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Railway employees to receive bonus

September 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Sep 17 (ANI): The Union Cabinet today approved the proposal of the Ministry of Railways for payment of Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) equivalent to 75 days’ wages for all eligible non-gazetted Railway employees.

The move will benefit 13.05 lakh employees and it will cost the xchequer Rs 889 crore

The salient features of the PLB scheme evolved as a result of review of the scheme and approval of the cabinet on September 23, 2000.

Railways were the first departmental undertaking of the Government of India wherein the concept of PLB was introduced. The main consideration at that time was the important role of the Railways as an infrastructural support in the performance of the economy as a whole.

In the overall context of Railway working, it was considered desirable to introduce the concept of PLB as against the concept of Bonus on the lines of ‘The Payment of Bonus Act – 1965′.

The PLB scheme for the Railways came into force from the year 1979-80 onwards and was evolved in consultation with the two recognised federations viz. All India Railwaymen’s Federation and National Federation of Indian Railwaymen and with the approval of the Cabinet. The scheme envisages a review every three years. (ANI)

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How addictive drugs influence learning and memory

September 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep 10 (ANI): In a new study on mice, researchers have found why and how the use of addictive drugs take control of reward signals and influence neural processes associated with learning and memory.

The study could help explain how drug-associated memories, such as the place of drug use, drive and perpetuate the addiction.

It is known that the neurochemical dopamine, a key player in the brain’s reward system, is involved in the process of addiction.

Research has indicated that dopamine participates in neural processes associated with learning, such as the strengthening of neuronal connections, called synaptic potentiation.

Evidence has also implicated the hippocampus, a deep-brain structure that is critical for formation of new memories, in the development of drug addiction.

“Although addictive drugs like nicotine have been shown to influence the induction of synaptic potentiation, there has been little or no research in freely moving animals that monitors ongoing induction of synaptic potentiation by a biologically relevant drug dose,” explains senior author Dr. John Dani from the Department of Neuroscience at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

The researchers recorded from the brains of freely moving mice while applying physiologically relevant concentrations of nicotine, the addictive component in tobacco.

The researchers found that nicotine induced synaptic potentiation correlated with the mice learning to prefer a place associated with the nicotine dose.

Importantly, these effects required a local dopamine signal within the hippocampus.

The finding reinforces the view that dopamine enables memory for specific events.

Overall, the results point to some intriguing possibilities about how drug-associated memories might contribute to behaviors associated with addiction.

“An animal’s memories or feelings about the environment are updated when the dopamine signal labels a particular event as important, new, and salient. Normally these memories help us to perform successful behaviors, but in our study, those memories were linked to the addictive drug.

When specific environmental events occur, such as the place or people associated with drug use, they are capable of cuing drug-associated memories or feelings that motivate continued drug use or relapse,” concluded Dani.

The study has been published in the latest issue of the journal Neuron. (ANI)

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Egypt arrests 15 suspected of making rockets for the Gaza

April 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Rafah, Egypt – Egyptian security forces arrested 15 people on Friday on charges of making rockets to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip through border tunnels, an Egyptian security source said. He added that authorities confiscated components that could have been used to make rockets in a workshop located in the Sheikh Zuwaid area of the northern part of the Sinai peninsula.

Border tunnels were dug by Palestinians to transfer food supplies, goods and even people from Egypt into the besieged enclave.

Israel, which imposed a blockade on the densely populated enclave ever since the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas took control in June 2007, alleges that the tunnels were also used to smuggle weapons for used against the Israelis.

Last week, Egypt destroyed 10 tunnels that were used to smuggle fuel and diesel under a Cairo operation aimed at securing the borders with Gaza.

Egypt has come under increasing pressure, particularly from Israel and the United States, to crack down on weapons smuggling from the Sinai Peninsula into the salient.

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Cops find going tough on the fake money trial

April 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

CHENNAI: The problem of counterfeit currency is growing at an alarming rate. There are 132 land customs check-points , 93 at ports and 36 at
international airports but the racketeers still manage to pump in lakhs of such currency. “The periodic seizures by the various law-enforcing agencies are only the tip of the iceberg. Those caught may not know, most of the time, the brain behind the racket ,” a senior police officer said.

In 2008, the Coimbatore police and banks detected as many as 170 cases of circulation of fake currency against none in 2007. Chennai reported 134 cases of counterfeit currency in 2008 and 7 in 2007.

According to sources, then Union home secretary Madhukar Gupta had sent a confidential report to all state chief secretaries to assign a nodal officer to curb the circulation of fake Indian currency notes (FICNs). Several government agencies were brought on one platform to share information.

