connected to the US space agency NASA.

Amanjot Singh and Sahil Wadhwa, both Class 12 students of Ryan International School, discovered a main belt asteroid (2010 PO24) on Aug 6 as part of the All India Asteroid Search Campaign (AIASC).

Asteroids are very small planet-like objects that generally go around the sun in orbits located between Mars and Jupiter. Sometimes these are nudged by gravitational forces out of their orbits and can come into contact with Earth.

"I am really excited about it," Sahil, who wants to pursue a career in astronomy, said.

"Our task was to sift through the data and analyse it. Every day we used to send our findings to scientists in NASA and they used to tell us if we were successful in discovering an asteroid, a near earth object or a second time confirmation of the asteroid," he added.

The campaign conducted between May 17 and June 30 and from July 1 to August 13, was introduced in India for the first time and about 30-45 schools were be involved in it. This year 11 countries on four continents participated in it.

Behind involving school students in the project was the Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) along with the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC), an international educational outreach programme.

The students went through exclusive data files of the sky provided by the IASC using astronomical data analysis software. The data files had images of the sky taken in the night with 24-inch and 32-inch telescopes at the Astronomical Research Institute (ARI) Observatory in the US.

Sahil and Amanjot are looking forward to naming the asteroid discovered by them, though the process will take almost six years as per the international rule.

Three other students from Navrachana School in Vadodara, Gujarat, have made a Virtual Impactor Observation (VIO) discovery of a Near Earth Object (NEO) discovered during the same programe July 19.

An NEO is an object in the solar system whose orbit brings it in close proximity to Earth. A VIO is carried out to determine whether the NEO is likely to hit the Earth or not.

When NEOs are first discovered, the impact risk with Earth is evaluated. If that risk is high enough, the NEO is placed on to the potentially hazardous asteroid list maintained by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"The observation made by students has led to NEO being officially removed from the list. This is a very rare and important observation," C.B. Devgun, SPACE director, told IANS.

Devgun said asteroids larger than about 50 metres could be expected to reach the Earth's surface at an interval of about 100 years, causing local disasters.

"These collisions are unlikely, but programmes such as NEO at NASA precisely track these objects as, if predicted in advance to be in a trajectory that collides with Earth, warnings can be generated and methods to avert them can be sought," he said.

Super-bug named after New Delhi bugs India

New Delhi: There's a new bug in town, a superbug that can spread rapidly. It is extremely immune to antibiotics claim researchers in Britain.

So what exactly is this Bug.

It's called NDM1, that stands for New Delhi Metallo-1. Considered to be extremely infectious in nature, the bug is completely resistant from all antibiotics known at present.

"It's not a single superbug, rather, it's a type of resistance that's been spreading about among different bacteria. The bacteria that pick up this resistance are resistant to virtually all the good antibiotics," said Professor David Livermore, Health Protection.

But what's bugging India is that it is stinking of a conspiracy. A Conspiracy that could damage India's flourishing medical tourism that attract thousands of patients from the west. Most come to India in the lookout for high quality treatment at cheaper costs.

Questions are now being raised about why the research was sponsored by two big pharmaceutical companies that may gain from the findings?

Moreover, the Indian Health Ministry says the research is not supported by scientific data and has rubbished the conclusions. Also, furious about the bacteria named after the capital of the country, India is only reiterating the conspiracy theory.

"This phenomena is not India centric, the superbug is everywhere. It is wrong to blame India, its hospitals, and our drug policy. Indian hospitals are world class. This gives a very wrong message. We will register protest," said V M Katoch, Secretary, Department of Medical Research.

However, the medical journal that published the study, Lancet, is highly respected and the report is being taken seriously.

In case, there is a new highly resistant bacteria then it could affect millions of people in India.

The most asked question at the moment is, what steps should India and Indians take to ensure it doesn't spread?

The superbug theory is making headlines and the debate seems to be only heating up. Amidst all, a set doctors believe that the need of the hour is to gather more information about this virus. They say that the Indian government should order a detailed investigation into the matter rather than just rejecting the findings outright.

Also, steps should be taken immediately to counter the possible spread of the bacteria.

Arjun Singh: Was surprised by Anderson's arrogance at Bhopal airport

New Delhi: Arjun Singh has said he was surprised by Warren Anderson's "arrogance" when Anderson landed at the Bhopal airport hours after his company - Union Carbide- caused a gas leak which led to thousands being killed. He has also said that Rajiv Gandhi did not intervene to help Anderson in any way.

Singh was Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh when the Bhopal gas tragedy took place. Anderson was arrested when he arrived in Bhopal but was released within hours and flown to Delhi on the Chief Minister's plane. The CEO of Union Carbide then flew to America and has never returned, defying multiple summons from Indian courts.

"I take full responsibility for Anderson's arrest," said Singh in Parliament today, speaking publicly on the issue for the first time since a Bhopal court earlier this year pronounced a verdict that incensed the country because of the nano-punishment it delivered: seven Indian executives of Carbide were found guilty of criminal negligence, all of them were granted bail immediately.

" Someone told me that Warren Anderson was coming to Bhopal. I was amazed at the audacity of a person who was aware of what his factory was manufacturing... but he was coming to Bhopal ... for what ? At that very moment, I made up my mind that as soon as he lands he should be arrested. I did not share my decision with anybody .. I did call in the officers concerned and briefed them to arrest Anderson on his arriving. As soon as he stepped down from the plane, the police SP escorted him in a car and told him that he was under custody and they are taking him to his own rest house for detention. He was so surprised when he was told this ... he kept asking ... Why is the CM not here to receive me ... Imagine the arrogance of the man," said Singh.
Singh said that then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi "did not utter a single word in the next two days either in support of Mr Anderson or try to mitigate his problem. " Instead, he suggested that the Home Ministry in Delhi may have tried to rescue Anderson. "The Chief Secretary informed me that there have been persistent calls for granting bail to Mr Anderson from Home Ministry officials in Delhi," Singh said. At the time, Narasimha Rao was the country's Home Minister.

"It became my responsibility to ensure that no physical harm came to him. I knew that people would lynch him from the nearest lamppost. Today, 26 years later, I can tell you ... it breaks my heart," said Singh, justifying the decision to let Anderson leave Bhopal even as hundreds of people in the city's hospitals were gasping for breath.
Singh said after the Bhopal tragedy, he offered his resignation to Rajiv Gandhi, who was then Prime Minister. "Rajiv ji said it was uncalled for, he said."