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Sharath misses final narrowly

2012-08-30T21:20:00.000-07:00

Sharath misses final narrowly

London: India’s lone swimmer at the Paralympic Games, Sharath Gayakwad finished 4th in the 100m butterfly heat with a personal best time of 1:07.12. Gayakwad, however, failed to advance as his timing was 0.58 seconds slower than the qualification time for the final.
“It’s disheartening to have missed the final by such a small margin, but I could not have gone any faster,” Sharath said after the event.
Sharath, who will also participate in three more events at the Games — 100m breaststroke, 50m freestyle and 200m individual medley — had gone to London after attending a high-performance training camp at the University of Western Australia, Perth.
Another Indian, Farman Basha came fifth in the men’s 48kg powerlifting competition. Basha came up with a lift of 150 kg in the event which was won by Yakubu Adesokan of Nigeria with an world record effort of 180 kg. AGENCIES

LEADING THE MARCH: The Indian delegation during the Paralympics opening ceremony in London on Wednesday

Dhoni calls for turning tracks

2012-08-30T21:18:00.003-07:00

Dhoni calls for turning tracks

Skipper Wants To Bank On Home Advantage

Satish Viswanathan TNN

Bangalore: It was an innocent question but one that was met with total incredulity by Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Will you play three spinners, he was asked on Thursday in the prematch press conference. Dhoni doesn’t scream often but the quick retort was telling: “Have you seen the wicket?”
    This Chinnaswamy Stadium track, in his estimation, is not a typical Indian wicket. Who knows, there may be a case to play three seamers instead.
    Against a side like New Zealand, India certainly do not need a tailormade pitch. Dhoni, however, later said pitches in India were increasingly
failing to live up to their ‘subcontinental’ nature.
    “Playing in England and Australia, we face different conditions. And that’s why when we talk about world cricket, each place is special for its own reasons,” said Dhoni making a case for turning tracks for all matches in India.
    In fact, he readily admitted that his side had put in such a specific request for Tests in India.
    “We are expecting turning tracks but the last wicket was not a turning track. We had put in a request but whatever wickets are provided, we have to play on them. But the subcontinent’s speciality is spin and I think we should stick to it.”
    As long as a pitch is prepared to suit the home team, no one can have a cause for complaint. Only a deliberately under-prepared surface should be discouraged. After all, when India plays outside the subcontinent, they are forced by the nature of the pitch to play a lone spinner.
    In India, the least the visiting teams can be expected to do is play two spinners. If they don’t have enough quality, can the Indians be blamed?

LEG-UP: Virat Kohli displays his football skills as Ishant Sharma and Suresh Raina watch at a practice session in Bangalore

Google, Apple CEOs in patent talks

2012-08-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

Google, Apple CEOs in patent talks

    Google CEO Larry Page and his Apple counterpart Tim Cook have been conducting behind-the-scenes conversations about a range of intellectual property matters, including the ongoing mobile patent disputes between the companies, according to people familiar with the matter.
    The two had a phone conversation last week, the sources said. Discussions involving lower-level officials of the two companies are also on.
    Page and Cook are expected to talk again in the coming weeks, though no firm date has been set, the sources said. One source said that a meeting was scheduled for this Friday, but had been delayed for reasons that were unclear.
    The two companies are keeping the lines of communication open at a high level against the backdrop of Apple’s decisive legal victory in a patent infringement case against Samsung, which uses Google’s Android software.
    A jury awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages last Friday and set the stage for a possible ban on sales of some Samsung products in a case that has been widely viewed as a “proxy war” between Apple and Google.
    One possible scenario under consideration could be a truce involving disputes over basic features and functions in Google’s Android mobile software, one source said. But it’s unclear whether Page and Cook are discussing a broad settlement of the various disputes between the two companies — most of which involve the burgeoning mobile computing area — or are focused on a more limited set of issues.
    Competition between Google and Apple has heated up in recent years with the shift from PCs to mobile devices. Google’s Android software, which Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs denounced as a “stolen product”, has become the world’s No.1 smartphone operating system even as it has embroiled the hardware vendors who use it, including Samsung and Google's Motorola unit, in patent infringement lawsuits.
    Apple in recent months has moved to lessen its reliance on Google's products. Apple recently unveiled its own mobile mapping software, replacing the Google product used in the iPhone, and said it would no longer offer Google's YouTube as a pre-loaded app in future versions of its iPhone. Cook took the helm at Apple a year ago, and Page stepped into the top job at Google just a few months before that. REUTERS
TRUCE IN THE OFFING? äThe two companies are keeping the lines of communication open at a high level against the backdrop of Apple’s patent win against Samsung
äThe case is seen as Apple’s proxy patent war against Google
äApple’s late founder Steve Jobs had dubbed Android a stolen product
äApple has been reducing its reliance on Google’s products Tim Cook (left) and Larry Page

