Yearly Archives: 2019

With Khanduri on its side, Congress eyes more LS seats in Uttarakhand

Posted on by
Reply

Lok Sabha elections remained entirely aloof from state elections in Uttarakhand since its formation in 2000 and going by the past trends, the hilly state has seen major ups and downs for the ruling party, with anti-incumbency playing a vital role each time.

Uttarakhand will go for poll on April 11 in its five Lok Sabha constituencies — Haridwar, Tehri Garhwal, Almora, Pauri Garhwal and Nainital. As BJP has already announced its candidates, three of them sitting MPs, Congress list is likely to field a Khanduri this time — Manish Khanduri, son of former CM and Pauri Garhwal MP BC Khanduri. With Khanduri on its side, Congress is geared up to possibly wrest more seats this time as anti-incumbency is likely to dominate this time.

Unlike the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when BJP swept all the 5 seats with a comfortable vote share of 55.93 per cent, the Congress ended up with a vote share of 34.40 per cent, with no seat in its kitty. Though BSP registered 5 per cent vote share, failed to emerge as a powerful third force to reckon with. The notable defections of senior Congress leaders like Vijay Bahuguna, Harak Singh Rawat and Satpal Maharaj to join BJP against Harish Rawat before the polls was one major factor cited for Congress’s defeat.

Going by the state assembly poll in 2017 where BJP won 57 out of 70 seats, the decline in its vote share is evident from 55.93 per cent to 46.5 per cent, while the Congress vote share hardly changed from 34.40 in 2014 Lok Sabha elections to 33.5 per cent. More than BSP, indpendents played the spoil-sport though the final outcome did not shake BJP that has swept the poll outcome.

Now BJP is confident to win all five seats in Uttarakhand, hoping to repeat the 2017 voting pattern, but Congress has clearly emerged stronger than before attracting younger faces to its ranks with Manish Khanduri on its side now. The state that longed for Khanduri in 2012 elections may see his son as a new ray of hope to overcome chronic problems of unemployment in the state.

Moreover, the political situation has shifted dramatically from 2017. The impact of demonetisation is seen by youth as a major factor that had eroded more jobs in the state. The draconian GST has scared many small businesses beyonnd comprehension, while Rafale deal misgivings refuse to die despite BJP’s denial.

One surprising outcome of Lok Sabha elections in Uttarakhand may not be a pro-Congress vote per se but a decisive anti-BJP vote that may not get split as the ruling party may wish. If Congress can maneuvour to concentrate on consolidating its traditional vote bank at 33 per cent vote share and then target the 17 per cent of the swing vote in the state, it can easily win four seats in Uttarakhand.

On its part, the BJP is embroiled in ill-consequences that any ruling party faces. Many strong candidates who had worked on their constituencies in the hope of getting a party ticket may now shift loyalties sooner than expected. With two veteran leaders — BC Khanduri and Bhagat Singh Koshyari — not contesting, BJP’s sittings MPs Ajay Tamta, Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank are on defensive in the poll battle this time.

Once the Congress list of candidates in Uttarakhand is out, a clearer picture of real battle line will emerge in the state.

EC says no manifesto release with 48 hours left for voting

Posted on by
Reply

Unlike in the past, the Election Commission has clearly set an outer time limit for the release of manifesto by the political parties in Lok Sabha and other elections. The poll panel said the decision was taken after receiving feedback from all political parties.

Included as para 4 under Part-VIII [Guidelines on Election ManifestosJ in the Model Code of Conduct, the rule reads as under:

4. Prohibitory period of Release of Manifesto during elections(s)

i. In case of single phase election, manifesto shall not be released during the prohibitory period, as prescribed under Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
ii. In case of multi-phase elections, manifesto shall not be released during the prohibitory periods, as prescribed under Section L26 of rhe Representation of the People Act, 1951, ofall the phases ofthose elections.

This provision will be applicable and implemented as a part of the Model Code of Conduct for all future elections.

