Madras HC orders notice to Vijayakanth

2011-04-12 20:30:00 Last Updated: 2011-04-12 20:37:00 Chennai: The Madras High Court on Tuesday ordered notice to DMDK president and actor Vijayakanth on a petition seeking a direction to the EC to conduct inquiry into his alleged remarks against the Indian Army and cancel the status of political party to his organisation. A bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam, before whom the matter came up on Tuesday, ordered notice to Vijayakanth which would be returnable within four weeks. According to petitioner T S Rajan, editor and publisher of a magazine, Vijayakanth was asked to comment on what his strategy in the April 13 Tamil Nadu assembly polls was. To this he reportedly replied that "even the Indian Army did not have a strategy" when they fought the Kargil war and other wars with Pakistan. Rajan said that by equating the wars fought by the Indian Army with his lack of political strategy, Vijayakanth had "hurt the patriotic sentiments of the electorate of Tamil Nadu". Rajan contended that through his adverse remarks and false allegations against the Indian Army, the DMDK chief had committed offences punishable under various sections of the IPC. "These are very serious allegations and could not ignored as a pointless rhetoric from a politician," the petition argued, adding, "The leader of a recognized political party has demonstrated that he failed to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution and has violated the provisions of the Representation of the People Act."   Special: Assembly elections   Rajan also claimed DMDK had lost the qualification to function as a registered political party. He submitted that he has already sent a representation to the EC. He also sought that pending a final decision on his complaint, directions be issued restraining the returning officers of 41 constituencies in which DMDK candidates are contesting from declaring the results if any of their candidates, is found to have secured the majority votes. All About: State polls, TN polls, DMDK, Vijayakanth, Local News, Chennai, Topnews,Madras High Court, Indian Arm Courtesy:Sifynews

UPDATED  12/4/2011 2:39:19 PM

Headley implicate Pak and ISI for 26/11

News 24 Desk

Washington: In a major embarrassment to Pakistan, David Headley aka Dawood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana have blamed the Pakistani government and ISI for the 26/11 attack. The two Pakistani expat foot soldiers allegedly planned and conducted the Mumbai recce before the 26/11 terrorist carnage. It may be recalled that large number of people died in that deadly attack.

Rana says his acts of providing material support to terrorists in the Mumbai attacks ``were done at the behest of the Pakistani government and the ISI, not the Lashkar terrorist organization.`` The documents also cite Rana invoking his friend David Headley`s Grand Jury testimony in which the latter too implicates ISI.

The disclosure that Rana and Headley are implicating the Pakistani government and its intelligence agency in the Mumbai attack came about indirectly when an Illinois district court rejected Rana`s attempt at what is known as a ``Public Authority Defense,`` in which the defendant essentially argues that he did something at the behest of a government or its official authority.

The startling disclosures came even as ISI chief Shuja Pasha is visiting Washington DC with a laundry list of demands as the US tries to repair ties which have been severely damaged by the Raymond Davis episode. The US effort comes despite growing disquiet about ISI`s role in fomenting terrorism. Still, the Obama administration is scrambling to control fallout from the court proceedings in an effort to save its ally from being publicly exposed as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Sources say that Rana told the Illinois court that ``he acted pursuant to his actual or believed exercise of public authority on behalf of the government of Pakistan and the ISI.``

While noting Rana`s argument ``that he is entitled to a public authority defense because he acted under the authority — whether actual or apparent — of the Pakistani government and the ISI,`` the court rejected the defense saying, ``Defendant cannot rely on the authority of a foreign government agency or official to authorize his violations of United States federal law.``

While the court rejected Rana`s attempted defense on technical grounds, his implicating of the Pakistani government and its intelligence agencies strengthens the widely held view in India and elsewhere that Islamabad`s reluctance to act against the perpetrators of attack points to official patronage of terrorism.

http://news24online.com/Headley-implicate-Pak-and-ISI-for-26-11_News24_24870.aspx

Gene Variant May Help Children Cope with 'Problem Parents' (Toxic Parents)

By Jim Schnabel

April 11, 2011

Picture:Parents argue to the dismay of the child.

