Washinton, Thursday, May 17, 2012: Terming Pakistan a “black hole” where the US has already “sunk” a whopping $24 billion since 2004, prominent American lawmakers have asked the Obama administration to cut off every cent of its aid to Pakistan.

“In Pakistan, billions of aid has been given to the Pakistanis since then
– billions of aid — while they, at the same time, have terrorised their neighbours and repressed their own people; those own people like the Balochs, who are now fighting and struggling for their freedom there,” Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said at a Congressional hearing.

“We should cut Pakistan off of every cent because it’s being used for evil purposes, and it’s even been used to kill Americans. It’s time we face reality, admit our mistakes, and cut our losses and quit supporting failed policies and corrupt dictators,” Rohrabacher said during the hearing at the Middle East and South Asia Sub-committee of the house foreign affairs committee.

During the hearing, senior Congressman Gary Ackerman accused Pakistan of sponsoring and providing shelter to terrorists.

(News agency)

For Dosa Batter:
1 cup (100 g) + 1 tablespoon urad dal
1 1/2 cups (150 g) idli rice (puzhukkalari)
1/2 cup (50 g) raw rice (pachari)
1 tablespoon cooked rice (cooled)
Salt to taste ( approximately 1 teaspoon )
Ghee / oil for frying
Water for grinding

Garlic chutney

Ingredients

1 cup (100 g) coconut, grated
2 green chillies
3 cloves garlic
1/4 - inch piece ginger
Salt to taste (or 1/2 teaspoon)

For Dosa Batter:

Wash and soak urad dal and rice separately for 6 - 7 hours.

Grind the urad dal and cooked rice to a very fine paste. Add little water while grinding. Remove and keep aside in a big vessel.

Then grind rice with little water. Remove and mix with dal paste and add salt to taste. Batter should be of dropping consistency. Cover and keep aside for 4 -5 hours.

Heat dosa pan. Pour 1/2 ladleful batter and make kutty / small dosas depending upon the diameter of the dosa pan ( 3- 5 kutty dosas at a time). Sprinkle ghee / oil on top the dosas. Cook for 2 minutes on a medium heat. Turn other side and cook till golden color. Serve with garlic chutney / sambar …

Method for Garlic chutney

Grind all the ingredients to a smooth and thick paste with a little water. Serve with dosas.

Please try these recipes

1, Onion Chutney

Special Chammanthi (Chutney / Thambeli) for Kanji (Paejje / Rice porridge)

A tasty side dish with Kanji (Paejje / Rice porridge or with Idlis and dosas)

Serves: 2

You will need

100 g (1 cup) grated coconut
3/4 teaspoon red chilli powder or 3 dried red chillies
4 shallots / chuvannuli / small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves
1/2 teaspoon thick tamarind paste
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1 tablespoon water

Method

Make a smooth and thick paste above ingredients in a mixer. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon water when making chammanthi. Serve with Kanji or Dosa varieties.

2, Coconut Onion Chutney

A very tasty chutney, goes well with Idli, Dosa varieties !!!!

Serves: 3

You will need

1 cup (100 g) grated coconut
3 dried red chillies
1/2 teaspoon tamarind paste
1 onion, roughly chopped
1/2 - inch piece ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons water

Method

Soak dried red chillies in 3 tablespoons water for half an hour.

Transfer all the chutney ingredients (including soaked red chillies) in a mixer bowl and make a smooth paste.

Serve with Idli / Dosa varieties.

Courtesy :Niya

A simple sip of coffee has brought closer the day when people who have been paralysed or lost limbs can look after themselves by controlling robots with their brain signals.

The coffee sip was taken by a 58-year-old woman paralysed in 1996 by a stroke. In the first test of its kind, she guided a flask of coffee to her lips using a robotic arm controlled by her brain.

“You could see an enormous grin when she managed it,” says John Donoghue of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. “For the first time in 15 years, she was doing something for herself.”

Previously, the team implanted a chip into the brain of a paraplegic man who then successfully used his neurological signals to manoeuvre cursors on computer screens. The latest experiment is the first in which humans have used their brain signals to manipulate real-world objects using a robotic arm. Similar results were achieved in monkeys in 2008.

“It’s a big symbolic step forward,” says Andrew Jackson of Newcastle University in the UK, who has an accompanying commentary in the same edition of Nature as the work.

The woman and a 66-year-old man, who have both lost the use of their limbs, volunteered to have aspirin-sized arrays of electrodes implanted in their brains. These pick up signals from neurons in the motor cortex - the part of the brain that governs movement. Donoghue’s Braingate2 team asked the two volunteers to watch a recording of the robotic arm perform programmed actions, and to imagine they were moving it themselves. By recording the brain signals corresponding to each arm movement, such as left, right, up or down, the computer could be “taught” to move the robotic arm as directed by brain signals from the patients.

