GoM recommends reducing age of consensual sex to 16

GoM for lowering consensual sex age to 16

Sorting out differences, a Group of Ministers (GoM) on 13 March 2013 recommended lowering of age of consent for sex from 18 to 16 years and suggested stern punishment for offences like stalking.
  
Working speedily, the GoM completed its task in the second meeting, paving the way for consideration of the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill by the Union Cabinet on 14 March 2013. The age of consent for sex was one of the highly contentious provisions in the Bill, because of which it was referred by the Cabinet to the GoM.
  
"We have gone through every provision of the proposed bill and all issues have been resolved. Now the matter will go to Cabinet and hopefully it will be passed," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told.
  
At Wednesday's GoM meeting, there was consensus on lowering the age from 18 to 16 years, subject to approval by Parliament. Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath had been opposing any move to lower the age of consent.

The GoM, chaired by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, also recommended that sustained stalking be made a non-bailable offence while first offence of voyeurism could be a bailable offence, sources said. Repeat offences of voyeurism, inappropriate touch, gesture and remarks have been recommended as non-bailable offences, they said.
  
The GoM also decided to retain the term 'rape' in the bill and treat it gender-specific, instead of the proposal to make it gender-neutral. Provisions seeking strong action against those filing false complaints were dropped from the draft Bill, the sources said adding that there was consensus in the GoM that existing laws were adequate for dealing with such cases and it was only a matter of enforcing them.
  
The Bill will replace Criminal Laws Ordinance promulgated on February 3 in the wake of public outrage over the December 16 Delhi gang-rape. The Ordinance has to be approved by Parliament before its recess from March 22, failing which it would lapse on April 4.
  
Offences such as sodomy can be addressed by the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. Refusing to give details, Sibal said, "there are no differences of opinion".
  
The GoM was set up in view of persisting differences among ministers on its provisions at the meeting of the Union Cabinet on Tuesday. However, considering the urgency of the matter, the GoM was asked to submit its report on Wednesday night so that the Bill could be brought before the Cabinet.  On the issue of stalking and voyeurism, some ministers were of the view that the provisions would be "prone to misuse" and should only be incorporated after putting in place sufficient safeguards, including harsh penalty for lodging false cases.
  
Stalking and voyeurism were for the first time defined as criminal offences in the Ordinance. Some parties like the Samajwadi Party have serious reservations on certain provisions of the ordinance claiming they are prone to misuse.
  
Lengthy inter-ministerial consultations had taken place on the issue of lowering of the age of consent from 18 years to 16 with the Women and Child Development Ministry strongly opposing the move.
  
The bill retains a key provision of the ordinance under which if rape leads to death of the victim or leaves her in a vegetative state, it can also attract death penalty. The minimum punishment is 20 years in jail which may extend upto the "natural life" of the convict.

What makes women happy

Women from Australia value their friends above everything else in their life, a new survey has revealed.

A survey found that 84 per cent of women relied on their network of girlfriends for everything from advice and support to nurturing and fun, News.com.au reported.

Natalie Mactier, CEO of Kidspot said that women's happiness arise from love, security, support, togetherness with friends and family and her partner; and unhappiness come from money concerns, politics, personal misfortune, being time poor and negative relationships.

She said that amid the pressures of the daily grind friends are incredibly important to women as they provide sanity over the chaos.

Mactier added that for most women, their pals helped them navigate problems and remain constant when they are going through the craziness of daily life.

The survey of 6,253 women also found that food played a big part in happiness with 76 per cent saying that food gave them great satisfaction, be it from cooking or eating.

Weight, however, is still the modern woman's nemesis, with 72 per cent finding maintaining and achieving their ideal body weight stressful.

International Women's Day 2013 Celebrated Across the World

8 March 2013: International Women's Day

International Women's Day is celebrated across the world on 8 March 2013. The theme for 2013 International Women's Day is- A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women.

On this day, the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee laid emphasis on the monumental role of women in designing the country.

Nirbhaya to be honoured posthumously:-

The Para-medical student, popularly called Nirbhaya, who was gang raped in Delhi on 16 December 2012, will be honoured posthumously with the Stree Shakti award on the occasion of International Women's Day.

It was decided by the Women and Child Development Ministry that fighting spirit of Nirbhaya should be honoured with Stree Shakti awards which are conferred upon outstanding women of India. Pranab Mukherjee will give away the award to Nirbhaya’s family.

In order to mark the International Women's Day, various seminars and events are conducted across India.