To see full Guidelines click here:

Uttarakhand wakes up from inertia, Khanduri’s son joins Congress

Posted on by
Reply

Uttarakhand has just five Lok Sabha seats which no national party could count on and the hills remained mute spectators to decades of negligence.

Ever since it was formed into a full State, Uttarakhand in 2000, the state often referred as the Devabhumi (Land of the Gods) due to a large number of Hindu temples and pilgrimage centres such as Haridwar, Rishikesh and Badrinath.

As per the 2011 Census, Uttarakhand has a population of 10 million people. More than one lakh people from the state work in military or para-military forces, as everytime there is a massacre on armed forces, several families in the state end up mourning the attack as is seen in the latest Pulwama one.

Fromer chief minister of the state twice, Major General BC Khanduri (Retd) raised the concern as chairman of the Parliamentary Defence Committee last year highlighting the fact that 68 percent of the arms and ammunition given to Army is of vintage in nature. Instead of acting on it, the BJP has sacked him as head of the panel just six months to go for the tenure of the House to end, sending the signal of shooting the messenger come what may.

At the turn of the elections now, BJP has seen the repercussions of its own deeds in a state where it was able to sweep the 2014 general elections and 2017 Assembly elections. Khanduri’s son Manish Khanduri has decided to take the plunge into politics and contest the elections from Pauri Garhwal that was vacated by his father owing to his old age. He could have chosen BJP but stayed away from the party, indicating the local distrust of the ruling party.

Media reports said Manish Khanduri will be contesting against National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s son Shaurya Doval, who has announced his desire to enter the political arena a year ago and has been campaigning in the Pauri Garhwal region.

Though BJP has been trying to brush aside Khanduri Junior’s entry into the Congress fold, the clean image of senior Khanduri has remained the BJP’s key strength in the state thay may be lost forever but not for Congress which has emerged as the custodian of some highly educated and clean politicians in its fold, with Khanduri on its side now.

Some of the local concerns need more focus. The state is still agrarian and depends heavily on tourism as any other hill state. The plans for ropeways to connect summer hill stations, which had been planned when BC Khanduri was chief minister, failed to take off despite BJP’s return to power at the Centre five years ago. In the last two years since forming the state government saw only one ropeway from Doon to Mussorie out of blueprint.

Uttarakhand growth was visibly evident when BC Khanduri was its chief minister twice between 2007 and 2012. Its gross state domestic product (GSDP) more than doubled from Rs.24,786 crore in FY2005 to Rs.60,898 crore by FY2012. The contribution from the service sector being just over 50% during FY 2012, the state could have focused on employment generation ever since but foreign investments to the state remained lukewarm though the state stood on a high ground in education.

Essentially, the state is moving out of inertia and looking for more jobs and foreign investments into manufacturing sector. As home to massive forests at the foot of the Himalayan mountains, Uttarakhand has every reason to attract foreign investors but the state leadership failed to live up to the occasion or competition from more developed states elsewhere. It required a man with vision for the state’s future and not one who could thwart political opponents.

Manish Khanduri’s entry into politics and the party behind him, the Congress, may now work in unison to make the state home to many future investments in business and infrastructure projects.

Warming Antarctic: Penguins, starfish, whales: Who’ll win or lose survival race?

Posted on by
Reply

Marine Antarctic animals such as the humpback whale and emperor penguin, are most at risk from the predicted effects of climate change, finds a new study. In fact, seafloor predators and open-water feeding animals like starfish and jellyfish will benefit from the opening up of new habitat, it said.

Using risk assessments like those used for setting occupational safety limits in the workplace, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey determined the winners and losers of Antarctic climate-change impacts, which includes temperature rise, sea-ice reduction and changes in food availability.

“One of the strongest signals of climate change in the Western Antarctic is the loss of sea ice, receding glaciers and the break-up of ice shelves,” says Dr Simon Morley, lead author, based at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), UK. “Climate change will affect shallow water first, challenging the animals who live in this habitat in the very near future. While we show that many Antarctic marine species will benefit from the opening up of new areas of sea floor as habitat, those associated with sea ice are very much at risk.”

