TOI Social Impact Awards: An evening to honour India's changemakers

They took the path less travelled, and on Monday it will lead a group of remarkable men and women to the stage for the second Times of India Social Impact Awards in association with J P Morgan. The awards are being given to changemakers within NGOs, corporates and the government who have quietly worked to transform the lives of millions of marginalized Indians.

President Pranab Mukherjee will be the chief guest at the awards function. Joining him, and a power-packed audience consisting of top achievers from diverse fields, will be beneficiaries of the organisations selected for the awards.

For some beneficiaries, this visit to the capital will mark the first time they have travelled beyond the boundaries of their district. Awards in 17 categories will be presented by the beneficiaries.

The awardees and beneficiaries collectively represent the very best of India in all its fascinating diversity. They range from nine-year-old Jyoti Prajapat from Ajmer district to 83-year-old Thokchom Ramani Leima from Imphal. Jyoti will join 10-year-old Ujala Kumari from Delhi to present the award for educat8ion in the NGO sector to Room to Read India, whose libraries gave both girls an abiding love for reading. Leima will take the stage with four other women members of Meira Paibi, the fearless group of women from Manipur who will share the Lifetime Achievement Award with the Naga Mothers Association. The two groups have battled social evils like alcoholism and drug abuse, and spearheaded peace efforts in the insurgency-ridden region.

Others who will present awards include Sarjubai Meena, a grandmother from Bhilwara who is known as the "woman with the turban". Sarjubai will present the award for Environment in the NGO category to the Foundation for Ecological Security, which helped her and others turn the village into a fertile, prosperous one, in which Sarjubai, a dalit woman, now feels she has earned the right to wear a turban.

Eleven-year-old twins Hiranya and Thiruvara Bhargavi who were born with cerebral palsy, will present the award for health in the Government category to the National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities, whose pioneering insurance scheme helped them access life-saving surgeries.

The hunt for India's real heroes began in August last year when the Times of India invited applications from NGOs, corporates and government organisations in five categories: livelihoods, advocacy and empowerment, education, health and the environment. Online applications were accepted between October 2 and 30, 2012 through a dedicated website. A National Search Panel of eight eminent persons with long experience in the development sector was also constituted in early August, which identified 126 organisations worth consideration, who were then motivated to apply.

Facebook and Twitter pages helped answer questions about application procedures and kick-start a discussion. Finally, over 1500 entries were received, spanning the length and breadth of the country. The majority of applications were from NGOs.

The eight key parameters to evaluate the entries were significance of the issue addressed, scale, replicability, sustainability, finances, people's participation, innovativeness and promotion of equity. Every claim had to be backed up with documents and financial details had to be transparent. A specialist group consisting of philanthropy specialists from Dasra, GiveIndia and GuideStar India screened the entries and 20 sector-experts then evaluated these entries to prepare a final shortlist of 41 entries. TOI reporters conducted field visits of each entry.

An eminent jury comprising Unique Identification Authority of India chairperson Nandan Nilekani; Magsaysay awardee and National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy; former Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra; Magsaysay awardee and former Chief Election Commissioner J M Lyngdoh; Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed; former chairperson of Thermax Limited and Rajya Sabha MP Anu Aga; Centre for Science and Education director-general Sunita Narain and HDFC Bank chairperson Deepak Parekh spent an afternoon debating and discussing, before selecting the winners. The jury also nominated a Global Contribution to India award winner and a Lifetime Achievement award winner.

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Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

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Brazil Nightclub Fire Deadliest in More Than Decade

A fast-moving fire roared through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, within seconds filling the space with flames and a thick, toxic smoke that killed more than 230 panicked partygoers who gasped for breath and fought in a stampede to escape.

It appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.

Firefighters responding to the blaze at first had trouble getting inside the Kiss nightclub because bodies partially blocked the club's entryway.

Witnesses said a flare or firework lit by band members started the blaze in Santa Maria, a university city of about 260,000 people. Officials at a news conference said the cause was still under investigation — though police inspector Sandro Meinerz told the Agencia Estado news agency the band was to blame for a pyrotechnics show and that manslaughter charges could be filed.

Television images showed black smoke billowing out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless young men who had attended a university party joined firefighters using axes and sledgehammers to pound at windows and hot-pink exterior walls to free those trapped inside.

Bodies of the dead and injured were strewn in the street and panicked screams filled the air as medics tried to help. There was little to be done; officials said most of those who died were suffocated by smoke within minutes.

Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images

Within hours a community gym was a horror scene, with body after body lined up on the floor, partially covered with black plastic as family members identified kin.

Outside the gym police held up personal objects — a black purse, a blue high-heeled shoe — as people seeking information on loved ones looked crowded around, hoping not to recognize anything being shown them.

Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper that firefighters had a hard time getting inside the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance."

Teenagers sprinted from the scene after the fire began, desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, Silva said.

Another survivor, Michele Pereira, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage when members of the band lit flares that started the conflagration.

"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."

Guitarist Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, started playing at 2:15 a.m. "and we had played around five songs when I looked up and noticed the roof was burning"

"It might have happened because of the Sputnik, the machine we use to create a luminous effect with sparks. It's harmless, we never had any trouble with it.

"When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working"

He confirmed that accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.

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Senate’s pragmatic ranks depleted by one with Chambliss’s departure

The trio of Southern gentlemen came to the Senate together in 2003, the leading edge of a renegade Republican class set on shaking up the chamber’s staid ways and aggressively promoting the Bush White House’s conservative agenda.

Ten years later, Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) are now establishment dealmakers and elder statesmen — roles that earn them respect in Washington but could lead to tough challenges from fellow Republicans when they run for re-election next year.

On Friday, Chambliss announced that there would be no re-election for him, opting for retirement over another run that was certain to include a heated primary challenge, possibly from several candidates. Chambliss took pains to say that he would have won and instead cited Washington “gridlock” as his reason for retiring.

Regardless, Chambliss’s departure is another blow to the pragmatic wing of the Senate, with a lineup of potential successors all hailing from the staunchly conservative camp of the Georgia GOP.

Chambliss’s successor is likely to contribute to a rightward movement over the past four years that has made the ranks of Senate Republicans more conservative, but also led to repeated political disappointment. A handful of 2010 and 2012 Republican primaries produced nominees who bungled their way to general election defeat, when victory once appeared certain.

What happens with the other two Southerners could go a long way to determining the ideological makeup of the Senate Republican caucus.

Alexander and Graham are both running, raising money and appearing throughout their states. Alexander, a former two-term governor and U.S. education secretary, has the stronger footing for the moment, having locked up the endorsements of his state’s GOP congressional delegation and every prominent Republican state official. Graham has no prominent challenger yet, but Palmetto State Republicans are sizing up the race trying to decide if he’s ripe for a challenge.

That Alexander, Chambliss and Graham have found themselves in this situation, a decade after debuting as rabble rousers who helped return the chamber to GOP control, is the latest demonstration of how much the Republican Party has changed. Its voters more than ever demand a confrontational tone and in-your-face tactics, the sort of behavior that they have shied away from.

“The big change is in terms of strategy and tactics,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, noting that the three incumbents are all fairly conservative in their policy positions. “The war has changed. Republican voters want every fight to be hand-to-hand combat. They don’t want to give any ground.”

Alexander rejected the idea that the trio had “gone Washington” as they each became more powerful. “I know my way around here. We’re each finding our niche, and that’s pretty normal after 10 years,” he said in a recent interview.

Before his Friday announcement, Chambliss had been viewed as the most vulnerable Republican incumbent to a challenge from within. His apostasies to the new Republican posture were numerous in recent years, most prominently being his close partnership with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) in an effort to craft a bipartisan package of tax hikes and entitlement cuts to rein in the federal government’s $16.4 trillion debt.

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Germany has 'everlasting responsibility' for Nazi crimes: Merkel

 

BERLIN: Germany has "an everlasting responsibility" for the crimes committed by the Nazis, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday, just days ahead of the 80th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's takeover of power.

"Naturally, we have an everlasting responsibility for the crimes of national-socialism, for the victims of World War II, and above all, for the Holocaust," Merkel said in a podcast on her website.

Her remarks came as the world prepares to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27, the date in 1945 when the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp in then occupied Poland.

In another significant date, Wednesday will mark eight decades since Hitler was appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933 by then president Paul von Hindenburg.

"We must clearly say, generation after generation, and say it again: with courage, civil courage, each individual can help ensure that racism and anti-Semitism have no chance," Merkel added.

"We're facing our history, we're not hiding anything, we're not repressing anything. We must confront this to make sure we are a good and trustworthy partner in the future, as we already are today, thankfully," she said.