Wealthy Ancient Egyptians Suffered Disease

Even the best-off ancient Egyptians suffered from malnutrition and preventable disease, a new analysis of mummies and skeletons finds.

The bodies come from the Qubbet el-Hawa necropolis, which is near the modern city of Aswan in southern Egypt. Constructed in the 12th dynasty (between 1939 B.C. and 1760 B.C.) and re-used in later periods, the necropolis contains remains of people from across the social spectrum.

An analysis of more than 200 of these bodies, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, finds that wealth did not necessarily buy health in ancient Egypt.

Although the cultural level of the age was extraordinary, the anthropological analysis of the human remains reveals the population in general, and the governors — the highest social class — lived in conditions in which their health was very precarious, on the edge of survival.

Life expectancy was only about 30 years, the researchers found, thanks to a high infant mortality rate, malnutrition and gastrointestinal infections caused by drinking polluted Nile waters. A great many of the dead in the necropolis were between 17 and 25 years old.

Indian schoolgirl in U.K. has IQ higher than Einstein’s

The score puts her in top 1% of brightest people in Britain.

A 12-year-old Indian-origin girl in the U.K. has stunned everyone after she scored an incredible 162 in her IQ test — a score even higher than that of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

Neha Ramu, daughter of an Indian doctor couple, achieved a score of 162 on a Mensa IQ test — the highest score possible for her age.

The score puts the teen in the top 1 per cent of the brightest people in the U.K. and means that she is more intelligent than physicist Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and scientist Einstein, who are all thought to have an IQ of 160.

Neha scored 162 on the Cattell IIIB test, putting her within the top 1 per cent of people in the country.

Neha’s parents lived in India before moving to Britain when their daughter was seven.

She took the test for Mensa, a society for people with high IQs, and achieved a perfect score of 280/280 — the maximum possible score for someone under the age of 18.

Hariram Meena Selected For the Bihari Puraskar For 2012

Rajasthani author Hariram Meena was selected for the Bihari Puraskar for 2012 for Hindi novel Dhooni Tape Teer. The novel was published in 2008.

Dhooni Tape Teer is a novel based on the deaths of tribal people in Banswara in Rajasthan on 17 November 1913.
The Bihari Puraskar is selected annually by a panel, which at present is headed by Nand Kishore Acharya.

About the Bihari Puraskar:-

• Bihari Puraskar was instituted by K K Birla Foundation in 1991.
• It is given on a yearly basis to the Rajasthani writers for their literary works in Rajasthani or Hindi published in last 10 years.
• The award includes a citation along with a cash prize of 1 lakh Rupees.

About Hariram Meena:-

• Hariram Meena was born on 1 May 1952 in Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan.
• Various publications have been credited to his name and these include one novel, two anthologies and one travelogue.

Inside China’s marvel

 

When the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, the country’s rail network was in shambles. Stretching over only 20,000 km — less than half the route length India possessed in 1947 — the tracks were in disrepair, destroyed by years of civil war.

Sixty years on, China has added an astounding 55,000 km to the network, which now extends more than 75,000 km, surpassing India’s. It has also built an additional 10,000 km of high-speed lines, the world’s largest such network. The country now boasts a modern, efficient railway system, powered by European-designed and China-made express trains and high-speed trains, and connected by modern stations that often resemble airport terminals than train stations.

By 2020, China will have increased its network length to 1,20,000 km and expanded its high-speed rail network — which runs on a separate track — to 20,000 km. The high-speed rail network, last year unveiled its most impressive line yet — a 1,500-km track that connects Beijing and Shanghai, covering a distance comparable to that between New Delhi and Mumbai in only four-and-a- half hours. How did China succeed in overhauling its rail system? A report published last year by the World Bank — which has advised China’s Ministry of Railways over the past few decades — attributed the success to its state-led “single-point responsibility” model and to the country’s “strong technical capacity and process.”

The Ministry of Railways (MOR) holds complete control of both planning and executing projects, as well as building trains and running the system. As in India and unlike in the West, there are no private companies that ply on the state-built system. The MOR also finances all projects, and has not pursued any Public-Private Partnership models, which, the World Bank report argued, had led to longer execution periods in many countries owing to financial and other constraints.

The World Bank also identified the country’s strength in planning, in facilitating rapid expansion. The government runs six railway design institutes — each employing around 4,000 people. This capacity together with a singular focus provides the means and ability to produce a feasibility report within a 6-12 month time frame. In most countries, feasibility studies for major railway construction projects take up to 2 years to specify, procure, complete and report.

