US is indian global partner says PM Narendra Modi

After an overnight transit halt in Frankfurt, Prime Minister Narendra Modi left on Friday for his maiden visit to the US during which he will address the UN General Assembly, hold talks with President Barack Obama and meet top American corporate honchos besides a series of other engagements.

Modi will have a summit-level meeting with US President Barack Obama during his tour.

Describing America as India's "natural global partner", Modi said on Friday the complementary strengths of the two democracies can be used for inclusive and broad-based development to transform lives across the globe.
A grand welcome awaits the PM in the US. On his first leg of the high-profile five-day visit, Modi will land in New York, where he will address the 69th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Saturday and a rally at the famous Madison Square Garden, which is likely to be attended by around 20,000 people from the Indian-American community.
"The US is our natural global partner. India and the US embody the enduring and universal relevance of their shared values," Modi wrote in an op-ed in the The Wall Street Journal.

Modi, who in recent interview to a TV channel had expressed hope about better India-US ties, also said the thriving Indian-American community in the United States was a metaphor for the potential of India-US partnership, and for the possibilities of an environment that nurtures enterprise and rewards hard work.

He added the two countries had a fundamental stake and many shared interests in each other's success.

"That is also the imperative of our partnership. And it will be of great value in advancing peace, security and stability in the Asia and Pacific regions; in the unfinished and urgent task of combating terrorism and extremism; and in securing our seas, cyber space and outer space, all of which now have a profound influence on our daily lives," he said.

Observesrs are keenly watching Modi's visit to the US, which had denied him a visa in 2005 in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots three years before that. However, the US had signalled the end of its nine-year boycott of Modi ahead of the general elections that brought him to power.

US ambassador Nancy Powell met him in Gujarat in February, marking a thaw in the relationship. US President Barack Obama congratulated him after his poll vistory.
US defence secretary Chuck Hagel and vice-president Joe Biden have already visited India during the BJP government's tenure.

In the op-ed piece, Modi said the complementary strengths of India and the US can be used for inclusive and broad-based global development to transform lives across the world.

"This is a moment of flux in the global order. I am confident in the destiny of our two nations, because democracy is the greatest source of renewal and, with the right conditions, offers the best opportunity for the human spirit to flourish," Modi said.

"With sensitivity to each other's point of view and the confidence of our friendship, we can contribute to more concerted international efforts to meet the pressing global challenges of our times."

Modi emphasised the role of technology in building partnerships between the two nations.

"Our strengths in information technology are especially important for leadership in the digital age. The partnership between our businesses takes place in the comfort and certainty of similar political systems and shared commitment to rule of law. In education, innovation, and science and technology, the US continues to inspire India," he said.

The Prime Minister will have a gruelling schedule in New York which includes a meeting with as many as 11 top corporate honchos over breakfast on September 29 apart from one-on-one meetings with six more business captains the same day.

Modi will pay a visit to the 9/11 memorial on Saturday following which he is expected to drive down to the United Nations headquarters to address the 69th annual session of the UNGA.

Obama will host a rare private dinner for Modi at the White House on September 29, so as to establish a personal relationship with the Indian leader ahead of summit talks the next day. The two leaders are meeting for the first time.

Modi will also be participating in a business meet, to be organised by the US-India Business Council (USIBC), expected to be attended by 300-400 businessmen in Washington on September 30.

In the op-ed, Modi asserted that there was a "high tide of hope for change" in India, adding the country will be open and friendly for business and ideas to make it a new global manufacturing hub.
"We will create world-class infrastructure that India badly needs to accelerate growth and meet people 's basic needs. We will make our cities and towns habitable, sustainable and smart; and we will make our villages the new engines of economic transformation."

Ahead of his US visit, Modi unveiled a campaign on Thursday to turn India into a manufacturing powerhouse, vowing to remove bureaucratic sloth and make the country more investor friendly.

The 'Make in India' campaign is as much an invitation to domestic and foreign companies as a promise to rectify everything that has kept the country at almost the bottom of World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ index.

PTI

NASA map Earths forests in 3D

The United States’ space agency, NASA, is developing the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) Lidar device to map forests on Earth in 3D and increase understanding of their role in the carbon cycle.

The instrument will be the first to systematically probe the depths of the forests from space. "GEDI Lidar will have a tremendous impact on our ability to monitor forest degradation, adding to the critical data needed to mitigate the effects of climate change," said Patrick O'Shea, chief research officer at the University of Maryland. It is a laser-based system that can measure the distance from the space-based instrument to Earth's surface with enough accuracy to detect subtle variations, including the tops of trees, the ground, and the vertical distribution of above ground bio-mass in forests, Wired.com reported.