“In 2008, banks across TN detected 612 cases of counterfeit currency while the state police unearthed 38. In 2007, banks detected 76 cases and the state police 37,” said CBCID additional director-general of police Archana Ramasundaram.

Sources said that about 5-10 % or Rs ,500 crore of the Rs 2,50,000 crore presently in circulation in the country is estimated to be counterfeit. The total seizure of fake currency in the country is about Rs 15 crore a year. The average life of a currency note is 9 to 10 months. Whenever there is a seizure of fake currency, the RBI announces that notes of a particular series are fake. Information can also be had at www.rbi.org.in.

Most Indian currency notes have 14 salient features. Some of them are watermarks , security thread, intaglio printing , optically variable ink (OVI), seethrough register of flower in front and back registration, number panel, micro letters, ID mark, register, latent image electrolyte water mark, omron anti-copying feature and optically variable ink.

Those arrested can be booked under Section 11 of the Customs Act, 1962, under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities (COFEPOSA) Act, apart from Sections 489 (A) (counterfeiting currency notes), 489 (B) (using as genuine, forged or counterfeit currency notes), 489 (C), 489 (D) and 489 (E) of the IPC.

It hasn’t helped that the country’s borders with Nepal and Bangladesh are porous. The Indo-Bangaldesh border at Dharam Nagar (north Tripura), Karimganj district of Assam and Malda in West Bengal are used to bring FICNs to the north-east . Flights from Dubai, especially to Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Mangalore , are considered sensitive as are those from Colombo to Chennai. Bangalore and Kozhikode are some of the distribution centres of FICNs.

According to DRI sources, the price of an FICN with a face value of Rs 1,000 ranges between Rs 350 and Rs 400 at the time of its entry into India. When it reaches a wholesale distributor, the price goes up to Rs 550-Rs 600 and further rises to Rs 750-Rs 800 at a retailer. According to sources, India’s borders with Pakistan, Nepal and Bangaldesh, the Samjhauta Express from Pakistan, and passengers coming by air from Dubai, Pakistan, Thailand , Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malysia are being monitored to check the flow of fake currency.

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How the brain processes important information

April 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 3 (ANI): Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have gained fresh insights into how the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is used by nerve cells to communicate with one another, helps brain cells to process important information.

Studying cells in mice, the researchers have found that this neurotransmitter causes certain brain cells to become more flexible, and changes brain-cell circuitry to process important information differently than mundane information.

“This can help one remember a new, important episode as distinct from any other episode, such as remembering where you parked your car today versus yesterday,” said Dr. Robert Greene, professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern.

“If we can one day manipulate the way that salient information is processed, we might be able to not only improve learning, but also improve the learning needed to extinguish severe fear responsiveness, such as when a soldier can’t forget emotional war memories associated with post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said.

Given that conditions like addictions and schizophrenia are associated with alterations in dopamine in the brain, the researchers believe that their findings may one day prove helpful in dealing with them.

It is known that dopamine is released in the brain in association with experiencing “important” events and remembering salient acts, such as learning to avoid a hot stove or that a good grade is rewarded.

Dr. Greene said that the current study focused on how dopamine operates on the cells associated with this type of memory formation.

He and his colleagues isolated slices of the hippocampus region of the animals’ brains, and electrically stimulated the cells.

To simulate what happens in the brain in response to a memory-worthy event, they then exposed the cells to a selective dopamine-like neurotransmitter agent and repeated the stimulation.

When the researchers compared the effects of the stimulation with and without the dopamine agent, they identified changes in the responses of NMDA receptors, proteins that mediate synaptic plasticity when activated.

“The NMDA responses changed to increase the cells’ plasticity, and we think that this facilitates learning and memory,” Dr. Greene said.

Besides that, according to the researchers, the changes in NMDA responses to dopamine agents changed the functional circuitry of the cells, making the cells more responsive to electrical impulses coming from an indirect route through three processing “stations” before they reached the output region of the hippocampus.

Dr. Greene said that in the absence of dopamine, the cells tend to respond instead to impulses travelling by a route that is more direct and requires less processing.

Information sent by this direct route may reflect what is already known, and is less likely to change the animal’s behaviour.

“While the current study involved isolated mouse brain tissue containing the memory circuits, the human brain likely works the same way,” Dr. Greene said.

“You don’t want to have interference from yesterday. You need to know where you parked your car today, and dopamine may help to ensure that information from today will be remembered as distinct from yesterday,” he added.

He and his colleagues will net study how dopamine modulation affects learning and memory-related behaviour, and exactly how dopamine acts on cells and their circuits.