Safety concerns:-

Despite China’s considerable achievements in building a network capable of transporting large volumes of passengers — most notably every February during the Chinese New Year when the MOR handles a record 225 million trips, deploying more than 800,000 coaches — the rapid expansion of the high-speed network has, in recent months, triggered safety fears.

A high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou in July 2011 that left 40 people dead resulted in a temporary halt on projects. The high level of debt from the speed of expansion has also led to concerns about the long-term sustainability of the network.

Wang Mengshu, a leading engineering professor who has advised the government on the high-speed rail network that as the railways were “a public good and a public investment” some amount of debt was unavoidable and tolerable. A review undertaken after the Wenzhou accident, he added, addressed safety concerns and the network had maintained an excellent safety record since. He also argued that for India, where land is scarce, high-speed rail built on elevated tracks and does not require acquisition of farmland is a good solution. But Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University who has been critical of the high-speed network, argued that while the lines may free up more rail track for freight, it prices out passengers. Building a dedicated freight corridor, he suggests, is a better financial investment.

Demolition of Berlin Wall stretch stalled by protests

Hundreds of protesters gathered on 1st March 2013 at the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall for an angry standoff with developers who removed a small section of the structure to make way for a luxury block of flats.

About 1.5 metres of the East Side Gallery was taken down before protests brought an end to the work.

A further 18.5-metre stretch is due to be dismantled to allow access between the 36-flat complex and the banks of the river Spree, which flows adjacent to the 1.3-km-long Gallery.

Protesters brought in a mock wall section to try to fill in the gap. Some carried banners, one of which read: “Mr. Wowereit, don’t tear down this wall” — an appeal to Berlin’s Social Democrat Mayor Klaus Wowereit, and a veiled reference to a 1987 speech made at the wall by Ronald Reagan in which the then U.S. President urged the Soviet leader: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Another protester’s sign read: “Does culture no longer have any value?”

Most of the Berlin Wall, which divided East and West Germany for 28 years, was torn down and carted off to museums, ground into grit for autobahns or sold to tourists following the collapse of the iron curtain, but the section now under dispute was turned into an open-air art gallery.

Colourful murals:-

About 120 international artists were invited to plaster it with colourful murals, as the strip of wall carried none of the colourful graffiti that had covered the western side. In 2009 the murals were renovated at a cost of € two million.

The murals include depictions of the former Soviet and East German leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in a passionate clinch, and a Trabant car bursting through the wall.

Fading glory of America’s railways

If there is one thing that the history of America’s experience with railroad construction teaches, it is that globalisation happened long before the Internet, indeed even much further back in time than the 20th century’s neat reorganisation of post-colonial territories into nation-states.

Arguably one of the most remarkable books documenting the evolution of the mighty transcontinental railroad, the 3,200-kilometre “economic umbilical cord” linking the “mother states of the East with the fledgling California on the West,” is Stephen Ambrose’s “Nothing Like It In The World.”

Providing compelling details on the railroad’s construction leading to its comparison with the Great Wall of China, Pyramids of Giza and Panama Canal, Mr. Ambrose described how workers in this mega-project included not only demobilised Union and Confederate soldiers, former slaves, new Irish, Cornish and German immigrants, Mormons from Salt Lake City; but also “the courageous, disciplined Chinese,” who sought to escape the poverty and terrors of the Taiping Revolution.

While Mr. Ambrose regretted discovering that that the Chinese “had left virtually no letters or personal accounts about the project,” reviewer Henry Kisor noted, their stories centred on “efficient, self-effacing teamwork” stole Mr. Ambrose's heart as he narrated the railroad’s growth from an everyman perspective.

In the early years of its planning – the active phase of work was during 1863-69 – the transcontinental line also had memorable brushes with greatness in American history.

In Mr. Ambrose’s account, a Republican politician from Illinois once came to Council Bluffs settlement in Iowa to make a speech on August 13, 1859, a hot day. When he met 28-year-old railroad engineer Grenville Mellen Dodge at the event he vigorously quizzed the man on the ideal route for a Pacific railroad to the West.

Later, Mr. Dodge said of the politician, “He shelled my woods completely and got all the information I'd collected.” The politician’s name, Mr. Dodge discovered, was Abraham Lincoln – and the future President was actually “a farsighted railroad lawyer before the Civil War,” whose advice may have well influenced the railroad’s choice of starting point – Council Bluffs.