How do some children manage to cope so well despite having “toxic parents?” They may have a gene variant that sensitizes the reward and motivation circuits in their brains. According to a new study, a group of children carrying the gene variant were significantly more likely to have better relationships with problem parents than were their siblings who lacked the variant


.
“The literature on social resilience has tended to focus on how aspects of the child's environment affect and support the child; but this finding [highlights] a way in which some children may influence their own environment to better support their needs,” says William Copeland, a clinical psychologist and epidemiologist at Duke University, and lead author of the study, which appearedonline in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology on Feb. 16.




Copeland and his colleagues enrolled 226 Caucasian children from a rural, impoverished part of North Carolina; determined how close each child was to his or her parent(s); and performed DNA analyses to find out whether each child carried a certain variant of the gene for the mu-opioid brain cell receptor.
Named for the addictive, plant-derived opiate drugs that stimulate them powerfully, opioid receptors are normally activated in a more moderate way by the brain’s own opiate-like neurotransmitters, including endorphins. The mu-opioid receptors are the principal opioid receptors involved in generating a sense of euphoria and pain relief from pleasant experiences or morphine-like drugs. As such, one of their key functions is to help determine the sensitivity of reward and motivation networks in the brain.




For an infant or small child, few things are as rewarding as a parent’s presence. In animal studies, the use of drugs that block the mu-opioid receptors in an infant’s brain typically makes the infant more anxious and clingy. “It’s like opiate withdrawal,” says James Curley, a researcher at Columbia University who has done experiments with monkeys in this field. By contrast, hitting mu-opioid receptors with morphine seems to produce a sense of satiety that weakens the desire for social attachment.

The pleasure-sensitive allele Copeland and his colleagues focused their analysis on a common variant of the mu-opioid gene known as A118G, or the “G allele.” The variant appears to make the mu-opioid receptor more sensitive, with the result that reward circuits hit higher highs for a given stimulus, and lower lows when it is withdrawn. A similar gene variant is linked to stronger attachment behaviors in infant monkeys, and the researchers wondered if the G allele would be associated with stronger attachment behaviors in human children too.

The children and their parents are enrolled in a larger, ongoing mental health research project, in which they were interviewed using standard psychiatric questionnaires about many aspects of their lives. From this data, Copeland and his colleagues quantified for each child/parent relationship the enjoyment of parent-child activities, frequency of arguments, and separation anxiety symptoms.
The researchers divided the children into two groups, those with parents whose availability was likely to be normal, and those with “problem parents” whose availability was probably below normal. About 60 percent of the parents were judged to be in the latter category because they reported having had at least one criminal conviction or a significant mental health problem, including substance abuse.




Copeland and his colleagues found that among the children of “non-problem” parents, those with the A118G variant did not show significantly stronger attachment to their parents than did non-A118G children. But in households with problem parents, whose availability was presumed to be lower, children without the A118G variant appeared to have much worse relations with their parents, while children with the A118G variant had correspondingly better relations—as if the situation allowed them to grab an unusually large share of a resource that would normally have been rationed more equitably. 

Social attachment as a basic pleasure

The study carries many caveats, including the fact that it didn’t measure attachment behavior directly, as is possible in animal studies; didn’t separate out child and parent contributions to each relationship; and didn’t sample parental DNA. Curley notes that the G allele in parents might also have been influencing the quality of the child-parent relationship


.
In a study now in press at Behavioral Neuroscience, for which Curley has written a commentary, a group led by University of Chicago researchers have found that an A118G-like allele is associated with more attachment-oriented behavior in mothers – among rhesus macaque monkeys in the wild. “Females that had the G allele showed more frequent protective restraining of their infants; in other words they more often prevented them from leaving, by pulling their tails or their legs when the infants tried to get away,” says senior author Dario Maestripieri.




The researchers also found that the mothers with the G allele had higher levels of oxytocin in their spinal fluid. “So the physiological mechanism responsible for this attachment behavior might involve oxytocin, because oxytocin has been implicated in mother-infant attachment, in both animal and human studies,” says Maestripieri. “There also are studies that suggest an interaction between the opioid and oxytocin systems


.”
Two other recent studies in humans indicate that A118G can affect adult social relationships, by increasing the pleasure experienced from those relationships and also by increasing the pain of social rejection. “So if you put this into a broad evolutionary framework,” says Curley, “it seems that mu-opioid receptors are modulating behavior in terms of unique attachments to individuals. And it may be doing that across the lifespan both in mother-child attachments and in adult attachments


.”
Some researchers have even speculated that A118G, which occurs more frequently in Asian populations than in Caucasian populations, and hardly at all in African populations, helps account for different degrees of social cohesion in these ethnic groups – differences that have been assumed to be cultural.