The instrument will be built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, a NASA release said. "GEDI will be a tremendous new resource for studying Earth's vegetation," said Piers Sellers, deputy director of Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate. In particular, the GEDI data will provide global-scale insights into how much carbon is being stored in the forest bio-mass. NASA said GEDI is scheduled to be ready in 2018.

Iraqi forces claim to have retaken Tikrit

Having launched a robust offensive against the Sunni extremists, Iraqi forces claimed to have retaken the strategic town of Tikrit from the ISIS (Islamic State of Syria and Iraq) rebels, the state TV reported on Sunday.

Armed with tanks and helicopter gunships, Iraqi forces carried out airstrikes on Sunni fighters of the ISIS in Tikrit and claimed to have killed dozens of insurgents.

According to the state media, the ISIS had been completely eliminated from Tikrit, the hometown of dictator Saddam Hussein, which had fallen to the militants on June 11.

If confirmed, this would be a major gain for the Iraqi Army which has so far shown a feeble resistance to the lightning ISIS offensive.

Also, reports said that Iraqi force were now preparing to advance towards north and aiming to wrest back the control of Mosul from ISIS militants.

According to the BBC, the counter-offensive launched by Iraqi Army in Tikrit was being co-ordinated with American military advisers. The report added that the soldiers were aided bu Sunni tribesmen and Shia militias.

However, the US denies that its military advisers are directly involved in hostilities and they are in Iraq just to protect the American personnel on ground.

The US has sent 300 military advisers to Iraq and has also confirmed flying armed drones there, but only to protect its interests.

America, which has ruled out direct military intervention in Iraq, has pushed for the formation of a new “inclusive” government in Iraq which can address the problems of all, especially the Sunnis and Kurds, who have felt marginalised during Shiite PM Nuri al-Maliki's rule.

The US has not directly called for PM Maliki's resignation, but has dropped broad hints that Iraq's crisis will be solved only after a new government is formed.

Also, Iraq's influential Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Sistani has called for the appointment of PM by Tuesday  before the new parliament is convened.

Earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry had visited Baghdad and told that Maliki had assured him that a new Iraqi cabinet will be formed by July 1.

Iraq is in throes of a deadly insurgency crisis as the ISIS militants have so far continued to advance ahead consistently, massacring Shia soldiers and also posting the videos online.

According to the UN, over 1,100 have been killed since the ISIS offensive and over a million have been displaced.

-zee news

NASA plans to launch a flying-saucer-shaped vehicle

NASA plans to launch a flying-saucer-shaped vehicle to test technology for landing heavy loads - and one day even people - on Mars. The Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) will be taken into the stratosphere from the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. How the vehicle is launched.

After several weather delays, NASA will try to launch a "flying saucer" into Earth's atmosphere Saturday to test technology that could be used to land on Mars.

The attempt off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai will test the disc-shaped vehicle and a giant parachute. Those interested can watch live at 2:15 p.m. ET.

The test at the Kauai military range has been postponed several times since June 2 because of winds.

It may seem straight out of a B-movie, but the space agency says the launch has a serious purpose: to test technology that will help land spacecraft and someday humans on Mars.

NASA still relies on some of the basic designs developed more than 40 years ago to land the Viking spacecraft on Mars, principal investigator Ian Clark of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said earlier this month.

"We've been using the same parachutes for several decades now," he said. "If we want to eventually land a human on the surface of Mars, we realized we need to develop new technologies."

The low-density supersonic decelerator, as it's officially known, will ascend into the skies dangling from a gargantuan balloon filled with helium. At 34 million cubic feet, the balloon would fill the Rose Bowl, encasing the helium in a skin made of a high-tech film as thin as sandwich wrap.

After the balloon and its load soar to roughly 23 miles high, the balloon will break away from the vehicle and drop to Earth, the cue for a rocket attached to the saucer to fire. The rocket will propel the saucer to four times the speed of sound, duplicating the rapid clip of a spacecraft bound for Mars.

If all goes according to plan, the saucer's inflatable ring, made of the same material as bulletproof vests, will pop up, expanding to some 3 feet high in a fraction of a second. The ring is designed to brake the vehicle as it speeds through the atmosphere. Finally a parachute much bigger than anything of its kind will cushion the saucer as it drifts down to an ocean landing.

NASA's latest rover on Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory, weighed about a ton. The new technology being tested would allow the landing of a load twice as heavy, and the use of multiple parachutes could mean even spacecraft of 20 to 30 tons could make a soft landing, Clark said.