The frontier sagas of these early railroad developers are truly wondrous stories – of the courage and fortitude of manual labourers using horses and mules and sometimes gun powder to blast frozen snow off the tracks, of their battles against Native Americans who saw their way of life being eroded – but also chronicles of corporate looting.

Mr. Kisor, for instance, speaks of the “powerful pirates who created the Crédit Mobilier for the Union Pacific Railroad and the Contract and Finance Company for the Central Pacific Railroad – granting lucrative construction contracts to themselves while nearly bankrupting the railroads they owned.”

In some ways these early entanglements of railway companies with financial impropriety and their ultimately dissolution were warning signs of things to come, and in some senses continue to plague railway development even in the modern age.

There is plenty to be unhappy about. Despite acute, 21st-century hand-wringing over the enormous carbon footprint of air and road travel, America’s love affair with, indeed addiction to, planes and cars shows no signs of abating. Despite the railways’ environment-friendly approach to mass-transport problems in an era of pollutant profligacy a bitterly polarised federal government in Washington has balked at investing in it seriously.

For the longest time this did not matter. From the point when the transcontinental railroad connected the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of the U.S. in the mid-19th century until approximately 1920, nearly all inter-city travellers relied on rail. Yet the rise of the automobile, particularly the emergence of the Greyhound Bus Company and the mushrooming of the National Highway System, cut into the popularity of rail.

Despite a doubling of train speeds during 1919-59 – or perhaps because of the contradictions set in motion by the technology that made that possible – privately-operated railway companies sunk into chronic decline as their managements contended with onerous rate-setting by the Interstate Commerce Commission and with inflexible unions.

With the railway dream in danger of fading out entirely in the 1960s the federal government prudently stepped in. In 1970 President Richard Nixon and a cooperating Congress passed into law the Rail Passenger Service Act – and with the stroke of a pen Amtrak was born.

Today Amtrak, which continues to be a semi-public-funded service operated and managed as a for-profit corporation, operates 300-plus trains daily over approximately 34,000 kilometres of track, at speeds up to 240 kilometres//hour, according to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation.

It also links more than 500 destinations in 46 states and three Canadian provinces and in FY2012 it carried a record 31.2 million passengers, earning $2.02 billion in revenue while employing more than 20,000 people, according to Amtrak data.

Impressive though these numbers may sound, they pale relative to comparable statistics for air and road travel. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics passenger-miles for rail – including transit, commuter and Amtrak/inter-city rail – was 30.9 billion. Yet for air travel it was 583.6 billion and for highway travel – including cars, motorcycles, trucks and buses – a staggering 4.8 trillion.

It would perhaps seem obvious from both an environmental and economic viewpoint that deeper investments into railways, perhaps by taking rail travel to the next level via high-speed trains, ought to be the next step. Indeed nations such as China and Japan, in their varying stages of relative economic development have embarked precisely on such a venture.

Yet Washington has again played spoiler to President Barack Obama’s ambitious post-recession funding plans for high speed rail, with resistance primarily stemming from Republican-controlled states such as Florida. Although a few states such as California have bucked this trend and voted to start high-speed rail projects, the death-blow any dream that Mr. Obama may have had for a nation-wide network may have already been struck.

While the President in his 2011 State of the Union speech outlined a plan for a $53-billion six-year starter project Congressional Republicans stymied his hopes of passing a budget that included these monies, instead actually threatening to claw back even the paltry $10 billion that had been spent already across “dozens of projects across the country.”

Even worse, Republican Governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin “decided to reject billions of dollars in federal rail money that their predecessors had sought and won, arguing that the projects would be costly boondoggles,” the New York Times observed in 2011. It added that Florida had spurned $2.4 billion that would have nearly paid for the nation’s first high-speed train, connecting bustling Tampa and Disney-World-host Orlando.

In many ways the direction that U.S. railway development takes from here depends entirely on the inclusiveness of the vision its people and their leaders have for this nation. Similar to the visceral questions posed during the healthcare reform debate – will America be all about rugged individualists striking it out on their own in a Darwinian economic paradigm? Or will concern for the environment, care for distributive fairness and a sense of consideration for future generations triumph?

Depending on the answers to these complex questions the country will decide on whether to build up its rail infrastructure into the envy of the world – as it is well capable of doing – or let it painfully get degraded until it ultimately becomes an entirely unviable mode of transportation.

Laptops for Tehsildars soon: Andhra Pradesh

Government to take up final phase of land distribution

Tehsildars of all the 1,122 mandals in the State will be given laptops and all districts will be provided with digital GPS equipment for survey of lands during 2013-14 as part of total digitisation of the Revenue Department, Minister for Revenue N. Raghuveera Reddy has stated.

