NEW DELHI: Arjan Singh, Marshal of Indian Air Force and India’s oldest and the only officer of the IAF to have been promoted to five-star rank, breathed his last at the Army hospital here today.

He was admitted to the Army’s Research and Referral hospital on September 16 in a critical condition after suffering a cardiac arrest. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had visited him that very evening to inquire about his condition.

Famous for his stellar role in the 1965 Indo-Pak war when he led the IAF from front, Arjan Singh had a life-long zest for flying and had flown 60 different kinds of aircraft. During the war when Pakistan had launched “Operation Grand Slam’’ targeted at the crucial border town of Akhnoor in Jammu and Kashmir, it was Arjan Singh who led the air force with his professional skill and courage.

Widely respected and admired for his leadership qualities, Arjan Singh was an iconic figure of the Indian military history. He always remained a source of inspiration not only for young flyers of the IAF but also from the other two wings of the country’s armed forces. Even being a nonagenarian he walked ram-rod straight and went to Delhi airport to pay his last respect when former President APJ Abdul Kalam’s mortal remains were flown in from Shillong two years ago.

He was born on April 15, 1919 in Pakistan’s Faisalabad in a military family and joined the air force when he was only 19 in 1938. After a year he was commissioned from England’s Royal Air Force College Cranwell. His role during operations on the Burma front during World War II drew appreciation from all quarters. He was the first Indian pilot to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) by the Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia. He was described as a fearless pilot who was endowed with exceptional qualities.

After India was declared Republic in 1950, Arjan Singh headed the Command of IAF’s operational group for two years and again from 1955 to 1959. He also took a number of courses in military academics in RAF Staff College, Brackwell, Joint Services Staff College and London’s Imperial Defence College.

He took charge of Indian Air Force’s third chief of staff in August 1964. In 1965 he was honoured with Padma Vibhushan for his role in Indo-Pak war. When he retired in 1970, he became one of the longest serving chiefs of armed forces in the country. During his tenure as Air Force chief, IAF acquired modern fighters, reconnaissance aircraft, transport planes and tactical helicopters.  

He was picked up to be India’s Ambassador to Switzerland in 1971 and High Commissioner in Kenya in 1974 and to Vatican as well. Later, he served as Delhi’s Lt-Governor and proved to be a hands-on administrator.

In 2002, Arjan Singh became the only IAF officer to be promoted to five-star rank, a distinction equal to the Field Marshal. Last year West Bengal’s Panagarh Air Force base was renamed as Air Force Station Arjan Singh. He became the only living military officer to have a base renamed after him. 

Cassini launched in 1997 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and arrived at Saturn in 2004. NASA extended its mission twice – first for two years, and then for seven more. 

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made a fateful plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn, ending its 13-year tour of the ringed planet.

“This is the final chapter of an amazing mission, but it’s also a new beginning,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Cassini’s discovery of ocean worlds at Titan and Enceladus changed everything, shaking our views to the core about surprising places to search for potential life beyond Earth.”

Telemetry received during the plunge indicates that, as expected, Cassini entered Saturn’s atmosphere with its thrusters firing to maintain stability, as it sent back a unique final set of science observations. Loss of contact with the Cassini spacecraft occurred at 7:55 a.m. EDT (4:55 a.m. PDT), with the signal received by NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna complex in Canberra, Australia. 

“It’s a bittersweet, but fond, farewell to a mission that leaves behind an incredible wealth of discoveries that have changed our view of Saturn and our solar system, and will continue to shape future missions and research,” said Michael Watkins, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, which manages the Cassini mission for the agency. JPL also designed, developed and assembled the spacecraft.

Cassini’s plunge brings to a close a series of 22 weekly “Grand Finale” dives between Saturn and its rings, a feat never before attempted by any spacecraft.