In tests which required them to reach out for and grip a foam sphere the size of a tennis ball, one volunteer grasped the target in 62 per cent of attempts, and the other in 46 per cent of attempts. In a second test, performed only by the woman, she successfully gripped a flask of coffee and brought it to her lips for a sip from a straw in four out of six attempts.

Donoghue says the results are an important step towards assistive devices that can be controlled directly. “You can imagine an arm like this mounted on a wheelchair,” he says.

A distant goal is to use the brain to reactivate a person’s own muscles with the help of an implanted electrical device that reconnects the two within the body. Donoghue is working on such a system with a volunteer.

Our core physiology relies on subtle organic timers: disrupt them, and effects range from jet lag to schizophrenia. Exactly how and when life began keeping time is unclear, but a candidate for the original biological clock may solve the mystery. Biological clocks are ubiquitous in nature, so the first clock should pre-date the evolutionary parting of the ways that led to modern groups of organisms. All the clocks found so far are unique to different groups of organisms, though. Not so the clock discovered by Akhilesh Reddy at the University of Cambridge and colleagues. In an enzyme called peroxiredoxin (PRX), they seem to have found a grandfather clock - one that is common to nearly all life. PRX gets rid of poisonous, highly reactive oxygen (ROS), which is produced by oxygen-based metabolism. And the enzyme oscillates: it flits between an active and inactive state, depending on whether oxygen is bound to the active site. Using antibodies that bind only to the oxidised enzyme, the team found that PRX oxidation keeps cycling independently on a 24-hour cycle, even when organisms were kept in constant light or constant dark. Moreover, they found this PRX cycle in mice, fruit flies, a plant, a fungus, an alga, bacteria and even in archaea - the most primitive of all cellular life. That suggests PRX evolved early in life’s history. A gene sequence analysis suggests it did so 2.5 billion years ago, during the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) - a critical interval when the oxygen released by photosynthesis began to accumulate in the atmosphere. Reddy thinks PRX protected primitive cells from ROS damage by surging when peaks in photosynthesis related to daylight temporarily bumped up levels of oxygen. “Initially this was externally driven,” he says. Then PRX began oscillating spontaneously in anticipation of this load - thus becoming an independent daily clock. “Organisms with this anticipatory ability would be better adapted than organisms that merely ‘reacted’ to things as they happened,” Reddy says. Because all forms of life appear to dance to the metabolic rhythm of PRX oxidation, Reddy believes it pre-dates the other gene-related clocks that organisms carry. It may even have driven their evolution. A gene-related clock, unique to cyanobacteria, appears to have evolved alongside PRX. What is more, another archaean that lives without oxygen and never had to deal with ROS has no PRX clock - and no circadian rhythms at all. When PRX emerged 2.5 billion years ago, the Earth spun faster and a day lasted only 11 hours. “It will have adapted to the lengthening of the day-night cycle over time,” says Reddy. It may have done more than adapt - day lengths best suited to biological clocks may have coincided with times during which life made important evolutionary leaps. Ioannis Karafyllidis of the Democritus University of Thrace in Xanthi, Greece, has found that the cycling of the cyanobacterial clock resonates, or works most efficiently, at periods of 11 and 21 hours. These are the day lengths of the GOE and the Cambrian explosion of life, around 530 million years ago. It would be interesting, Karafyllidis says, to know if PRX - despite adapting to our longer days - has the same intrinsic resonance.

Mumbai, Thursday, May 17, 2012: The police have begun an investigation into the alleged scuffle between Kolkata Knight Riders’ co-owner Shah Rukh Khan and Mumbai Cricket Association officials at Wankhede Stadium here.

The inquiry was ordered after a written complaint was on Thursday filed by Joint Secretary of Mumbai Cricket Association, Nitin Dalal, with Marine Drive police station.

According to Assistant Police Commissioner Iqbal Shaikh, police reached the stadium last night soon after they were informed about the alleged misbehaviour of Khan with MCA officials.

Police took away Khan immediately from the spot and diffused the tension, he said.

“We were told that Khan had entered the ground with some children after the match was over. When security guards objected, the actor allegedly manhandled guards and used abusive language against officials of MCA, Cricket Board, security guards and a woman who is yet to be identified, said ACP Shaikh.”

“We were also informed that the actor was under the influence of alcohol,” the ACP said adding “even I could smell alcohol while taking away Khan in a vehicle to another place outside the stadium.”

Shaikh said inquiry into the incident was on and police would record the statement of witnesses. He, however, refused to comment when asked if the actor would be called for questioning.