Speaking at the regional revenue officers meeting here on Saturday, the Minister said the laptops would enable the Tehsildars function while on the move and could provide required information to higher authorities instantly. About 95 per cent of revenue (land) records were already computerised and the remaining would be digitised soon.

The government would take up seventh and final phase of land distribution in two to three months, the Minister said and directed the revenue officials to identify all government lands suitable for agriculture so that all landless poor in the State could be given a sense of pride and self-esteem along with the piece of land.

The Minister told the officials to identify all other government lands, take steps for their protection and identify all tenant farmers apart from other specified tasks during the Revenue Sadassus to be held in over 27,000 villages in the State from March 9 to April 10. They should aim for issuance of Loan Eligibility Certificates (LECs) to about 15 lakh licensed cultivators, including over 5 lakh renewals by April-end, the Minister said.

Filling of another 7,000 vacancies in the department would be taken up in the next four-five months and approval of new urban and revenue mandals and divisions, which was delayed due to the Legislative Council elections, would also be done in a couple of days, the Minister stated.

CBSE X Board exam rolls out with maths

Students discuss the question paper after exams.

The CBSE Class X Board examinations got under way on 2nd March 2013 with the Mathematics exam.

For students good at the subject, it was the best start they could ask for. But, students with no particular love for the subject entered the exam hall with a prayer on their lips not to have their confidence shattered by the end of the three-hour ordeal.

Saturday’s exam went particularly well for Anima of Nalanda Public School even though she does have a strong taste for Maths. “The exam was quite easy and there was enough time to answer all the questions,” she said emerging out of the exam hall at Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Vaduthala.

Ankit Kumar, a student of Greets Public School, was poring over the question paper to evaluate how well he had performed in the exam. “I skipped a few questions on Geometry. It was not because the questions were tough, but I had not studied that portion,” he candidly admitted.

Ashmal Joseph of Campion School also left a couple of problems unsolved. “It was a relatively easy paper where it was definitely possible to score full marks,” he said.

Pushpa Santhosh, a Mathematics faculty at Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Vaduthala, found the paper quite easy in keeping with the tradition of board exams. “Ninety per cent of the questions were from the textbooks. It was definitely possible for students to score cent percent marks,” she said.

As there is no exam to be conducted on 3rd March 2013, students were seen hanging about near the exam centre, long after the exam was done with.

Eat right, live life

All for inner beauty: Udita Goswami.

Actor Udita Goswami believes in eating right, never follows a diet chart

Fitness is all about the internal fitness of the body, so you should take care of your body than just look good. That’s view of noted actor Udita Goswami. Talking about the secret behind remaining fit, Udita, in New Delhi to launch a facial aesthetic product, Juvederm Refine, says, “Our body needs all types of nutrients for its proper functioning which includes proteins, vitamins and carbohydrates, etc. So, one should eat all kinds of food. I don’t feel if anyone who takes a balanced diet which includes fats as well, can’t stay fit.” One thumb rule that works for her is, “eating neither more nor less.”

“I eat right food, nutritious food. I don’t follow any diet chart.”

Udita, recently married to Mohit Suri, the director of films like Kalyug, doesn’t fit the size zero category. She says she doesn’t want to. Instead, the actor urges those who want to be so “to not to deprive their body of food because that can have side effects which can harm the body a lot in later years.”

Though yoga is often considered a sure shot way to keep fit, she doesn’t practice it. “I used to do light exercises earlier but currently I do not do anything much. To tone up my body, I run,” she says.

Udita says she doesn’t believe in all commercial beauty products but “a few of them really work well.”

“It’s all about consulting someone who knows well about skin and the kind of treatment it needs. One has to go to the right place for advice. This is the most essential, according to me.”

About work, the actor seen in films like Paap, Diary of a Butterfly among others, says, “I am currently working on a film script. I will also be directing the film.”

Budget 2013-14: Middle class will pay more

AT first glance, the budget may appear harmless to the middle-class. In fact, it might even appear friendly what with all those improvements in housing loan deductions and stock market investments. But make no mistake, this budget will bite the average citizen in more ways than one.

Pay more to ea:-

Just take the seemingly innocuous proposal to impose service tax on all air-conditioned restaurants. With most decent restaurants — we are not talking of the up-market ones here — climate-controlled, eating out will become at least another 12 per cent more expensive. Remember that restaurants are in the process of revising their price-lists even now with rising prices of food commodities.