“The Cassini operations team did an absolutely stellar job guiding the spacecraft to its noble end,” said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at JPL. “From designing the trajectory seven years ago, to navigating through the 22 nail-biting plunges between Saturn and its rings, this is a crack shot group of scientists and engineers that scripted a fitting end to a great mission. What a way to go. Truly a blaze of glory.”

As planned, data from eight of Cassini’s science instruments was beamed back to Earth. Mission scientists will examine the spacecraft’s final observations in the coming weeks for new insights about Saturn, including hints about the planet’s formation and evolution, and processes occurring in its atmosphere.

Cassini launched in 1997 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and arrived at Saturn in 2004. NASA extended its mission twice – first for two years, and then for seven more. The second mission extension provided dozens of flybys of the planet’s icy moons, using the spacecraft’s remaining rocket propellant along the way. Cassini finished its tour of the Saturn system with its Grand Finale, capped by Friday’s intentional plunge into the planet to ensure Saturn’s moons – particularly Enceladus, with its subsurface ocean and signs of hydrothermal activity – remain pristine for future exploration.

While the Cassini spacecraft is gone, its enormous collection of data about Saturn – the giant planet, its magnetosphere, rings and moons – will continue to yield new discoveries for decades to come.

“Cassini may be gone, but its scientific bounty will keep us occupied for many years,” Spilker said. “We’ve only scratched the surface of what we can learn from the mountain of data it has sent back over its lifetime.”

The highly polarising V K Sasikala being divested of the position as the all powerful general secretary of the ruling AIADMK. 

Even though who takes control of the ruling AIADMK is not yet over nearly ten months after the death of chief minister J Jayalalithaa, it had become critical to see the back of the highly polarising figure of the interim general secretary of the party V K Sasikala along with her nephew T T K Dhinakaran.  

This became possible thanks to the factions of Tamil Nadu chief minister E Palaniswami and deputy chief minister O Paneerselvam coming together. The Madras High Court rejected the plea of Dhinakaran’s third faction to ban the party’s general council meeting scheduled last Tuesday where it overwhelmingly removed Sasikala and Dhinakaran as the powerful office bearers of the AIADMK. 

Soon after Amma’s death on December fifth last year (2016), Sasikala as the spearhead of the Mannargudi clan having a firm grip over Jayalalithaa’s internal and personal affairs, had her way in getting appointed as the party supremo. As a close friend of Jayalalithaa for nearly three decades she has played a major role in the affairs of the AIADMK. 

Sasikala was hell bent on becoming the chief minister but the Supreme Court intervened which saw her going to jail to serve a four year conviction in a disproportionate assets case. The break with Sasikala is now a reality. 

With the BJP keen on enlarging the saffron brigade’s presence in the south and particularly in Tamil Nadu, it played its part in bringing the Palaniswamy and Paneerselvam factions together along with ensuring that the AIADMK becomes a part of the NDA. 

Both Palaniswami and Panerselvam have met Prime Minister Narendra Modi separately on a few occasions in the national capital  as BJP strategists believe a foot hold in Tamil Nadu will facilitate the Lotus party enlarge its arithmetic in the next Lok Sabha elections barely 18 months away in 2019. 

BJP president Amit Shah has already fixed a target of 350 seats for the saffron brigade in the 543-member Lok Sabha. In the 2014 general elections the Lotus party had secured a majority of 282 seats on its own for the first time since it was formed in 1980.   

With Dhinakaran continuing to claim the support of no less than 18 legislators, he has accused chief minister Palaniswamy of sending cops to the resort in Coorg in neighbouring Karnataka to brow beat the legislators to switch loyalties. While threatening legal action, Dhinakaran alleged that the officers in the police team even offered the MLAs Rs 15 crores to Rs 20 crores.  

The AIADMK will be run by OPS as the chief coordinator with EPS as the second-in-command. With no love lost they will be looking over each other’s shoulder all the time. The sacking and isolation of Sasikala will lend greater political legitimacy to the ruling party’s claim of being truly representative of the party’s organisational support base. 