(News agency)

The way we watch TV in the future is likely to change significantly from today. Tileable, interactive TV “wallpaper” will dominate the room, with wrap-around screens that recruit your peripheral vision to create a truly immersive experience. What’s more, you’ll be able to use part or all of the screen for different shows, movies, web pages or Twitter timelines.

But how will you organise and control all this on your giant, immersive screen?

This is the kind of question that News Digital Systems (NDS), a maker of pay-TV transmission technology, says broadcasters ought to be asking over the next decade as wall-covering TVs become a practical reality that goes beyond dim, low-resolution projectors or giant, power-hungry single flat screens. “It’s amazing how science fiction has accurately predicted where our future television technology is going,” says Simon Parnall, vice-president of technology at NDS in Staines, UK.

The firm’s latest idea is called Surfaces and is predicated on the fact that the next generation of flat-screen TVs, based on organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, will drop in price considerably in the next five to 10 years. OLED display panels have a great advantage: unlike LCD screens, they need no side lighting - so the picture display area can go right up to the screen edge. That means they can be placed next to each other to create a continuous display.

“We will be able to make this OLED flat-panel technology tileable. And these can be any shape you like, not just rectangular arrays,” Parnall told London’s Future World Symposium in April.

The first 1.4-metre OLED TVs, made by LG Electronics and Samsung of South Korea, will arrive on the market later this year. They are likely to cost around £8000 at first, says John Kempner, buyer for TV and video at the John Lewis Partnership, a UK department-store chain. But he also thinks the trend is for “fairly rapid price deflation” and expects the cost to fall below £3000 within two years. Models costing £1000 or less should be available in five to 10 years.

Using six OLED panels, NDS has constructed a 3.6-metre-by-1.4-metre prototype screen that, when not in use, simply displays the pattern on the wall behind it. “It’s ambient,” says Parnall. A video server pushes high-definition content to the screen under the control of an ordinary browser on the user’s smartphone or computer, which also lets people choose where on the screen they want their video, web, social media or Skype. Some of today’s TVs can already be controlled with an app in addition to a remote, says Kempner.

The prototype has been screening the X Factor talent show in the centre of the screen, with web content on each contestant to the right, a voting widget beneath it, and Twitter timelines of audience reactions to the left.

Central to the experience is how much immersion viewers want. A family watching a movie might choose deep immersion and make the film cover most of the screen - with perhaps a social media comment stream below it.

For shallow immersion, news might be displayed in the middle, with any Skype calls or social media and web content dotted around the periphery. Separate audio channels could be beamed wirelessly to each user’s phone or headset.

It’s not just NDS that is working to change how we watch TV. Daniel Novy and Michael Bove at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing an immersive system called Infinity-by-Nine - a reference to the standard 16:9 wide-screen aspect ratio.

“We take advantage of some perceptual tricks,” says Bove. “Peripheral vision isn’t sensitive to detail but it is to motion, and the brain really wants to make a consistent explanation of what your peripheral vision sees and what your central, or foveal, vision sees.” They use machine vision software to analyse, say, a movie and then generate, in real time, a moving low-resolution pattern that resembles the image on the screen. This gets projected onto the surrounding walls and ceiling. “The viewer isn’t supposed to look directly at the added imagery, but its presence hugely increases the perceived sense of immersion into what’s on the screen,” says Bove.

It works because while colour and detail perception is diminished in our peripheral vision, motion sensitivity in those visual margins remains strong. So Infinity-by-Nine simply has to move the low-resolution pattern at the same speed as the main image to enhance the viewers’ feeling of wrap-around immersion.

“While the effect might be strongest from a more central viewing position, it is still quite powerful from other seating positions. We have several couches in the room where this system runs, and when we leave a film playing we often come back to find people sitting on all of them, and on the floor,” says Bove.

German auto major Volkswagen AG on Thursday said it has put on hold the proposed Rs 2,000 crore investment plan in India as the VAT refund issue with the Maharashtra government remains unresolved.

“The normal investments required for usual operations of the company is going on but the big plans for the future have been put on hold at the moment,” Volkswagen Group Chief Representative India John Chacko told PTI.

He was responding to a query on whether the ongoing issue with the Maharashtra government over the change in policy regarding VAT refund has impacted the group’s expansion plans, including the Rs 2,000 crore investment announced in January.

Earlier, to woo investors, the state government used to refund VAT paid on all vehicles sold by companies, which have factories in the state.

It was, however, modified last year and the state government said it would refund VAT only on vehicles sold within the state.

Stating that the group wants the state government to keep its commitments, Chacko said: “We are talking to the state government to sort out the issue. We want to work in a stable conducive environment and would like to get what was committed to us.”