Hundreds of Indian students face deportation from UK

2012-08-30T21:13:00.005-07:00

Hundreds of Indian students face deportation from UK

London Metropolitan Univ’s Licence Revoked For Visa Abuse

Ashis Ray TNN

London: Hundreds of Indian students face deportation from UK after the British government on Thursday revoked London Metropolitan University’s (LMU) licence to teach and admit anybody from outside the European Union. The Indian High Commission on Thursday sent a diplomat to meet LMU officials to assess the situation while MP Keith Vaz sought quick clarification from its authorities.
    More than 2,600 students from non-EU countries will be hit by the border agency’s step, and a large number of these are Indians. “We will support efforts to ensure those meeting current visa requirements can identify alternative places to study,” the British home office told TOI. Such students would have 60 days to find an alternative institution to absorb them or return home.
    On Wednesday, the UK border agency said LMU, which has around 30,000 students, had “failed to address serious and systemic failings” identified six months ago. A statement on the LMU website said the implications of the revocation are “hugely significant and far-reaching”. It added, “Our absolute priority is to our students, both current and prospective, and the university will meet all its obligations to them.”
    A survey by the border agency revealed that over 26% of students there do not have valid visas to remain in Britain. Indians falling in this category are, therefore, likely to be asked to go back to India. In 40% of cases, adequate tests to determine competence in English wasn’t carried out, something that all UK universities are obliged to do.
    “For the sake of this university and others, especially at this time of year, I hope the minister will urgently clarify the situation,” wrote Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, to UK immigration minister Damian Green on Thursday.
    Trouble is a number of less distinguished universities are struggling with their finances even after a threefold increase in tuition fee for domestic students.
    Some of them are, consequently, attempting to balance their books with an indiscriminate intake and retention of foreign students, whether they are entitled to be so treated or not.
    The UK’s National Union of Students contacted Prime Minister David Cameron to “express anger at the way decisions have been made in recent weeks and to reiterate the potentially catastrophic effects on higher education as a £12.5bn per year export industry for the UK”.
    “The decision will create panic for students not just at London Met but also all around the country,” said union president Liam Burns, adding that the decision could have been limited to future students rather than existing ones.

BIG BLOW: Over 2,600 students from non-EU countries will be hit

Left-out colonies await govt nod

2012-08-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

REGULARIZATION

Left-out colonies await govt nod

Ambika Pandit TNN

New Delhi: From a footpath running along chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s Motilal Nehru Marg residence, Ramesh Kardam, an RWA representative from Prem Nagar, watched frenzied Congress party workers burst crackers, shout slogans and dance to the beat of drums. The workers were celebrating the Dikshit-led government’s decision to regularize 917 unauthorized colonies.
    As crowds spilled out of buses parked along the radials of the roundabout at the Marg to join the revelry, many others like Kardam sat there looking tired. He motive for being present — along with other RWA representatives — was only to meet Dikshit and press for speedy regularization of colonies in Prem Nagar. But as the merriment progressed, he felt let down by the local Congress leader from his area as he realized he was brought in merely as an actor to pull off a political function aimed at celebrating regularization.
    RB Pradhan, also from an illegal colony in Lal Kuan area on MB Road, said though the colony received a provisional regularization certificate from Congress president Sonia Gandhi before the 2008 assembly polls, it hadn’t got the legal tag. There were many who came only because their local Congress leaders and councillors goaded them to join the revelry.
    Beer Vati from another such locality, Freedom Fighters Colony, met the CM and urged her to regularize the colony. “Demolitions continue in the area and corruption is at its peak. Police and corporation officials demand hefty bribes,” she added.
    Inside the CM’s house, Congress workers led groups of residents from different areas to Dikshit. Assuring them of a legal tag, Dikshit stated that it will take a few months for all formalities to be completed and civic amenities to be in place in approved colonies.
    Rajinder, who came from a jhuggi cluster in Sultanpuri, emerged from the lawns of Dikshit’s house holding placards. He had no clue what regularization entails but hoped that their jhuggis will be spared relocation.