What is significant is that the AIADMK will no longer be remote controlled by the so called Mannargudi mafia,  the village from where Sasikala hails.  

The newly evolved collective leadership of the AIADMK has also abolished the all powerful post of general secretary. The 18 odd legislators with Dhinakaran is enough to pull down the Palaniswami government. At the same time they have refrained from forming themselves into a breakaway group for fear of being disqualified. 

Any kind of reconciliation at this juncture is ruled out. A large number of legislators who were present and voted at the AIADMK general council meeting earlier in the week on September 12 made it clear their stand was to snuff out “any influence of Sasikala or her family in both the party and the government”.  

The OPS-EPS combine is tantalisingly one or two short of a majority in the 234-member Tamil Nadu assembly with two seats being vacant. Amid the continuing political uncertainty in the AIADMK, the DMK believes that the ball is in the court of the Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, who has been given additional charge of Tamil Nadu along with Maharashtra. 

The Governor has told the opposition leaders that he cannot intervene at this juncture as it is an “internal issue of the ruling party.” DMK’s Stalin has drawn attention to approaching the court if the Governor fails to ask the chief minister to prove his majority on the floor of the assembly as envisaged in the 1994 S R Bommai judgement. 

Any reconciliation is virtually impossible even though Sasikala has not been expelled from the AIADMK. With more than three years left for their five-year term term to end, none of the ruling MLAs want a snap poll. 

The instability of the AIADMK government has adversely affected its governance in Tamil Nadu affecting the state’s robust economic growth. Impartial observers believe Palaniswamy might have risked the stability of his own government by patching up with Paneerselvam which has queered the pitch further. 

Amid an acute shortage of humanitarian supplies for the thousands of Rohingya arriving every day in Bangladesh, having fled violence in Myanmar, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is undertaking a “massive” scale-up of its emergency operations to ensure that those most vulnerable are not endangered further.

Up to 400,000 Rohingyas have been sheltering in Bangladesh since violence erupted across the border in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state in end-August and, according to preliminary estimates, about 60 per cent of them are children.

“There are acute shortages of everything, most critically shelter, food and clean water,” said Edouard Beigbeder, the head of UNICEF in Bangladesh.

“Conditions on the ground place children at high risk of water-borne disease. We have a monumental task ahead of us to protect these extremely vulnerable children.”

In its response, the UN agency has been dispatching trucks filled with emergency water, sanitation and hygiene supplies to Cox’s Bazar (located near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border), with a steady stream of supplies in the pipeline for the coming days and weeks.

Supplies include detergent powder, soap, and pitchers and jugs for storing water, along with nappies, sanitary napkins, towels and sandals.

UNICEF is also supporting the Department of Public Health Engineering with water treatment plants and carriers, and is working with partners on the ground to install and rehabilitate tube wells.

“These items are part of a first wave of supplies that will massively scale-up our emergency response to the growing number of Rohingya children in Bangladesh,” Mr. Beigbeder added, noting that UNICEF has appealed for $7.3 million to provide emergency support to Rohingya children over the next four months.

While briefing media United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated his call on Myanmar authorities to suspend military action, end the violence and recognize the right of return of all those who had to leave the country.

He also underscored his call for “an effective action plan” to address the root causes of the situation, which he said had been left to fester for decades and has now escalated beyond Myanmar’s borders, destabilizing the region.

The George Institute for Global Health has welcomed the proposal of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) to expand the donor base by proposing an enabling move that seeks to widen the definition of ‘near relatives’ under the Human Organs and Tissues Transplantation Act, 1994.

The proposal by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare seeks to increase the number of organ transplants as the existing rules are restrictive. Six new categories if relatives are proposed to be included in the Human Organs and Tissues Transplantation Act, 1994 (amended in 2011) to get more donors within the extended family of the patient.