Pay more to talk:-

Cellular phones are now a necessity and smartphones are increasingly becoming so as they help you do your daily business on the go. As much as 97 per cent of all telephone connections in the country are cellular. Yet, smart phones (or phones that cost more than Rs.2,000) will now become pricier with the sharp rise in excise duty to 6 per cent from 1 per cent. Apart from driving business to the grey market, this proposal will also undo the efforts to push people into using their mobiles extensively for transactions.

Pay more to watch:-

Mr. Chidambaram has also not spared entertainment. The four metros are now compulsorily digitised for cable connections but the Finance Minister has doubled the import duty on set-top boxes to 10 per cent making them costlier in an environment where the citizen has little choice but to comply. Never mind that the country may not have enough capacity to produce set-top boxes on the scale required. The priority is to protect those who are in that business.

Pay more to travel:-

Apart from these, the allocation made for fuel subsidy is also lower which means that the Centre is well set on its course of freeing prices of petroleum products. This, in turn, means that diesel and cooking gas will see a sustained rise in price if global oil prices do not retreat.

Mr. Chidambaram has also made property transactions more cumbersome. Henceforth, buyers of immovable property will have to deduct a tax of 1 per cent of the sale value where it exceeds Rs.50 lakh and remit it to the tax department.

With the pain, some gain:-

Balancing these proposals that will be painful to the middle-class as a whole, are the ones that will cheer a section — investors — and those planning to buy a house. The tweaked Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme appears friendlier and will help those looking to invest in the stock market and also get a tax-break in the process. The reduction in securities transaction tax and the soon-to-come inflation-indexed bonds should also cheer up investors.

Similarly, the generous interest deduction on housing loans of Rs.1 lakh, in addition to the Rs.1.5 lakh already available, will go a long way in pushing the fence-sitters to invest in a house.

Your Personality Depends On How You Sleep At Night

How do you sleep at night? Do you sleep on your tummy with limbs out-stretched? Do you lay curled up in a fetal position? Or do you sleep like a log? It is probably safe to say that most of you do not think much about the way you get your Zzzs at night. But would you if you knew that the way you sleep could tell a lot about the type of personality you have?

According to body language expert Robert Phipps, the way people sleep at night actually determines a lot about the type of personality they have. In a new study on the topic, Phipps has identified four sleeping positions that affect personality.

“Our sleeping position can determine how we feel when we wake,” said Phipps.

The study was carried out as part of a survey for Premier Inn, one of the largest hotel chains in the UK. Hotel spokeswoman Claire Haigh said: “We were shocked the research revealed just how stressed we are. It is important we try to wind down after a long day and get a good night’s rest so we wake up refreshed.”

Phipps found that worriers, those who stress the most, tend to sleep in the fetal position. He found that this is by far the most common bedtime position, with nearly 58 percent of snoozers sleeping on their side with knees up and head down. The more we curl up, the more comfort we are seeking, according to Phipps.

The second most common position is the log. People who sleep with a straight body, with arms at the side, as if they are standing guard at Buckingham Palace, indicates stubbornness, and these people (the 28 percent who sleep this way) often wake up stiffer than when they went to sleep.

“The longer you sleep like this, the more rigid your thinking and you can become inflexible, which means you make things harder for yourself,” according to Phipps.

Yearner sleepers are next on the list. About 25 percent of people sleep in this style–on their backs with arms stretched out in front, looking as if they are either chasing a dream or perhaps being chased themselves. Yearners are typically their own worst critics, always expecting great results, explained Phipps. These people often wake up refreshed and eager to face the challenges of the day ahead.

However, he warned to “make sure what you yearn for is what you really want or you’ll spend a lot of wasted time and energy.”

Perhaps the most peculiar of sleep styles is the freefaller position. This sleep style makes up 17 percent of the population. They sleep face down with arms stretched out. These people, according to Phipps, feel like they have little control over their life. Not only is this the oddest of sleep styles, it also the least comfortable, and people may wake up feeling tired and have no energy.

In conclusion, Phipps has only one more thing to add: “A good night’s sleep sets you up for the following day and our sleeping positions can determine how we feel when we wake.”

SmartBall to get rolling in city pipelines soon

Novel technology to detect leakage points in supply mains

A smart ball will soon start rolling through pipelines in the city as part of the Kerala Water Authority’s (KWA) decision to introduce a novel technology to detect leakage points.