Sheila Dikshit is being felicitated at a party function to celebrate regularization of colonies on Thursday

World Class Ambassadors of Indian Scholarship

2012-08-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

TIMES INSIGHT GROUP

Towards the second half of the 19th century, the world began to take note of Indian scholars. From particle physics to human rights, their work began to be seen as world class.
    One of the incredible stories of modern Indian scholarship is also one the most tragic. Born to a poor family in Tamil Nadu’s Kumbakonam in 1887, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a brilliant mathematician with almost no formal training, made enormous contributions to number theory and the study of infinite numbers before he died of illness and malnutrition at the age of 32. English mathematician G H Hardy recognised the prodigy and invited him to work with him at Cambridge. Ramanujan’s brief, brilliant and tragic story was immortalised in ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’, a book by Robert Kanigel.
    Meanwhile, through his demonstrations of remote wireless signalling, earlier than the much more famous Italian inventor Marconi, and his research into plant physiology through which he argued that plants could feel pain, Jagadish Chandra Bose drew the attention of Western scientists in the late 1800s.
    Around the same time as Ramanujan, C V Raman was born near Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu. He taught physics in Kolkata and, later, Bangalore. He was awarded the physics Nobel in 1930 for discovering changes in the wavelength of light that occur because of scattering by chemical molecules when it passes through a transparent object. The phenomenon is called the Raman effect. India celebrates National Science Day on February 28, the day he discovered the ‘Raman effect’. Raman was the first non-white to win a Nobel in the sciences.
    Raman’s nephew, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, won the Nobel in physics (with William Fowler) in 1983 for discovering the ‘Chandrasekhar limit’, an upper limit to the mass of a star in its last stages of evolution. In 1930, he was awarded a scholarship by the Indian government to study at Cambridge, after which he joined the University of Chicago. He later became a naturalised US citizen. NASA’s premier X-Ray observatory was named the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
    Physics has been the standout field for modern Indian scholarship. Satyendra Nath Bose, a quantum mechanics physicist whose contributions were rediscovered following the recent detection of the possible Higgs-Boson particle (bosons are named after him), was taught by J C Bose at Kolkata’s Presidency College. Bose-Einstein statistics and the Bose-Einstein condensate are named jointly after him and Albert Einstein, who he corresponded and collaborated with.
    At the turn of the century, Hargobind Khorana was born in what is now Pakistan and moved to the US, where he became a citizen. He shared the 1968 Nobel for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W Nirenberg and Robert W Holley for research on nucleic acids and thecell’ssynthesisof proteins.TheKhorana Programme, named after the scientist who died in 2011, aims to build a shared community of Indian and American scientists and entrepreneurs.
    With Independence came a new breed of scientists whose work was allied with nation-building. Homi Bhabha, ‘father of the Indian nuclear programme’, founded the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Bhabha convinced Jawaharlal Nehru of the need for India to have a nuclear programme. Vikram Sarabhai, who did research under Raman, worked with Bhabha to establish India’s space programme.
    Another Indian Nobel laureate is Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, a Chidambaram-born biochemist and biophysicist who shared the Chemistry Nobel in 2009 with Thomas A Steitz and Ada E Yonath for his study of ribosomes, the large complex molecules found in all living organisms that help form protein. Ramakrishnan did his BSc in Physics from Baroda on a scholarship after which he moved to the US.
    The great Bengali poet, artist and freedom fighter, Rabindranath Tagore, was the first Indian Nobel laureate for literature, the first non-European to win the award. Tagore revolutionized Bengali literature, freeing it from classical shackles, andhishumanist principles as well as his criticism of imperialism illuminated his work. The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh are Tagore songs. Tagore was the architect of Visva-Bharati in Santiniketan.
    Contemporary Indian historians like Bipin Chandra, Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib have revolutionised the telling of Indian history. Sociologists Andre Beteille and M N Srinivas contributed the most important studies of caste in India which became central to policy-making. Most illustrious among today’s social scientists would be Amartya Sen, winner of the economics Nobel, and a pioneer of development economics. Sen has made his work on human development accessible to millions through his speeches and writings. One of the creators of the human development index, Sen advises governments, including the Indian government, on welfare economics. His ‘capability approach’ has revolutionized the dialogue on rights and services. Sen was one of the first to draw attention to India’s skewed sex ratio. He teaches at Harvard and Cambridge.
Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time| Rabindranath Tagore