Separately, A118G is also suspected of enhancing the pleasure from drugs that hit the brain’s reward circuits, as well as pain and craving when such drugs are withdrawn – and although studies so far have been inconclusive, there are suggestions that it can make people more susceptible to addiction.




 To the extent that addiction impairs survival or fertility, A118G should have been selected against by evolution – pushing it out of the gene pool. But its effects in boosting relationships might have made up for its addiction-related drawbacks. “A study published in 2009 showed that this G allele has undergone positive selection not long ago,” says Curley, “so maybe it was promoting attachment behaviors that were important for survival in our recent evolutionary past."


Courtesy:dana.org/news

Brain is an amazing thing

We've long known that the brain is an amazing thing, but did you specifically know that:

• Every person has more than 75km of nerves in their body.

• Your nerves can send messages faster than a Grand Prix car travels.

• The brain is the most complex machine in the universe - it has over 100,000,000, 000 nerve cells each with up to 150,000 connections. Each cell is connected to 25,000 others.

• If every person on the planet simultaneously made 200,000 phone calls, there would be the same total number of connections as in a single human brain in a day

• The grey cells occupy only 5% of our brains - 95% is taken up by the communication network that runs between the grey cells!


• The brain weighs about 1.5 kg in an adult human, about 1.5% of the body weight.

• Damaged brain cells do not regenerate but mental and physical functions can improve after mild or moderate brain damage with skilful rehabilitation.

• Compared to other animals, human brains are big for the body.

• The human brain is only just bigger than your two fists.

• On average, the male brain (approx 1.4kg) is slightly bigger than the female brain (approx 1.26kg).

• Each half of the brain controls the other half of your body.

• In right-handed individuals (which comprise 91% of people): the right side of the brain controls: musical talent, fantasy, imagination, dreams, drawing, and painting. The left side of the brain controls: mathematical ability, ability to solve logic problems, controls language skills, remembers names, dates, and facts.

• The grey part of the brain is folded to fit inside the skull and, if flattened, it would cover the surface of an office desk.

• The brain contains 100 billion brain cells of which, 100,000 are irretrievably lost each day.

• You can retain about seven facts at any one time in short term memory, but over the long term your brain has to forget things to make room for new memories.

 Courtesy:Cither.com

Lokpal Bill: Cong rejects Anna Hazare's telecast demand

 TNN | Apr 12, 2011, 12.57am IST

NEW DELHI:

Tensions between the ruling party and civil society activists went up a notch on Monday as the Congress virtually rejected Gandhian Anna Hazare's demand for "videographing" or telecasting proceedings of the joint committee drafting the Lokpal bill. 

"Let us not allow form to take the place of substance. Please do not put conditions and pre-conditions which might obstruct the basic objective," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said. 

"Statesmanship and maturity is required from stakeholders," the spokesperson said, adding that such conditions and preconditions could not be allowed which would inhibit candid discussions. "Transparency should not become hypocritical decision-making without candour. Therefore, balancing is important." 

The disagreement came within hours of Hazare demanding the resignation of HRD minister Kapil Sibal who said the bill would not solve all problems. "If Sibal feels that nothing will happen due to the Lokpal Bill, then he should resign from the joint committee as soon as possible," Hazare said. "Why is he wasting his and our time? He should do other things for the country. Why does he want to be in the committee?”.

Courtesy:Times of India.

CWG scam: PMO wants action in three months

HT Correspondents , Hindustan Times
New Delhi, April 12, 2011

The Prime Minister’s Office has started the process of identifying and acting against government functionaries responsible for irregularities during the Commonwealth Games.

 

The PMO on Monday sent the findings of the Shunglu committee probing the irregularities to the home ministry with the  mandate to decide on the action to be taken. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given the ministry three months to file its action-taken reports.
 
The inquiry panel led by former comptroller and auditor general VK Shunglu took six months to produce six reports on the roles of various stakeholders in organising the 2010 Games. The reports blame government agencies for lack of oversight, mismanagement and irregularities in the conduct of the event.
 
But many of the findings have come under criticism for inaccurate facts or conclusions that did not appreciate the circumstances. The ministry will have to factor these in and take a call accordingly.

Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit was the first to go public against Shunglu’s “one-sided” report and promised to send a rebuttal by May-end. Lieutenant governor Tejendra Khanna has already pointed to holes in the panel’s facts and conclusions and the Delhi Development Authority, too, has absolved itself.

“There may have been irregularities but to be able to act against those responsible, one needs to accurately identify the factors and individuals responsible,” a government official said, explaining why three months would be needed to process reports that took less than six months to compile.

Government sources said the home ministry would not only coordinate and oversee the action to be taken against the Delhi government and bodies such as MCD and NDMC but central government departments such as sports and urban development, too.

“In case of a difference of opinion between the ministry and the department concerned on the action to be taken, the PMO will have the last word,” a ministry source said. Sources indicated the PMO initially intended to coordinate the processing of the reports. But there was a view that this may involve going in-depth into almost every charge levelled by the Shunglu committee. As the home ministry is the nodal ministry for all matters related to Delhi, it will have to shoulder this responsibility since it was not directly involved in the decision-making for various Games projects.

Courtesy:Hindustan Times

Campaign ends for April 13 south India polls

Chennai/Thiruvanthapuram, Apr 11 : A high-pitch, often acrimonious and below the belt, campaigning for the April 13 assembly polls in two southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala along with the Union Territory of Puducherrycame to an end Monday evening.

While electioncampaign in Tamil Nadu turned into a slanging match between Jayalalithaa's AIADMK and the ruling DMK with both parties' leaders trading personal attacks and inviting the rebuke of the Election Commission, in Kerala the presence and remarks of Rahul Gandhi provoked some sarcastic comments of the ruling communists.

In both states it is going to be a close contest, poll pundits predict.

While Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin allegedly attacked Jayalalithaa over her single status, Jayalalithaa was pulled up by the EC earlier for alleged personal attacks on DMK leader and chief minister M Karunanidhi.

The election in Tamil Nadu was also called a mixie-grinder poll this time owing to the freebies promised by the ruling DMK and the opposition AIADMK.

They all promised voters mixie, grinder, laptop and washing machine, even fans and even goats. It rained freebies in this election in Tamil Nadu.

While both parties wooed voters with freebies they harped before media on their growth oriented election manifestos.

J Jayalalithaa said her party will garner no less than 218 seats in the 234-member Tamil Nadu assembly, claiming a tidal wave of support for her and a cyclonic storm of anger against her rival DMK led by M Karunanidhi.

“I am very confidence that our alliance will sweep the polls,” the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader said at a campaign trail interview recently.

She said while opinion polls have predicted 164 to 184 seats for her alliance, she will bag around 218 seats in her own assessment.

“The main issue is the all pervasive corruption indulged by Karunanidhi [Tamil Nadu chief minister and the DMK head], his family members, and the DMK,” she said, adding that people would vote against the domination of one family in the state.

She said all theories supporting DMK, reeling under the slur of 2G scam allegedly enacted by party leader A Raja, will be gone with the wind.

AIADMK is fighting the polls with alliance partners like the Left parties and the DMDK of actor-turned-politician Vijayakant.

While AIADMK has fielded candidates in 160 seats, the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) is contesting in 41 seats.

Karunanidhi, on the other hand, said he would return as the chief minister. Karunanidhi-led Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) is in alliance with Congress.

While Congress is contesting in 63 seats, DMK is contesting 121 seats, while its partners PMK is fighting in 30, VCK 10, KMK 7, IUML two and MMK one.

The total electorate in Tamil Nadu is 4.6 crore. Altogether 2,773 candidates are in the fray.

The big shots in this elections are chief minister M Karunanidhi and his sworn rival Jayalalithaa. All eyes will also be on Karunanidhi's son M K Stalin and Jaya's alliance partner DMDK leader and actor Vijayakanth.

In Kerala, the last moment campaigning turned feverish with the presence of Congress poster boy Rahul Gandhi.

Rahul, the youth face of Indian politicians, urged voters to support his party claiming that only Congress has the right mix of youth and experience.

He took a dig at the Left by pointing out the age of Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan. He said Achuthanandan would be 93 year old by next elections, sparking a war-of-words.

After Rahul commented on Achuthanandan advanced age, the veteran Left leader hit back calling the young Congress MP an ‘Amul baby’.

“Is it my fault that I am 87 and even at this age I am going on like this?.” Achuthanandan questioned Rahul.

Achuthanandan further added that by the age of 16 he was fighting the British and questioned, “Please tell me where was Rahul Gandhi (politically) before he was 40 years.”