An acoustic leak-detection sensor developed by Canada-based Pure Technologies Ltd, the foam ball is a free-swimming inline leak-detection system designed to operate in live water mains. SmartBall has an instrument-filled aluminium alloy core capable of detecting and locating very small leaks and air pockets in pipelines. It is inserted into a pipeline to travel with the water and collect information on leakage points.

Senior KWA officials said the technology would be employed on an experimental basis in the pipeline between Kathrikadavu and Kadavantra. The 450 mm diameter GI pipeline is connected to the KWA’s water storage facility near the GCDA building in Kadavantra.

The pipeline from Kathrikadavu to Kadavantra was laid with an objective of taking water to the storage point at the GCDA junction. The pipeline was set up to meet the increasing need for water during periods of acute water scarcity.

Inspections found that water was not reaching the storage point, as it was mainly used for local distribution. Besides the illegal connections that snatch water away from this network, leakage is suspected to be a reason for the shortage of water to fill up the storage tank.

KWA had recently found that only 104 mld (million litres per day) of drinking water was accounted for out of the total 168 mld reaching the city from the pumping station in Aluva. Illegal connections and water theft are the prime causes for this widening gap between supply and billing.

The SmartBall, which can be inserted and retrieved from a pipeline under normal operation, will also provide information on water theft along the line. The ball travels with the water flow for up to 12 hours, collecting information about leaks over many miles of pipeline with a single deployment.

Its acoustic sensor passes through the entire length of pipe being surveyed. The sensor can clearly discern the acoustic activity associated with leaks. This data is recorded and post-processed to report the presence and location of leaks.

SmartBall calculates the locations of leaks by detecting acoustic pulses emitted by the ball at receivers attached to pipe appurtenances. The locations of the leaks relative to the receiver positions are determined by analysing arrival times of the pulses.

Teenage Girls Drug Parents To Use The Internet After Hours

Apparently, some teenagers REALLY love using the Internet. A 16-year-old California girl is being investigated by local police after she and a 15-year-old friend reportedly drugged her parents in order to get around a curfew preventing the two teenagers from going online after hours.

The unnamed Rocklin native and her alleged accomplice were attempting to get around the household’s 10pm ban on Web surfing by spiking her parent’s milkshakes with ground-up sleeping pills.

Mom and Dad reportedly only consumed about one-fourth of the drinks, but that was enough to knock them out for several hours, according to Brittany Hillen. They awoke at 1am nursing hangover-like symptoms, before falling asleep and waking up again in the morning.

“Suspecting that something was up, they bought a drug testing kit and tested themselves, with the test showing positive results. Presumably they then questioned their daughter, since a few hours later, they showed up with her at the local police station,” Hillen said.

Lieutenant Lon Milka of the Rocklin police department told that the situation was still under investigation, but that the medication used in the milkshakes had been provided by an also-unidentified third individual who lived in the nearby town of Roseville.

Milka said that they were looking into how much of the drug had been used in the drinks. In the meantime, the girls have been charged with conspiracy and mixing a pharmaceutical into food. They were booked on New Year’s Eve and are awaiting trial at the Placer County juvenile detention center.

“If they were adults, they could be facing prison time” the police lieutenant told.

He added that the two girls “wanted to use the Internet, and they’d go to whatever means they had to,” and that investigators were not sure exactly why they wanted to get back online so badly, but noted that “for our investigation, that wasn’t as important as the drugging with the milkshake.”

China shuts down 225 pornography websites

In a new crackdown on online pornography, China has shut down 225 websites and other content sharing and social media sites, the government said.

More than 30,000 blog or microblog accounts were also closed during a campaign that started late last month, according to a statement released by the State Internet Information Office (SIIO).

Among the websites were several photo-sharing, video-sharing and gaming websites that were not registered with the government, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.

Over 79,000 tips regarding more than 450 websites were received during the campaign, the statement said.

The SIIO, together with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the Ministry of Public Security, is investigating enterprises that illegally allow providers of obscene content to obtain Internet access, as well as people who run pornographic websites, according to the

statement.

The MIIT will also launch a nationwide campaign to crack down on unregistered websites and those that operate using forged licenses or illegal Internet access.

A separate campaign to prevent gaming and video-sharing websites from offering obscene content will also be carried

out.

The office urged tougher measures to punish website operators that profit from spreading obscene content or offering illegal Internet access.

Google fast replacing grandparents as 'advice guru'

Modern-day kids are increasingly turning to the Internet to solve queries about simple chores rather than seeking advice from their experienced grandparents, a new UK survey has claimed.