The new relatives can be step father and step mother; step brother, step sister, step son, step daughter and their spouses; spouses of sons and daughters of the recipient; brothers and sisters of recipient’s spouse and their spouses; brothers and sisters of recipient’s parents and their spouses and first cousins of the parents.

The organ transplant program in India is overwhelmingly dependent on altruistic donation by living individuals.

“We hope that this enabling provision will be supported by clear and transparent processes to confirm of such relationships with a high degree of confidence, so that this provision is not used as a loophole to indulge in the reprehensible practice of commercial transplants. The verification should be based on objective genetic tests and not just on documents of questionable countenance. Such processes should be developed in consultation with all stakeholders, viz. the professional societies, legal experts and patient groups,’’ Dr Vivekanand Jha, Executive Director of the Institute has said in a statement.

We also call upon the government to enforce the provisions that already exist in the Act to facilitate ethical deceased organ donation. Deceased donations will not only help kidney transplant recipients but also save the lives of those in need for unpaired organs like liver, lung, heart, pancreas, and intestine. “We urge that that all intensive care units identify and document brain deaths and ensure that transplant coordinators discuss the possibility of donation with the next of the kin,’’ the statement said.

The George Institute for Global Health is improving the lives of millions of people worldwide through innovative health research. The Institute conducts clinical, population and health system research aimed at changing health practice and policy worldwide. The Institute has been ranked among the top 10 global institutes for impact for the last several years. 

GANDHINAGAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said that ties between the India and Japan are not limited to bilateral or regional spheres but the two countries are also cooperating on key global issues. 
In a joint press statement after delegation level talks with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Mr. Modi said that in 2016-2017 Japan had invested 4.7 billion dollars in India which is 80 per cent higher than the last year. Referring to the ground breaking ceremony of Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Project earlier this morning, Mr. Modi said it will be the lifeline of “New India.” The high speed Bullet Train will cover the nearly 510 km distance between Ahmedabad and Mumbai in little over two hours, cutting down the present travel time of seven hours by nearly one-third time. The project is expected to be completed by August 2022. 
He said that both India and Japan enjoy trust and confidence in their bilateral ties and understood each other’s concerns as well. 
Mr. Modi said that India Post and Japan Post will soon start a “Cool Box” service for Japanese living in India so that they can order and get their favourite food delivered at home from Japan. He also urged the business community to open chain of new Japanese restaurants in India which has the potential of a thriving business. 
Mr. Modi said that be it the ease of doing business, Skill India or Make in India programmes, India is transforming and presenting new opportunities for Japanese companies to who are connected with many of these programmes, 
Welcoming the agreements signed today in the presence of both the Prime Ministers, Mr. Modi said the agreements would strengthen India-Japan partnership.The two countries signed MoU on international academic and sports exchange, on cooperation in civil aviation and other areas.
The two Prime Ministers also condemned in the strongest terms North Korea’s continued development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. 
Prime Minister Abe recalled that India, Japan and the U.S. had conducted maritime exercise Malabar for the first time which was indicative of the strong ties of mutual trust. 
Referring to his last year’s visit to Japan, Mr. Modi thanked Japan for ratification of cooperation agreement on civil nuclear programme. He said that both the countries were also cooperating in clean energy and climate change. 
Mr. Modi welcomed Mr. Abe whom he described as his friend and greeted him in Japanese.