At the test location high above the Earth, the air will be as thin as the wispy atmosphere around Mars, but it will be a lot easier to recover the saucer if things go wrong. The balloon could fail or the vehicle itself may prove balky, Clark said.

"We want to test them here — where it's a lot cheaper — before we we send them to Mars," said project manager Mark Adler, also of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Contributing: Associated Press

Residents in a US Town have Gold Pouring from their Taps

Residents in a US town have gold on tap, literally.

The local community of Whitehall, in the US state of Montana, have discovered gold flakes pouring out of their household water taps.



Mark Brown said his wife Sharon found specks of gold flakes in the soap suds as she was washing up.

"She pulled the plug to let the water out and it was glistening, gleaming little flecks. I can't explain it... It's bizarre," he told NBC.

The Browns' neighbour Paul Harper revealed he has also found gold in his drinking water.

While the residents initially had their doubts as to what the flecks were, chemical tests have proved that it is pure gold.

Montana does have a gold mine located five miles northeast of Whitehall, however an official with the State Department of Environmental Quality said there's no reason to suspect the gold came from the mine.

It is thought that the flakes could have come from pipes or pumps connected to the water supply.

Whitehall receives its drinking water from two wells in the middle of the town.

While you'd think the discovery of gold in the water might have prompted a gold rush, in fact the residents are more concerned about what else might be in their drinking water.

"If we're getting heavy metals that you can see with the naked eye, what else might be in there?" said Brown.

A sample of the gold drinking water has been sent to a lab for testing.

Michelle Obama’s uncle worked in Punjab in ’60s

Bathinda: While the Golden Temple in Amritsar is no longer on their itinerary, US President Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle Obama, can trace her links to Punjab back to 1961 when her uncle, Nomenee Robinson, worked in the state as a Peace Corps volunteer.



Robinson, an architect, was sent to Punjab to assist in building projects. Based at the Punjab Engineering College, he was associated with the institute's rural housing wing. He worked under then Punjab Financial Commissioner for Development Anthony Fletcher (ICS officer).

During his field work, Robinson stayed in Nasirpur village near Patiala, where he helped the residents in fabricating structures using a Cinva-Ram machine to make bricks from soil, sand, straw and a fraction of cement. In the course of his two-year stay in Punjab, Robinson travelled extensively with Indian engineers throughout the state, visiting Ludhiana, Sangrur, Jalandhar and Amritsar.

Asked about his Punjab stay, Robinson, now 73 and a Peace Corps recruiter, said in an e-mail to The Indian Express: "It crosses my mind every year since I left. I would love to be involved in some way with strategic and economic planning for regions of India."

Robinson, who went on to do his MBA from Harvard Business School after returning from India, said he enjoyed Punjabi food and hospitality. His best friends were a mix of Sikhs and Hindus, he said, recalling some names like Muktiah Singh, Jugdesh, Tunji, Vir, Raju and Sohan Lal.



Besides Punjab, Robinson also went to Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. For three months, he was sent on an assignment to begin construction of trekking huts above Manali. "It was a most exciting, and sometimes thrilling, exposure to India and the cultures in the north," said Robinson.

"I'm proud to say I know India and its people in small ways, but profound ones," said Robinson, adding that he found his visit to Chandigarh "spellbinding", since he had read about the place during his university years.

Recalling some of his unforgettable memories, Robinson said: "On one occasion, Mr Fletcher took me to New Delhi when he assisted in Five Year Plan sessions. He arranged for me to chat with Jawaharlal Nehru in his private office. I shall never forget that experience, one that few Americans have ever had. I, a small boy from the inner city of Chicago, drinking tea, sitting and talking with one of the greatest men in our lifetime."

Source: The Indian Express

One in five Americans thinks Obama is a Muslim

Washington, Aug 19(ANI): A new survey has found that nearly one in five Americans incorrectly believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Obama's religion, like his place of birth, has been the subject of Internet-spread rumours and falsehoods since before he began his presidential campaign.

According to a new Pew Research Center survey, 18 per cent of the Americans now say that Obama is a Muslim, which is up from 11 per cent in March 2009.

It also found that the number of people who now correctly identify Obama as a Christian has dropped to 34 percent, down from 48 per cent in 2009.

The survey was completed in early August, before Obama's recent comments that appeared favouring the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center, the Center said.

Meanwhile, White House officials have expressed dismay over the poll results, blaming it on "misinformation campaigns" by the President's opponents.

"While the president has been diligent and personally committed to his own Christian faith, there's certainly folks who are intent on spreading falsehoods about the president and his values and beliefs," The Washington Post quoted Joshua DuBois, Director of the President's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, as saying. (ANI)