Advance IIT joint entrance exam under new format on June 2

2012-08-27T22:15:00.004-07:00

Advance IIT joint entrance exam under new format on June 2

PTI | 10:08 PM,Aug 27,2012 Source: http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/advance-iit-joint-entrance-exam-under-new-format-on-june-2/1051422.html

New Delhi, Aug 27 (PTI) The Advance Joint Entrance Examination 2013 for admission to the undergraduate programme in IITs
under the new format will be held on June 2 after the Mains on April 7.

The Joint Admission Board (JAB) of the IITs, the apex body comprising IIT heads, is understood to have approved the dates at a meeting today, officials said.
The exam next year would be conducted by IIT-Delhi and H C Gupta would be the chairman of the organizing committee.

The JAB had on August 5 approved the common entrance test for admission to the undergraduate programme for 2013 based on percentile ranking.
The new format adopted by the IIT council comprises a two-tier system -- a main and an advance test.

Students clearing the advance test after being screened in the Mains would be considered for admission provided they are among the top 20 percentile in their boards.

The logistics for both the exam will be conducted by CBSE.

The advance exam will be solely conducted by the IIT.

PTI SGI ZMN

Few girls in IIT, more in other engg courses

2012-08-27T22:14:00.003-07:00

Anubhuti Vishnoi : New Delhi, Tue Aug 28 2012, 03:57 hrs

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/few-girls-in-iit-more-in-other-engg-courses/993977/

The Kota coaching factor still plays a key role in the IITs admission process, girls still opt less for these 15 institutes
than for engineering courses elsewhere, and state school boards send the most students to IITs,
according to an analysis of the patterns in the Joint Entrance Examination results of 2012.
The analysis, presented today at the meeting of the Joint Admission Board, found that girls comprise a mere 10 per cent of
admissions to the 15 IITs after cracking JEE but 30-40 per cent in other engineering institutes, including several prestigious ones.
An IIT professor says the coaching industry is a key factor in the current JEE system;
most parents prefer not to send their daughters to coaching classes at far flung Kota or Hyderabad.
The analysis, conducted by the IITs, also examined the general student profile and found it is once again the middle class and urban India that dominates JEE.
Jaipur and Hyderabad top the list with their dominant coaching culture, followed by Delhi; Kanpur, Lucknow and Allahabad too are in the top 10 cities sending students to IITs.
Of students who cracked JEE, 40 per cent students came from the CBSE; of those who reached the IITs, 50 per cent come from state boards.
The ICSE and other school boards had poor representation. Prof S G Dhande, director of IIT Kanpur, says the analysis only reinforces the need to reinvent the JEE.
“It is clear that coaching is a very real factor giving students an extra edge at clearing JEE. That fewer girls make it is also linked to this factor.
The analysis only draws attention to the urgent need to make this examination a more dynamic and responsive system that is modern rather than orthodox,” Prof Dhande told The Indian Express.

For 2013, the top 1.5 lakh from JEE Main will be eligible for JEE Advanced.

Educating India

2012-08-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Education@India is striving hard to offer the best to its students. Today, it is not only government, public and private bodies who are pitching in, but the corporate world is also joining the race as a form of social corporate responsibility or motivated by business