This illustration shows NASA’s Cassini spacecraft heading for the gap between Saturn and its rings during one of 22 such dives of the mission’s finale. The spacecraft will make a final plunge into the planet’s atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is on final approach to Saturn, following confirmation by mission navigators that it is on course to dive into the planet’s atmosphere on Friday, Sept. 15.
Cassini is ending its 13-year tour of the Saturn system with an intentional plunge into the planet to ensure Saturn’s moons – in particular Enceladus, with its subsurface ocean and signs of hydrothermal activity – remain pristine for future exploration. The spacecraft’s fateful dive is the final beat in the mission’s Grand Finale, 22 weekly dives, which began in late April, through the gap between Saturn and its rings. No spacecraft has ever ventured so close to the planet before.
The mission’s final calculations predict loss of contact with the Cassini spacecraft will take place on Sept. 15 at 7:55 a.m. EDT (4:55 a.m. PDT). Cassini will enter Saturn’s atmosphere approximately one minute earlier, at an altitude of about 1,190 miles (1,915 kilometers) above the planet’s estimated cloud tops (the altitude where the air pressure is 1-bar, equivalent to sea level on Earth). During its dive into the atmosphere, the spacecraft’s speed will be approximately 70,000 miles (113,000 kilometers) per hour. The final plunge will take place on the day side of Saturn, near local noon, with the spacecraft entering the atmosphere around 10 degrees north latitude.
When Cassini first begins to encounter Saturn’s atmosphere, the spacecraft’s attitude control thrusters will begin firing in short bursts to work against the thin gas and keep Cassini’s saucer-shaped high-gain antenna pointed at Earth to relay the mission’s precious final data. As the atmosphere thickens, the thrusters will be forced to ramp up their activity, going from 10 percent of their capacity to 100 percent in the span of about a minute. Once they are firing at full capacity, the thrusters can do no more to keep Cassini stably pointed, and the spacecraft will begin to tumble.
When the antenna points just a few fractions of a degree away from Earth, communications will be severed permanently. The predicted altitude for loss of signal is approximately 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) above Saturn’s cloud tops. From that point, the spacecraft will begin to burn up like a meteor. Within about 30 seconds following loss of signal, the spacecraft will begin to come apart; within a couple of minutes, all remnants of the spacecraft are expected to be completely consumed in the atmosphere of Saturn.
Due to the travel time for radio signals from Saturn, which changes as both Earth and the ringed planet travel around the Sun, events currently take place there 86 minutes before they are observed on Earth. This means that, although the spacecraft will begin to tumble and go out of communication at 6:31 a.m. EDT (3:31 a.m. PDT) at Saturn, the signal from that event will not be received at Earth until 86 minutes later.
“The spacecraft’s final signal will be like an echo. It will radiate across the solar system for nearly an hour and a half after Cassini itself has gone,” said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “Even though we’ll know that, at Saturn, Cassini has already met its fate, its mission isn’t truly over for us on Earth as long as we’re still receiving its signal.”
Cassini’s last transmissions will be received by antennas at NASA’s Deep Space Network complex in Canberra, Australia.
Cassini is set to make groundbreaking scientific observations of Saturn, using eight of its 12 science instruments. All of the mission’s magnetosphere and plasma science instruments, plus the spacecraft’s radio science system, and its infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers will collect data during the final plunge.
Chief among the observations being made as Cassini dives into Saturn are those of the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS). The instrument will directly sample the composition and structure of the atmosphere, which cannot be done from orbit. The spacecraft will be oriented so that INMS is pointed in the direction of motion, to allow it the best possible access to oncoming atmospheric gases.
For the next couple of days, as Saturn looms ever larger, Cassini expects to take a last look around the Saturn system, snapping a few final images of the planet, features in its rings, and the moons Enceladus and Titan. The final set of views from Cassini’s imaging cameras is scheduled to be taken and transmitted to Earth on Thursday, Sept. 14. If all goes as planned, images will be posted to the Cassini mission website beginning around 11 p.m. EDT (8 p.m. PDT). 
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

The India Institute of Technology Roorkee is setting up a network of 100 earthquake sensors between Chamoli and Dharchula in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand as part of an exercise to provide an alert in case of any high magnitude earthquake occurs in the Himalayas.

The project supported by the Uttarakhand government includes installation of sirens in the state government’s Emergency Operation Centres at Dehradun and all district headquarters. It builds upon the existing network of 84 sensors between Uttarkashi and Chamoli in the Garhwal region put in place as part of a pilot project supported by the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Speaking to India Science Wire, Prof. M.L.Sharma of the Department of Earthquake Engineering at IIT Roorkee and Principal Investigator of the project, said the deployment of additional sensors will go a long way in providing protection not only to the people of Uttarakhand but also those living further down south.