- AFP/jc

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Dramatic plunge in number of terror alerts for R-Day

NEW DELHI: Though security forces were on highest state of alert across the country to ensure a safe Republic Day, sources said there had been a dramatic drop in the number of serious intelligence alerts about terror threat to this year's January 26 celebrations. In fact, sources said that for the first time in several years there was no specific dependable threat to the RD parade on Rajpath.

There had been just about two dozen inputs from intelligence agencies together in the run up to RD preparations, and that too all of them vague in nature. This is in contrast to the flow of hundreds of warnings from all over the country and outside about possible terror plots to Republic Day celebrations in the past.

The drop in alerts was most visible in case of Delhi. Year after year, Indian security establishment is used to receiving sensational warnings about terrorist plans to target the parade in Delhi where the entire top brass of the Indian establishment led by the President is in attendance. This year, for the first time in many years, there was not a single alert about any specific terror threat to the national parade.

The dramatic drop in alerts could in fact be reflective of the reduction in terrorist threat to India itself, some sources in the security establishment argue. They said there have been multiple factors at work in recent times. For one, threat from home grown terror and Kashmir insurgency has drastically come down.

Despite some alarmist claims recently, Kashmir insurgency has hugely dropped in recent years with 2012 recording lowest parameters of violence and militancy since late 80s. Those who have been watching insurgency across India say they are seeing Kashmir militancy dropping to extortion and such motives, and driven by motives than reasons of ideology.

Only credible input this year from J&K was about possible efforts by some miscreants to create public unrest in Jammu region.

In Maoist region there was just one general alert. Most alerts this year came from Northeast, but they were also generic in nature.

In September, foreign intelligence agencies had warned Indian counter parts about a possible plot to carry out attacks during Republic Day by Lashkar-e-Toiba and Tehrik-e-Pakistan. However, it was assessed not very reliable but the Delhi police was alerted in routine.

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Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

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Newtown Families March for Gun Control in DC

Jan 26, 2013 4:59pm

(YURI GRIPAS/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Near-freezing temperatures didn’t stop several thousand gun-control activists from bearing their pickets today, carrying signs emblazoned with “Ban Assault Weapons Now” and the names of gun violence victims in a demonstration organized as a response to the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. last month.

Walking in silence, the demonstrators trudged between Capitol Hill and the Washington Monument over a thin layer of melting snow. They were joined by politicians and some families of the Newtown victims.

March organizer Shannon Watts said the event was for the “families who lost the lights of their lives in Newtown, daughters and sons, wives and mothers, grandchildren, sisters and brothers gone in an unfathomable instant.”

“Let’s stand together and use our voices, use our votes to let legislators know that we won’t stand down until they enact common sense gun control laws that will keep our children out of the line of fire,” she told demonstrators.

Watts founded One Million Moms for Gun Control after the killing of 20 first graders and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in December. In a profile with the New York Times, Watts said her 12-year-old son had suffered panic attacks after learning of last summer’s Aurora, Colo., theater shooting, leaving her at an impasse over how to talk to him about the latest tragedy.

Also among the speakers was a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, Collin Goddard.

“We need to challenge any politician who thinks it’s easier to ask an elementary school teacher to stand up to a gunman with an AR-15 than it is to ask them to stand up to a gun lobbyist with a checkbook,” he said.

The demonstration comes amid a push by progressive lawmakers to enact stricter gun control measures as a response to the trend of recent mass killings, although any hypothetical bill would likely face strong opposition in Congress.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., was among the demonstrators today.

“The idea that people need high-capacity magazines that can fire 30, 50, 100 rounds has no place in a civilized society,” he said. “Between the time we’re gathered here right now and this time of day tomorrow, across America, 282 Americans will have been shot.”

The congressman was quoting statistics compiled by the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence.

INFOGRAPHIC: Guns by the Numbers

Last week President Obama proposed a sweeping overhaul of federal measures regulating gun ownership, including a universal background check system for sales, banning assault weapons,  and curbing the amount of ammunition available in weapon clips.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released Thursday found 53 percent of Americans viewed Obama’s gun control plan favorably, 41 percent unfavorably. The division was visible today, as a handful of gun-rights advocates also turned out on the National Mall to protest what they believe would be infringements on their Second Amendment liberties.

ABC’s Joanne Fuchs contributed to this report.

SHOWS: Good Morning America World News

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Obama praises 'extraordinary' Clinton in joint interview

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama Friday heaped praise on outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a rare joint interview set to renew speculation that she will run for president in 2016.

The joint sit-down interview with CBS television, which was filmed at the White House, was apparently Obama's idea.