Asked what would be the group’s next step if the state government sticks to its stand, he said: “We will cross the bridge when it comes.”

In January this year, VW had said it will invest a minimum of Rs 2,000 crore on its Indian operations by 2013 to ramp up capacity, launch new models and strengthen research activities.

The group, comprising Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda has two manufacturing facilities at Chakan and Aurangabad in Maharashtra.

VW had announced an investment of 580 million euros (about Rs 3,600 crore) in 2008 for setting up the plant at Chakan. The group had stated that it planned to increase the capacity of the Chakan plant to 1.3 lakh units annually from 1.1 lakh cars this year.

Thiruvananthapuram, Thursday, May 17, 2012: After the scrutiny of nominations, seventeen candidates are left in the fray for the June 2nd by-election to the Neyyattinkara Assembly constituency.

Three nominations were rejected or cancelled by district election officers after the scrutiny. In all, 20 nominations were filed in which the nominations of one independent and two dummy candidates of CPM and BJP were rejected. The last date for withdrawing nominations will be May 19.

As the Election Commission is keen on avoiding the repetition of names in the candidates’ list, care should be taken to ensure that the namesakes are identified differently by adding the native place. The CEC has given instructions for the officials to provide identity codes for the namesake candidates.

Gold prices recovered by Rs 136 to Rs 28,098 per 10 gm in futures trading on Saturday, as speculators created fresh positions after the precious metal rebounded in global markets.

At the Multi Commodity Exchange, gold for delivery in June rose by Rs 136, or 0.49 per cent, to Rs 28,098 per 10 gm in business turnover of 1,859 lots.

Similarly, the metal for delivery in August moved up by Rs 130, or 0.46 per cent, to Rs 28,487 per 10 gm in 286 lots.

Market analysts attributed the rise in gold futures to firming trend in the Asian region after Federal Reserve policymakers said more money easing may be needed and retreat in dollar, raising demand for precious metals as an alternative investment.

Meanwhile, gold traded higher by 0.79 per cent to USD 1,552.40 an ounce in Singapore.

An extra-marital affair brings negative effects and causes unbearable emotional and mental loss involving a myriad of emotions. Cheating by a spouse is a blow to other spouse’s self-esteem, trust, sense of stability and personality. Some major effects of extra-marital affair on an honest spouse in the relationship include:

1. A Blow to Self Esteem

An extra-marital affair of your spouse is like a blow to your self-esteem. In such a situation, the sufferer starts questioning his or her self. Thoughts such as “What was my mistake?”, “What have I done?” start haunting the sufferer. Feeling of being cheated causes emotional and mental imbalance that leads to self-accusation by victim .i.e. he or she blames himself or herself for their spouse’s affair. A victim of extra-marital affair must realise that he or she had not taken the decision to cheat instead his or her spouse broke the sacred vows of marriage to indulge in infidelity.

2. Broken Trust

A disloyal spouse kills the trust of the other spouse and makes it difficult for him or her to trust anybody in future. For a victim, getting over from the shock of an extra-marital affair is the toughest thing to do. Entering into another romantic relationship also becomes hard as the victim is more judgmental and cautious this time. Causes of extra-marital affair by ex-spouse become a baggage for the victim, who cannot forget the devastating experience of infidelity and enters into a self-victimisation mode.

3. Lost Stability

Discovering your spouse in an extra-marital affair may turn your world upside down. Life may seem totally shattered and disoriented. Nothing hurts more than a dishonest spouse. Feeling of parting ways with the person, who was once your support system and who gave you all worldly securities can cause an emotional breakdown. The victim feels like nobody and loses his or her inner sense of stability.

4. Emotional Breakdown

The major effect of extra-marital affair is emotional breakdown of the victim in which he or she finds himself or herself in a traumatised state. After the end of the relationship, victim usually presses herself or himself to discover the reasons and causes of cheating. It is at this point that self-blame-game starts. After facing infidelity, a victim goes through a roller coaster of emotions and feels negativity all around.

5. Hampers Social Life

Extra marital affair destructs victim’s social life and he or she disconnects from the outside world. He or she forms a different perception of everything and looks differently at his or her job, friends, family and life choices. Perception can be positive or negative, but most victims feel utter despair and loneliness in all the areas of their life. Some find solace in their children while others get emotionally detached from their children.

There can be a number of reasons for cheating and usually, the doer does not pay attention to what it can cause to his or her spouse. Certainly, the effects of extra-marital affair are devastating and victims take a lot of time to heal from the damage caused. To lead a normal life after facing an extra-marital affair, it is better for the victim to work through them.