Older generations are being replaced by Google, Wikipedia and YouTube, with their grandchildren searching online to solve queries about basic chores, researchers found.

Less than one in four grandparents said they have been asked for advice on basic domestic chores such as washing clothes, learning to cook a family recipe or sewing a button.

Just a third of those surveyed said they had been asked "what was it like when you were young?".

Ninety-six per cent said they asked far more questions of their grandparents when they were young, The Telegraph reported.

The survey of 1,500 grandparents found that children are instead increasingly using the Internet to answer simple questions.

It found almost two thirds of grandparents feel their traditional role is becoming less and less important in modern family life.

"Grandparents believe they are being sidelined by Google, YouTube, Wikipedia and the huge resource of advice available on the internet," said Susan Fermor, of cleaning specialist Dr Beckmann, which commissioned the research.

"They are aware that their grandchildren already with their noses buried in a laptop, tablet computer or smartphone find it much easier to search the Internet for instant advice," Fermor said.

"Previous generations of grandparents haven't experienced this phenomena because the internet is still very much in its infancy and is less than a generation old in real terms," Fermor added.

South District Police in New Delhi Announced New Measures for Tightening Security

Considering the horrifying Delhi gangrape that took place on 16 December 2012, the south district police in New Delhi announced certain measures for improvisation of the security especially during the peak hours of the evening as well as night.

All the ACPs, SHOs as well as additional SHOs were asked to monitor and keep a close watch on their particular areas between 6 pm to midnight.

Also, the senior police officers deployed their permanent staff at the key bus stops in district, mainly on Ring Road. Apart from this, the middle-level police officers were asked to keep their presence at these areas intact.
 
Delhi Police also increased the number of their Emergency Response Vehicles (ERV) in district. At the important markets as well as Metro stations, beat staff was made mandatory with two motorbikes.

How to win friends

Unable to become popular on Facebook? What are apps for!

Feeling depressed? Can’t focus on work? Lost your appetite? Can’t sleep at nights? Millions of people are suffering from the same symptoms that you are. And the problem is the same — you are unable to become popular on Facebook. So how do you know if people really want to be your friend? Take the following test and find out. Respond to each statement with a simple Yes or No.

You reach the bottom of your Facebook page without scrolling down even once.

The only message that you see prominently is that ‘There are no older posts left to show’.

A whole week passes and none of your friends is celebrating a birthday.

Nobody has poked you or has sent you a quiz on which animal you resemble while sleeping.

You have never been tagged in a photo.

You stay away from Facebook for a whole day, but no one wants to know why.

No comment of yours has ever been shared.

None of your posts have been liked.

Your friend requests rarely get accepted.

You never get invited to join the Uvula Lovers page or the I Miss Bell-bottoms group.

If you have said ‘Yes’ to even one of these statements, you have a problem. However, it’s not the end of the world. (And we’re not saying that just because December 21 has come and gone.) An expert application software developer has come forward with a host of free apps that you can download and change your destiny.

LIKE (Liv It Kewl Enterprise) is a start-up founded by Shawn Fanning, who, after the Napster debacle, realised he didn’t have a friend in the world — or at least on Facebook. So he decided to do something about it — and the result was LIKE apps. Here are the most downloaded ones:

Paris Hilton app — This helps present your best-looking friends and celebs right at the top of your friends list when someone is looking through your profile page or timeline.

FILO (First In Last Out) app — Regardless of whenever you respond to anyone’s update, your comment will always be seen as the most recent one, with all the other comments collapsed under ‘View 83 more comments’.

Fevicol app — Your post will stick to the top half of the screen even if there are a zillion posts before yours, so your friends can see your status update without having to scroll down and will never miss out on what you have to say.

Terminator app — You thought you were the first to comment on the topic. You were sure that yours was the smartest one-liner. You were wrong. The bad news is that the whole world posted on it. And worse — every other comment has more ‘likes’ than yours. The Terminator app comes in handy during such times — to locate and delete all other comments that have the same key words.

Boomerang app — Imagine writing a message loaded with terms of endearment, sending it and then realising that you’ve got the recipient wrong. The Boomerang app, once activated, will find the message and fling it right back into your inbox.

John Doe app — Someone irritating you? Someone updating their status 200 times a day, flooding your page with their wreckage? Blocking their posts is mild. You could do better with the John Doe app which allows you to post nasty comments without revealing your identity.

If you’re not sure about any of these apps, just share them on Facebook and see the results. After all, that’s what friends are for.