"I just wanted to have a chance to publicly say thank you, because I think Hillary will go down as one of the finest secretaries of state we've had," Obama said in an excerpt shown on CBS ahead of Sunday's "60 Minutes" program.

"It has been a great collaboration over the last four years. I'm going to miss her," he added, saying he wished she was staying on.

Many people were surprised when Obama named Clinton to be his secretary of state, after the two fought a long and bitter battle for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in the 2008 elections.

Clinton was just beaten by Obama in the historic race, which went down to the wire, and many observers believe she could well try again to become the nation's first woman president in the 2016 elections.

A public endorsement by the sitting president would give added weight to her candidacy -- although she is already riding high in the popularity stakes with an approval rating of around 65 per cent.

"I want the country to appreciate just what an extraordinary role she's played during the course of my administration and a lot of the successes we've had internationally because of her hard work," Obama added.

Clinton, who is tapped to be replaced in the coming days by Senator John Kerry, acknowledged that it would have seemed "improbable" that she would have joined forces with Obama a few years ago.

But she said she had used her 2008 defeat as a useful lesson about the workings of democracy in her travels.

"I think it helps them understand. I say, look, in politics and in democracy, sometimes you win elections; sometimes you lose elections," she said.

"I worked very hard but I lost and then President Obama asked me to be secretary of state and I said yes and why did he ask me and why did I say yes? Because we both love our country."

Obama rarely sits down for joint interviews with anyone other than his wife, Michelle. An exception was one he gave with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy in November 2011 on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Cannes.

- AFP/jc

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Bihar 'imports' babus as IAS shortfall hits work

PATNA: Bihar's IAS cadre strength is 326, but only 198 IAS officials are there in the state of over 100 million people as 95 posts are vacant while 30 officials are on central deputation and three on interstate deputation. To overcome the crisis, the state government through ads a few years ago invited officials of other cadres to work in Bihar. Quite a few came, and some of these "outsiders" ended up causing huge embarrassment to the "sushasan" that has of late earned global appreciation for Bihar.

The story of "imported" babus assumes significance in view of the recent episode involving J&K cadre IPS officer, Alok Kumar, who had to be unceremoniously removed from the post of Saran range DIG after he was accused of demanding Rs 10 crore from a liquor firm's representative. "The state government should do something about these outsiders who are bringing a bad name to the 'sushasan'," wrote a netizen on a social networking site.

Almost all these "imported" officials happen to hail from Bihar. They are on deputation for a tenure of five or three years. Besides IAS and IPS officials, all-India services officials like D K Srivastava, J K P Singh, P K Rai, Sanjeevan Sinha and Awadhesh Kumar are also working with the Bihar government. Indian Railway Service's Srivastava, Singh and Rai are posted as director (tourism), Bihar State Text-book Corporation MD and Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited CMD respectively while Indian Post & Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service's Sinha and Kumar are Bihar State Infrastructural Development Agency MD and Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation MD respectively.

Bihar State Warehousing Corporation and Beltron have also one "imported" official each. Five Indian Forest Service officials - M K Sharma, Satyendra, Ashutosh Kumar, P K Gupta and Arvinder Singh - are also serving on key positions in the state.

Among five IAS officials on interstate deputation to Bihar, Pankaj K Pal, Manish K Verma and Abhijit Sinha are currently DMs of Bhojpur, Purnia and East Champaran. Odisha cadre's Sanjay Kumar Singh has been made special secretary to CM after two stints as DM - in Gaya and Patna.

A 2002-batch IAS official, Pal was Gopalganj DM when a woman college principal allegedly slapped him. He was shunted out of Gopalganj and posted in the agriculture department after the killing of a jail doctor inside the Gopalganj jail by the prisoners in 2011. Eighteen months on, he is back in the saddle as the Bhojpur DM.

Yet another MT-cadre IAS official J K Sinha, who once got the coveted post of Patna DM, had to be relieved from his post in the CM secretariat and repatriated to his parent cadre almost overnight after the government received some adverse reports about his conduct. Officially, however, his hasty repatriation was never explained.

Explaining the state government's position, a senior official said states did not have a decisive say in deciding interstate deputations. The Centre's DoPT (department of personnel and training) clears such applications, he said and added not all such officers were bad and that most of them had delivered during their field postings.

Also, the state government will not come to the rescue of any official doing any wrong. "The then Saran DIG Alok Kumar's is a case in point in which the law is taking its own course," the official said and pointed out Bihar was the only state to come up with a law in 2010 to confiscate properties of corrupt babus.

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