The current study has been published in the Journal of Neuroscience. (ANI)

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Israel says Gaza operation to continue until aims met

January 5, 2009 By Rajiv Gupta Leave a Comment

Gaza/Tel Aviv – Israel pounded Gaza from the air, sea and ground on the second full day of its ground offensive Monday, and Israeli leaders said the offensive will continue until the country’s aims are met.

Palestinians said Israeli shelling had killed at least 24 Gazan civilians in the Strip, 13 of them children of two families

The Israeli army refused to give updated casualty figures from the day’s fighting, saying a toll would only be released once a day, in the evening.

But according to Israeli media reports which could not therefore be confirmed, some 55 soldiers have been wounded since Saturday night, when the troops first crossed into the Gaza Strip in the second stage of Operation “Cast Lead,” sparked by a week of incessant air attack.

On Sunday, one Israeli soldier was killed.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni rebuffed European Union calls calls for a ceasefire, saying at a joint news conference with EU representatives that while Israel did not request world countries to help it fight Hamas, it wanted them “to let us continue (fighting) until we decide we’ve achieved our aims.”

She said Israel was fighting to create a “new equation” whereby it would no longer act with restraint when Hamas fired rockets from the Gaza Strip.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Monday, as he prepared to brief the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, that the Gaza offensive would continue since Israel had yet to achieve its objectives.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was also due in Israel for talks with officials, as the international community kept up its pressure for a ceasefire in the fighting, which began December 27, when Israel, after a week of massive rocket barrages from the Gaza Strip on southern Israeli towns and cities following the end of a nervous six-month truce, began a campaign of air strikes at Gaza targets.

Barak said Monday that Gaza city was partially surrounded by Israeli troops, who on Sunday took up positions which effectively cut the salient into two.

Local residents said tanks moved into the city’s Zaytoun neighbourhood from a base they set up at a former Jewish settlement, Netzarim, south of the metropolis.

Occupying a hill overlooking Gaza City and the camp, they also moved toward the eastern outskirts of Jabaliya, north of the city and one of the most crowded refugee camps in the enclave.

The troop’s advance sparked heavy clashes with local Hamas fighters.

According to Palestinian officials, at least 50 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the ground offensive after darkness on Saturday alone, while more than 200 have been injured.

During the fighting Monday a tank shell destroyed a house during fighting in Zaytoun neighbourhood before dawn, killing 13 members of one family, Assamouni, including the father, mother and eight children aged four to 15, hospital officials said. Ambulances were able to reach the house only after daylight, witnesses said.

A naval shell later also struck a house in western Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp Monday morning, killing a father, mother and their five children of another family, the Abu Aishais, the chief of the emergency room of Gaza City’s Shifa hospital, Haythem Dababish, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

In Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza city near the border with Israel, four more civilians died when a tank shell hit a mourning tent set up near the home of a paramedic killed Sunday, the town’s hospital said.

But keeping up the pressure, Israeli fighter jets meanwhile struck some 30 more targets in the coastal enclave overnight, the military said.

Israeli ground troops, which entered the strip late Saturday have also taken control of some areas from which Palestinian militants have been firing rockets at southern Israel.

Nonetheless, rockets continued to land Monday, with about 30 striking various locations in Israel, including one which slammed into a kindergarten, which was empty at the time, in the port city of Ashdod, about 30 kilometres north of the Strip.

Since Israel nine days ago launched Operation “Cast Lead” – aimed at curbing seven years of rocket and mortar attacks against its southern towns and villages – more than 532 Palestinians have been killed and at least 2,500 injured.

Four Israelis, three civilians and a soldier, have been killed in the 480 rockets and mortars which have been launched form the salient since the operation began, and 119 civilians wounded, in addition to many more treated for shock. (dpa)

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Israeli soldier killed in Gaza Strip

January 4, 2009 By Rajiv Gupta Leave a Comment

Tel Aviv – An Israeli soldier was killed Sunday morning in a clash with Hamas in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s ground offensive in the salient, an Israeli military spokesman said.

He said 31 Israeli soldiers have been wounded in the ground fighting, one of them critically, two seriously, and the rest moderately to slightly.

Medical officials in Gaza say 35 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli troops crossed into the Strip Saturday night as part of “Operation Cast Lead” against militants, and 150 have been wounded.

At least 495 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli assault began on December 27 with massive airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, and around 2,500 wounded.

The hundreds of Palestinian rockets and mortars launched since the start of the operation have left four Israelis dead, three of them civilians, and dozens more wounded. (dpa)

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Israeli, troops divide Gaza in two as push continues

January 4, 2009 By Rajiv Gupta Leave a Comment

Tel Aviv/Gaza – Continuing the second stage of a massive offensive against militants in the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops pushed further into the salient Sunday, battling Palestinian gunmen and cutting the enclave into two as they deployed south of Gaza City and seized control of a major traffic artery.