Pallavee Dhaundiyal Panthry

    As a tradition, education in India is looked upon quite holistically, especially with reference to the traditional Gurukul system. The education system is too formal and competitive now with a plethora of opportunities for students. India currently has the world's largest youth population and also the largest education market, which makes imperative the need to prepare and plan for an education that produces a world class, competent and skilled force
    Responding to the need of the hour, The Times of India, recently organised an education conference, titled, 'EDUCATIONext - The Way forward', in the Capital, recently, in association with IMT Ghaziabad, HSBC and Orris. The day long event offered a platform to eminent academicians, scholars, educationists, teachers, NGOs and many big names from the corporate world, to discuss the roadmap for future education vis a vis industry needs in India.
    The conference was kick-started by Ranjan Roy, associate Editor, The Times of India, who gave a brief on the day's proceedings and welcomed the participants. While giving the inaugural address, Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource Development, Government of India, chief guest of the event, said: "Providing quality education with opportunities in abundance is our foremost goal. We have to build a highway for a child. Which way he wants to drive, that's the child's wish."
    He further added, "The government aims to design courses of national standard across all subjects, across the country. We will soon roll such courses in the vocational fields like retail, reality, design and automobile. Besides, it's not the sole responsibility of Government to offer quality education at all levels, private institutions and corporate should also pitch in, partner and share the mammoth task of providing high quality education to all. Education shouldn't be looked as burden by private bodies; it should be understood as inclusive."
    The conference was spread over fours sessions throughout the day. The sessions deliberated on India as education superpower of future and the pathway to progress.
    The first session elaborated on leveraging opportunity and how higher education can help India shape world future; designing social system of inclusive education - 'Education for All' ; and new hybrid teaching models and methods, and discussion on role of PPP. Sharing his thoughts in the first session, Pawan Aggarwal, advisor higher education, Planning Commission of India, said: "Next five to 10 years in education would be crucial. Government can support in fiscal way and appoint more teachers. The main challenges would be quality in higher education and integration of technology in education."
    "Leveraging technology in higher education space is a major task and will ease life in schools, colleges and institutions. Technology will definitely be a key driver in fulfilling India's 'education for all' dream", added Sandhya, executive director, Sector Skills Council. She added, "We are looking at integrating technology in three areas: higher education space; setting up of standards; and in the accreditation area. We will soon present our project report to the government."
    The most pertinent subject of discussion was an inclusive pattern of education. Are we creating a parallel educational economy in India? What about synergies between education institutions and industries, at state and central levels? Shyama Chona, educationist, took up paradoxes, confusions and obstacles in education in India. "We are six decades late in education. But we need to gear up, because if not now then never. This year, we will have 10 crore children passing out from elementary education and moving to secondary education. But do we have provisions to offer quality education to them? Government has to help, but it wants partners to chip in." Taking a dig at the government's role, the speakers dwelled in length about what our government is offering and what it could have had offered. Making a comparison between education in India and the Western Countries, Dr Arun Mohan Sherry, director, IMT CDL, said: "Australia offers 70 per cent scholarships in education, US offers 50 per cent and India, only two per cent. Talking about interest rates on education loans, India asks for 11.75 per cent, while in Australia it is only 2.5 per cent and in UK and US, it varies between 3 and 3.5 per cent."
    Besides, we have over regulation in distance education. "Amazingly, there are more than 10 million students studying in open learning and distance education institutions. The worst news is since past one and a half years, there is no regular vice chancellor to look after distance learning in India. This is the state of education in our country", lamented Sherry.
    Dwelling on roadmap for the future, the speakers talked about expanding horizons and plugging gaps in education system. They discussed initiatives for collaborations, strategies for change and solutions to meet future needs. "Industry and academics must come together and collaborate to offer best human resource. Besides, we need as many as partnerships as possible", Vineet Joshi, Chairman, CBSE.
    The academicians were of opinion that industry intervention must start from the secondary level to strike a balance between theoretical and practical aspects of learning. But are industries keen to partner even at the higher education level? Institutions say industries do not partner and industries say the students are not up to the mark. "Neither industry nor institution should blame each other. Rather both should work together to produce the best of human resource. Industries must communicate to institutions what skills and learning they require", said A K Biswas, senior professor, IMT Ghaziabad.
    Sharing his views on platforms such as EDUCATIONext, Stuart P Milne, CEO, HSBC India, "India is home to one of the world's largest
youth populations. Universalising access to higher education, and providing skill training are matters of utmost importance today. Platforms such as Education- Next, we believe, are critical as they provide the space for government and industry to initiate a discussion and find viable ways to strive for an improved and inclusive education system, and expand employment opportunities."