“Data compiled over the last two centuries has shown that large magnitude earthquakes have occurred in different regions of the Himalayas except one segment in its central part. It is called Central seismic Gap. Scientists apprehend that it has potential to generate a major earthquake and that it is overdue. Areas within a radius of 200 km from the Gap could be vulnerable and these include Chandigarh, Delhi, Lucknow, Patna and other parts of the highly populated Indo-Gangetic Plain, apart from Uttarakhand itself,” Sharma said.

The new 100 sensors along with the existing 84 spread over a distance of 200 km would cover the Gap area and help monitor the seismic activity there. The sensors will stream data in real-time basis to a server at the Institute using network of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and SWAN network of the Uttarakhand government. The computer will process the data and issue an alert immediately.

When an earthquake occurs, different types of waves with different velocities are generated. P-waves travel the fastest at a speed of 5 to 6 km per second followed by S-waves which move at a speed of about 3 km per second. But P-wave itself is slower than electromagnetic wave transmitted through telephone. The sensors would send out a signal to the Institute through telephone towers of BSNL as soon as a P-wave is detected.  

Dr. Sharma said Dehradun would get a lead time of about 10 seconds. “It may not be much. Not all may be in a position to respond that quickly. But, at least measures could be in place for the immediate shut down of hazardous units’’. IIT Roorkee, he said, was working on scaling up the alert system to cover cities like Delhi and Chandigarh which were in the vulnerable zone. Delhi, for instance, could get a lead time of 70 to 80 seconds. The system is being designed to issue an alarm for any earthquake with a magnitude of over 6 on the Richter scale. 

(India Science Wire)

Japan PM Shinzo Abe reaching Ahmedabad today for India-Japan annual summit; PM Narendra Modi to receive him

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will receive his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe at Ahmedabad in Gujarat today. Mr Abe is coming to India on a two-day visit to attend the India-Japan annual summit meeting. The 12th edition of the summit, which will be the fourth meeting between Mr Modi and Mr Abe, will be held in Gandhinagar tomorrow.

The two leaders will review the recent progress in the multifaceted co-operation between India and Japan under the framework of their ‘Special Strategic and Global Partnership’ and will set its future direction. 

Mr Modi and Mr Abe will also attend a function to mark the commencement of work of India’s first high-speed rail project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai.

Today, the two Prime Ministers will visit Dandi Kutir, the museum dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi, at the Mahatma Mandir and other hostorical places. Ahead of the Japanese Prime Minister’s visit, Mr Modi yesterday said in a tweet that India truly values its ties with Japan and looks forward to further boosting the bilateral relations in a wide range of areas.

Supreme Court says minimum cooling period of six months for granting divorce can be waived by trial court

The Supreme Court has held that the minimum cooling period of six months for granting the decree of divorce under the Hindu law can be waived by a trial court if there was no possibility of cohabitation between an estranged couple. 

The 1955 Hindu Marriage Act provides for a statutory cooling period of six months between the first and the last motion for seeking divorce by mutual consent to explore the possibility of settlement and cohabitation. 

The apex court said, the object of the cooling off period was to safeguard against a hurried decision if there was otherwise a possibility of differences being reconciled. It said, though every effort has to be made to save a marriage, but if there are no chances of reunion and there are chances of fresh rehabilitation, the court should not be powerless in enabling the parties to have a better option. 

The court also said, in conducting such proceedings, the trial court can use the medium of video conferencing. The bench was dealing with a plea filed by an estranged couple which had sought waiver of the six month period on the ground that they have been living separately for the past eight years and there was no possibility of their re-union.