Palestinian medical officials said the ground operation had seen at least 35 Palestinians killed and 150 wounded. An Israeli military spokesman said at least 31 soldiers had been wounded since the army first moved into the Gaza Strip on Saturday night, including one critically and two seriously.

The Israeli military spokesman dismissed as a “complete lie” militants’ claims that they killed nine Israeli soldiers, and a senior Israeli military official said reports that an Israeli soldier had been captured by the militants was “untrue.”

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that most of the resistance the Israelis had encountered so far came from mortars, although other Israeli spokesmen said close-quarters combat has taken place.

“We are operating in a very challenging area that has been well- prepared by Hamas in order to repel attacks,” the official said.

According to the Israeli media, Hamas can call on 16,000 armed fighters, and the organization’s arsenal includes 4,000 rocket- propelled grenade launchers, 120 tons of explosives, and dozens of 120mm mortars.

Residents of the Strip said more than half of the enclave appeared to be occupied by the Israelis, who were taking up positions outside major towns, and avoiding entering densely-populated areas.

Gaza City was a virtual ghost town Sunday, with shops closed and most people huddled indoors.

Backing up the ground forces, the air force continued attacking, hitting over 45 targets overnight and Sunday including tunnels, weapons storage facilities, mortar shell launching squads, and a number of mortar shell launching areas, a statement by the Israeli military said.

One of the raids also killed two senior Hamas militants, Hussam Hamdan, responsible for the firing of long-range Grad missiles toward the southern Israeli cities of Beersheba and Ofakim, and Mohammed Hilo who was in charge of Hamas “special forces” in Khan Younis.

The Israeli Navy also attacked several targets including the Hamas intelligence headquarters in Gaza City, rocket launching areas, and Hamas marine forces outposts the statement added.

The Israeli official said that although the Israeli ground incursion was proceeding as planned, it would not be a rapid operation which would end in days.

He said Israel was not seeking to recapture the entire Strip, but wanted to decrease the number of rockets fired from the Strip at Israel, and would thus remain in the areas which are operational at present.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told ministers at the start of Sunday’s cabinet meeting, held in Tel Aviv, that the Israeli assault was “unavoidable” and was part of the overall operation designed to “create a new security reality” for residents of southern Israel.

But militias in the Strip continued to rocket Israel, firing both short-range and long-range missiles at various cities, although the approximately 30 rockets launched by mid-afternoon was fewer than Israeli analysts had predicted would be fired once the ground assault got underway. There were no reports of fatalities.

The Israeli ground operation got under way Saturday evening as infantry and armour, backed by combat engineers and with air support, crossed into the salient after an artillery barrage lasting hours.

Palestinian militants immediately confronted the Israelis, sparking what the Islamic Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, said in a statement were “heavy and tough exchanges of fire and armed clashes.”

Reports from inside the Strip described explosions, heavy machine- gun fire and shelling by Israeli tanks. The bombing campaign continued overnight, and television footage from Gaza showed fires and billowing smoke.

The Israeli military said the ground operation was the second stage of the Israeli offensive, which began December 27, and was intended to destroy Hamas installations in the area of operations and to impede militants’ firing of rockets at Israel.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak warned in a televised statement Saturday night that the ground campaign would be neither easy nor short.

Israel launched its “Operation Cast Lead” in response to a week of heavy rocket barrages on the Jewish state out of the Gaza Strip, following the end of a shaky six-month truce between Israel and Hamas leaders in the territory.

At least 495 Palestinians have been killed since Operation Cast Lead began, and around 2,500 wounded.

The hundreds of Palestinian rockets and mortars launched since the start of the operation have left four Israelis killed, three of them civilians, and dozens more wounded. (dpa)

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Gaza-fired missile hits Israel city of Ashdod for first time

December 29, 2008 By admin Leave a Comment

Tel Aviv – Palestinian militants in the Gaza strip fired a Russian-made Gard missile at the southern Israel port city of Ashdod Monday night, a military spokeswoman said.

Reports said five people were wounded by the missile, one critically, one seriously and three lightly.

The strike marks the first time a missile from the Gaza Strip has landed in Ashdod, although one rocket fired Sunday landed just south of the city, the furthest projectiles launched from the salient have ever landed in Israel.

Hamas has said it will strike target in Israel previously not targeted by its missiles, as Israel continues with its air offensive against the Islamist group in the Gaza Strip. (dpa)

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