A growing body of research on how climate change will impact Antarctic marine animals prompted the researchers to review this information in a way that revealed which species were most at risk.

“We took a similar approach to risk assessments used in the workplace, but rather than using occupational safety limits, we used information on the expected impacts of climate change on each animal,” explains seabird ecologist Mike Dunn, co-author of this study, which forms part of a special article collection on aquatic habitat ecology and conservation. “We assessed many different animal types to give an objective view of how biodiversity might fare under unprecedented change.”

They found that krill — crustaceans whose young feed on the algae growing under sea ice — were scored as vulnerable, in turn impacting the animals that feed on them, such as the Adèlie and chinstrap penguins and the humpback whale. The emperor penguin scored as high risk because sea ice and ice shelves are its breeding habitat.

Dunn adds, “The southern right whale feeds on a different plankton group, the copepods, which are associated with open water, so is likely to benefit. Salps and jellyfish, which are other open-water feeding animals are likely to benefit too.”

The risk assessment also revealed that bottom-feeders, scavengers and predators, such as starfish, sea urchins and worms, may gain from the effects of climate change.

“Many of these species are the more robust pioneers that have returned to the shallows after the end of the last glacial maximum, 20,000 years ago, when the ice-covered shelf started to melt and retreat,” explains Dr David Barnes, co-author of this research. “These pioneer species are likely to benefit from the opening of new habitats through loss of sea ice and the food this will provide.”

He continues, “Even if, as predicted for the next century, conditions in these shallow-water habitats change beyond the limits of these species, they can retreat to deeper water as they did during the last glacial maxima. However, these shallow-water communities will be altered dramatically – temperature-sensitive animals with calcium shells were scored as the most at risk if this happens.”

The findings have been published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Pair of skeletons found recently are from same early hominin species, say scientists

Posted on by
Reply

Separate skeletons suggested to be from different early hominin species are, in fact, from the same species, a team of anthropologists has concluded in a comprehensive analysis of remains first discovered a decade ago.

The research appears in a special issue of the journal PaleoAnthropology and is part of a series of articles that offers the most comprehensive accounting to date of Australopithecus sediba (A. sediba), a hominin species discovered in South Africa in 2008.

The fossil site of Malapa in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa yielded two partial skeletons: a juvenile male individual–Malapa Hominin 1 (MH1)–and an adult female (MH2); each is more complete than the famous “Lucy” specimen from Ethiopia. The discovery of Malapa was made by Lee Berger, a professor in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, who, with colleagues, dated the site to just under two million years old. They named a new hominin species, Australopithecus sediba, based on MH1 and MH2.

A life reconstruction of Au. sediba, commissioned by the University of Michigan’s Museum of Natural History. CREDIT:
© Sculpture Elisabeth Daynes /Photo S. Entressangle

Over the past decade, researchers have been piecing together these skeletons; the culmination of their work appears in PaleoAnthropology, co-edited by New York University anthropologist Scott Williams and Dartmouth College anthropologist Jeremy DeSilva. The issue’s nine papers, which analyze 135 fossils, outline A. sediba‘s skull, vertebral column, thorax, pelvis, upper limb, hand, and lower limb as well as its body proportions and walking mechanics.

The papers’ consensus is that A. sediba is a unique species distinct from both A. africanus, with which it shares a close geographic proximity, and from early members of the genus Homo (e.g., H. habilis) in both East and South Africa, but that it shares features with both groups, suggesting a close evolutionary relationship.

“Our interpretations in the papers suggest that A. sediba was adapted to terrestrial bipedalism, but also spent significant time climbing in trees, perhaps for foraging and protection from predators,” says Williams, whose research in the issue centered on the axial skeleton (vertebrae, ribs, and sternum). “This larger picture sheds light on the lifeways of A. sediba and also on a major transition in hominin evolution, that of the largely ape-like species included broadly in the genus Australopithecus to the earliest members of our own genus, Homo.”