Panel discussion in progress

Kapil Sibal (left) with Arun Mohan Sherry, at the conference

I admire Unmukt but can’t change rules, says Thampu

2012-08-27T22:00:00.001-07:00

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:St. Stephen’s College plans to honour Unmukt Chand, who led his team to the Under-19 World Cup win, say sources. However, principal Valson Thampu says “no decision has been made yet” and that they can’t “plan” till they know when their second-year BA (Programme) student will be back.
    Ironically, Unmukt’s relationship with the college authorities has been somewhat fractious. He went to a court this year when the college refused to issue him an admit card for the final exams as he did not have the requisite attendance. It was only after a high court direction in May that he was allowed to write the exams. Thampu said that while he “admired” Unmukt’s skills as a cricketer, he was only implementing rules when it came to the attendance issue and will do so “even if he wins 10 more World Cups.”
    The Association of Old Stephanians – a group of college alumni not connected to the “official” alumni association – see the refusal to issue the admit card as a lack of support for sportsmen who have to miss classes to participate in matches and tournaments. They said in a statement that they have been “pained to note” that a court had to be involved and have urged the college and Delhi University to “take urgent and necessary steps to ensure that promising sportsmen are encouraged to perform better.”
    Thampu said that while he “admired” the “unruffled sense of purpose with which he played” and the “application of mind and talent” is what the college itself stands for, St. Stephen’s “cannot take any credit for Unmukt’s achievement.” Firstly, because he had come to the college, “already a flourishing national talent” and secondly, because “he hasn’t spent much time in the college”. It is the second point on which the college authorities and Unmukt locked horns. Thampu explained his stand saying that the university rules “do not envisage any discretionary power for the principal” and that he was “only implementing the rules”.
    He clarified that the college wants to support all sports but will not “fudge the records or falsify data”. And they will implement the rules “not only with respect to him but all sportsmen, as long as the rules stay in university’s statute books”.

Unmukt Chand

Heavy rain brings city to standstill

2012-08-24T22:43:00.001-07:00

South Ex, Patparganj Roads Waterlogged; Cloud Cover Keeps Temp At 30°C

Times of india

New Delhi: A few hours of incessant rain - nowhere close to the heaviest showers experiencedin Delhithisseason - brought the city to a screeching halt on Friday. Clouds that had been threatening rain since morning finally gave way around 2pm and large parts of Delhi recorded medium to heavy showers. Only 13.5mm of rain was recorded atthe Safdarjung observatory but several areas witnessed waterlogging and resultant traffic jams.
    “The monsoon has been active over the northern states for the past few days due to a favourable placement and oscillation of the monsoon trough and a cyclonic circulation over the Bay of Bengal. On Friday, the axis passed through Amritsar, Meerut, Behraich, Chhapra, Panagarh andthen southeastwards to east central Bay of Bengal. More rain is expected in the region till the end of the month,” said a Met official.
    Not all areas experienced rain at the same time. In central and south Delhi, heavy rain started around 2pm and continued for a couple of hours. Southwest Delhi, including Palam, had light showers during the day but a received a heavy spell around 7.30pm.
    “The heaviest rain till 5.30pm was recorded at Pusa which saw 19 mm of rainfall. This was followed by Palam with 18.2mm and Delhi University with 11mm. A dense cloud cover in the morning kept the minimum temperature comfortable at 25.5 degrees Celsius, one degree below normal while the maximum was 30.7 degrees Celsius, three degrees below normal,” said a Met official.
    Friday saw the past few days’ momentum of rain over northwest India slow down substantially,even thoughthe Met department has predicted more rain till the end of August. Since Tuesday, especially on Wednesday, the nine districts in northwest India recorded rainfall which was substantially above normal. On Friday,other than westRajasthan which recorded 308% of the long period average for the day and Himachal Pradesh which recorded 57%, the remaining districts got below normal rain.
    Delhi has also seen its share of erratic rainfall and till 5.30pm on Friday, it had totalled 321.5mm. Till Friday morning, Sardarjung was staring at a deficit of 176 mm and Palam had a deficit of 219 mm.
Times View It defies reason that something that is an annual feature – the rainy season – should catch our civic authorities unprepared with such depressing regulatory. It does not need rocket science to recognize that if the drainage system is not unclogged before the rains, there will be waterlogging when the heavens open up. It follows that the drains must be cleaned up before the monsoon. In fact, they should be kept unclogged through the year. Is that too complex a task for the municipal authorities of the capital of a country aspiring to superpower status?

In central and south Delhi, heavy rain started around 2pm and continued for a couple of hours

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2011-10-14T00:16:00.000-07:00

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