“The Amul baby has come here to campaign for some Amul baby candidates of the Congress party,” he added.

In the 140-seat Kerala assembly polls, the ruling Left DemocraticFront (LDF)-led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) is pitted against the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) which did well in the last Lok Sabha polls in 2009.

The LDF currently controls a majority of 99 seats (out of the 140 seats) in the state legislative assembly.

After the 2006 polls, veteran CPI-M leader V.S. Achuthanandan is heading the LDF government in Kerala as the CM.

In Kerala a total of 971 candidates are in the fray. The total electorate is 2.31 crore.

In Puducherry, a low key union territory compared to Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the campaign came to a close Monday evening as well.

It is Congress versus a former Congress chief minister in Puducherry.

In Puducherry, ruled by the Congress, the fight is between the ruling party and its ally DMK and the alliance of AIADMK with All India N. R Congress (AINRC).

AINRC is floated by former Congress chief minister N Rangasamy that promises to "ensure an excellent government and full statehood for the Union Territory of Puducherry."

While the Congress is aiming to return to power for the third consecutive term in the 30-member Legislative Assembly, the opposition left no stone unturned to challenge them.

Rangasamy has been projected as the chief ministerial candidate of the AIADMK-AINRC combine.

Claiming that there would be no discrimination for Puducherry if they come to power, as against the theory that a small union territory like Puducherry will benefit if governed by the party at the centre, the N.R. Congress with AIADMK is taking on the Congress on the issue of 2G scam and price rise.

Congress and its chief minister V Vaithilingam on the other hand said Rangasamy during his regime had failed to procure allotted funds from the centre owing to lack of planning and initiative.

Congress also tom-toms the improved law and order situation in Puducherry in the past years.

Congress is fighting the polls in alliance with the DMK, PMK and VCK parties.

Congress is fighting in 17 constituencies and its ally DMK in 10. PMK is contesting two while VCK is fighting one.

In the rival camp, All India NR Congress is contesting 17 seats while ally AIADMK has fielded candidates in 10. CPI, CPI-M and DMDK have fielded candidates in one seat each.

Puducherry has a total electorate of 8.05 lakh.

A total of 187 candidates are in the fray this time. Of them 162 are in Puducherry district which consists of Puducherry, Mahe and Yanam. The rest are in Karaikal district.

--IBNS

Woman defies new ban on veil

April 11, 2011

A WOMAN was arrested at Avignon station this morning as she tried to board a train for Paris wearing the niqab [full veil] on the first day of the controversial new law on wearing the burqa and niqab.

It comes after a weekend where around 60 people were arrested in the run-up to a planned demonstration against the law in the Place de la Nation in Paris.

Most of those arrested were men. They were said to include Islamic radical Anjem Choudary, leader of the now-banned Islam4UK group in Britain. Fears of violence had prompted the Préfecture de Police to ban the protest.

The woman arrested in Avignon was heading to Paris for a TV interview on the burqa ban and said it was an “attack on my European rights, my freedom to come and go, my religious freedom”. She faces a €150 fine or a compulsory citizenship course.

Passed in October, the law against concealing your identity in a public place came into force today after a six-month delay for assimilation. It forbids the niqab full veil, which leaves only a small slit for the eyes, and the burqa, which is a full veil with a lace cover in front of the eyes. It is thought that up to 2,000 women wear the veils.

Forcing a woman to wear a burqa or niqab could lead to a penalty of 12-months’ jail and a €30,000 fine. The penalty is doubled for forcing a minor to wear the veil.

The law also bans people from wearing masks or full balaclavas, except during fetes, artistic performances or sports events.

Former presidential candidate Rachid Nekkaz, the spokesman for the group Don’t Touch my Constitution, said he planned to sell a house he owned in Choisy to pay the fines of any woman arrested for wearing the veil.

He added that he was against the present law but had supported previous plans to restrict a ban to closed public places, like banks, shopping centres, council offices and schools.

Mr Nekkaz has called for a silent vigil today on the Parvis in front of Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris.

The open wearing of religious icons and garments has been banned in French schools since 2004. It is forbidden for pupils, teachers and parents at school to wear veils, whether full or not, the Jewish kippa skullcap, large Christian crosses and Sikh turbans.

Photo: Kevin Browne-Fotolia

Courtesy:connexionfrance.com