A few years ago, a separate research group posited that the hominin fossils at Malapa belonged to two different species–in part due to differences in their lumbar vertebrae. However, an analysis by Williams and his colleagues, including two Ph.D. candidates in anthropology at NYU, Jennifer Eyre and Thomas Prang, indicates that both are from A. sedibaand that distinctions are due to age.

“The differences in these vertebrae can simply be attributed to their developmental age differences: the juvenile individual’s vertebrae have not yet completed growth, whereas the adult’s vertebra growth is complete,” he explains. “As it happens, the two Homo erectus skeletons we have are juveniles, so MH1 looks more similar to them because it too is a juvenile.”

Mahesh Babu films rule the TRP Stats in Hindi heartland

Posted on by
Reply
Superstar Mahesh Babu is one of the most followed South Indian Superstars with a combined following of over 14 million leaving behind biggies like Allu Arjun or Rana Daggubati.
His next film  Maharshi is touted to be one of his biggest projects, which will also be dubbed in Hindi.
Mahesh Babu will be seen in much leaner and stronger look in Maharshi which will hit the screens in April 2019.

Superstar Mahesh Babu enjoys an immense fan following not only in the South Indian film industry but is also a household name nationwide. Another testimony of the same is how all Mahesh Babu films ruled the TRP stats on television through the year.

Mahesh’s films not only enjoy a phenomenal run in the theatres, but the Hindi dubbed version of his films garner extremely high TRPs for the channels they are played on as well.
Right from Businessman, The Real Tiger to Takkari Donga and Nijam, all have had a great run on Hindi GEC’s garnering highest TRP’s.
Considering the unfathomable fanbase of Mahesh Babu the Hindi dubbed version of his films does extremely well on Hindi channels. In fact, they have the maximum number of reruns, especially during long weekend holidays when channels are looking at airing biggest of films.
Mahesh Babu’s last outing Bharat Ane Nenu, not only garnered immense appreciation from critics and audience but also broke major records at the box office and also sold for a whopping Rs.22 crore in its satellite rights.
This kind of an amount for a Telugu film is rarely heard of. The actor has been influential through his movie choices. He was also recently featured in Top 10 most Handsome man in the world list giving a tough competition to all the actors in B-Town.

Sonchiriya shot in MP valleys with over 400 people replicating life of dacoits

Posted on by
Reply
The makers of Sonchiriya, bracing hardships to make the film more authentic befitting the 1970’s era, have made it with more than 400 people taking part in the shooting in remote valleys in Madhya Pradesh.
Sonchiriya is shot in the remote areas and villages where there were no basic facilities, so the cast and crew of 400 people became a gigantic task for the makers, who are keen to perfect the film with authenticity as it was required to get the raw and rustic vibes.
Since the story is set in the Chambal district, the characters learrned the Bundelkhand dialect and to prep and get the fluency, the cast was insisted to converse in that language on set, even during the breaks.
The story of Sonchiriya is set in the 1970s showcasing a small town ruled and dominated by dacoits. Multiple gangs fight over the struggle to attain power. The cast dons fierce avatars in sync with the theme of the film.
Starring Sushant Singh Rajput, Bhumi Pednekar, Manoj Bajpayee, Ranvir Shorey, and Ashutosh Rana in lead roles, Sonchiriya presents tale set in the era of dacoits.
Sonchiriya promises to be a power packed action film giving a glimpse of the glorious years if dacoits in central India.  Shot in the valleys of Madhya Pradesh, Sonchiriya presents an ensemble cast with an intriguing storyline.
Directed by Abhishek Chaubey who has earlier presented ‘Udta Punjab’ and ‘Ishiqiya’, ‘Sonchiriya’ presents a rooted tale set in Chambal. Producer Ronnie Screwvala who has not only presented blockbusters but also award-winning films is all set to present ‘Sonchiriya’.
The movie is slated to release on 8th February 2019.