Zero balance accounts under PMJDY come down to 20% from 77%: Arun Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said zero balance accounts under the Jan Dhan Yojana have come down to 20 per cent from 77 per cent previously. Speaking at the Conclave on Financial Inclusion by United Nations in Delhi, Mr Jaitley said 300 million accounts were opened under Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). He said before 2014, financial inclusion was not a centre stage agenda of the government. 

Mr Jaitley said, the government launched the PMJDY in a mission mode throughout the country with the help of banks. The minister said 44 per cent of Indian households were earlier outside the banking system. Mr Jaitley further hit out at the criticism from the Opposition who said 77 per cent of the PMJDY accounts were zero balance. He said the figure today has come down to a little below 20. He, however, said the real challenge was how to get people to open these accounts, get them to make these accounts operational and how do you incentivise them to really operate these accounts. Launched in 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was aimed at providing universal access to banking facilities starting. 

Mr Jaitley said these Basic Banking Accounts could get overdraft facility of 5,000 rupees. Mr Jaitley said India was substantially an unpensioned society as people could not afford the premiums. He said the government has announced two important insurance schemes and a pension scheme that would be linked to these bank accounts. Mr Jaitley said these insurance schemes where you pay 1 rupee a month and get 2 lakh rupees accident insurance and at a slightly higher premium, someone get a life insurance. The finance minister said Aadhar legislation has been passed and it will stand test of constitutionality. Mr Jaitley also said untargetted subsidy puts pressure on exchequer.

Los Angeles to host 2028 Olympics

Los Angeles will host the 2028 Olympics. The evaluation commission of International Olympic Committee, IOC gave the formal go ahead to its bid yesterday. Today, the full IOC will award the 2024 Games to Paris and the 2028 Games to Los Angeles.

Los Angeles had originally bid for 2024, but because of the new date, it had to make changes to its host contract.The evaluation commission said that although details need to be finalised, it is confident LA can host Olympics in 2028.

Taking a serious note of incidents of child abuse in schools, the Union Ministries of Women & Child Development and Human Resource Development will hold a high level meeting in New Delhi tomorrow to discuss the safety and protection of children in schools.

The objective of the meeting of the two ministries is to develop a set of guidelines and protocols which schools must follow so that the children remain protected from any kind of abuse or physical/ mental harm.

The Supreme Court will also take up a case of security in schools and is likely to issue guidelines. The Apex Court has already issued notices to the Centre, Haryana State, CBSE and NCERT in connection with the murder of a student in a renowned private school in Gurugram.  

The meeting will be co-chaired by the Minister of Women & Child Development, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi and Minister for Human Resource Development, Prakash Javdekar. Officials of the two ministries, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, CBSE, NCERT, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan will also participate in the meeting.

Ms Gandhi today spoke to Mr Javadekar requesting him to consider suggestions like having women employees as the support staff and bus drivers/conductors in the schools, screening of educational films on child sexual abuse in the schools, popularizing POCSO e-Box and Childline 1098 through NCERT publications and having strict norms for employing the support staff. She has also given these suggestions in writing to the HRD Minister.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has already started its outreach campaign for protection of children through electronic as well as social media.

The WCD Minister further stated that the parents, guardians and teachers should remain vigilant about the children as well as their behavior and any suspected situation should be reported immediately on the Childline No.1098 and the POCSO e-Box.  

All this follows the killing of a 7-year-old Pradyuman in the toilet of Gurugram branch of Ryan International School last week. His case will be tried in a special POCSO court in Gurugram. Three persons have already been arrested in this connection – one for allegedly killing the student and two others from the management for negligence. The main accused, Ashok Kumar has reportedly tried to sexually assault the boy but was stabbed when he offered resistance.

A high-powered committee, instituted by the district administration, had found major lapses in the school security.

Meanwhile, a Mumbai court has stayed the arrest of the promoters of Ryan School until tomorrow when it hears their anticipatory bail application. A team of Haryana police is already in Mumbai where they are questioning the promoters of the school which has several branches in and outside India.