10 punch lines from #NaMo’s speech at SRCC

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday pitched the state’s model of growth and governance. Modi said that vote bank politics has spoilt the country and emphasised the need for good governance to make India globally competitive.

According to Modi all three major sectors of the economy viz., agriculture, industry and services should be given equal importance for development. This, he said, helps in overall development.

Here is a look at ten choicest punch-lines from his speech:

Nation of Mouse charmers

Mouse charmers: The youth of the nation has its finger on the mouse of computers and is changing the world. India’s journey has gone from snake charmers to mouse charmers!

Ignoring protests outside, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today used a college platform to project himself nationally saying his focus was on development politics and not that of vote-bank, which he said has “ruined” the nation.

India has a huge growth opportunity

“The ambassador of a nation asked me what major challenges India faces and I said the biggest one is that how we use opportunity. When asked what the opportunity was, I said the youth. Europe buddha ho chuka hai, China budha ho chuka hai.”

According to Modi India has a huge growth opportunity in the form of youth.

“Our country is not poor. We have vast resources, see eastern India is full of them. But we are unable to use that. We are unable to utilise the opportunity,” Modi said.

P2G2: Pro-people, good governance

“We need P2G2. Pro-People Good governance“: Pitching for the role of ‘good governance’, Modi said that the people of the country have sunk into an overwhelming state of pessimism.

“Even after six decades of freedom, the nation awaits good governance,” Modi said.

Speaking in Hindi on ‘Emerging business models in the global scenario’, Modi said the nation can progress by following ‘Gujarat model’ based on P2G2 (Pro-people good governance) principle.

Youth: New-age power

Youth ‘new-age power’, not ‘new-age voter’ alone. Youth have changed the way India is perceived today. Modi stressed the role of youth in the development of the nation.

His extempore speech was telecast live by news channels. “I am Chief Minister for a fourth term and based on my experience, with the same law, same Constitution, same rules and regulations, same officers, same people, same files, we can move forward. We can do a lot. I am confident that we can change things,” he said.

The glass is always full!

“I believe that the glass is full. One half with water and the other half with air.” There is despondency all over country but I am confident we can change the situation.

Picking up a glass of water, he said an optimist would say the glass is half full, while a pessimist would say it is half empty.

“I have a third point of view. For me the glass is always full — half with water and half with air. We can turn over the situation,” he said.

Milk in Delhi is from Gujarat

There must be no one in the audience who has chai without doodh from Gujarat in it. All the milk in Delhi is from Gujarat. Milk in Singapore is from Gujarat, Okra in Europe is from Gujarat.

Stating that the state’s agricultural sector has exhibited growth, Modi said, “If you go to Afghanistan, the people there have tomatoes that come from Gujarat.” Further talking about the development of the state, Modi said that the milk in Singapore and the ‘bhindi’ in Europe come from Gujarat.

Minimum government, maximum governance

Minimum government, maximum governance – this is my philosophy.

“This nation is being ruined by vote bank politics. This nation requires development politics. If we switch to politics of development, we will soon be in a position to bring about lasting change and progress,” Modi said.

“People feel nothing would change here. All are thieves, everything they do is waste. People consider it a curse to be born in India. They want to leave the country soon after completing their studies,” Modi said delivering the Shri Ram Memorial Oration.

Why not export teachers?

A businessman who goes abroad only captures dollars but a teacher influences a whole generation, said Modi while emphasising the need for education and promoting teaching as a vocation.

“We have created a university for teachers. I say we have so much youth and export so much, why not export teachers?”

Citing Gujarat’s mantra of success that can be emulated by the country for speedy progress, he said the focus should be on the manufacturing sector by making zero-defect products with good packaging.

Re-invent Made in India

Why shouldn’t we make the ‘Made in India’ tag a statement of quality for our manufactured products?,” he questioned.

Modi said there is a need to build the ‘Made in India’ brand. He drew a parallel between the credibility of a ‘Made in Japan’ tag and expressed the wish to have India reach such a level some day.

“The whole world says 21st century is India’s century. Some say it is Asia’s century, while some also say it is China’s century. I am confident that 21st century can be India’s century as knowledge is supreme,” he said.

Delhi’s Metro, Gujarat’s Coach!

Some years ago I launched a product which is now a part of Delhi. I launched a coach of the Delhi Metro! In Delhi all the metro coaches are coming from Gujarat.

Touting the recent ‘Vibrant Gujarat Summit’ which accepted the global relevance of Gujarat with the presence of 121 nations there, Modi said, “When the world sees this, they infuse confidence that we can do.”

PTI

Delhi gang rape victim dies in Singapore hospital

At about 3.21 am on Saturday the super speciality hospital in Singapore announced the death of the 23 year old gang rape victim.

Hospital chief executive Kelvin Loh told the BBC that she had passed away due to multi organ failure due to “serious injuries to her body and her brain.”. He also added that “she was courageous” in fighting for her life for so long” against the odds “but the trauma to her body was too severe.”

According to hospital authorities she had been sinking ever since she had arrived in Singapore. In fact the doctors in Delhi, who had been attending to her told DNA on the request of anonymity that shifting her had led to further trauma to her. The journey had proved to be hazardous and she had suffered another seizure in the special aircraft while enroute to Singapore.

On December 26, she had suffered two cardiac arrests and Dr Naresh Trehan had been rushed to Safdarjung Hospital secretly to assess her condition. She had started having multi-organ failure and an infection to her brain had started spreading.

Doctors also told DNA that she had been put on a ventilator as soon as she landed in Singapore as her capacity to breathe on her own had collapsed.The Indian High Commission alerted itsaa superiors in New Delhi at 3.30 am as soon as the news was officially communicated to them. According to the Singapore hospital officials the girl’s family was with her when she breathed her last.

The Delhi Police immediately announced strict measures to restrict movement out of fear that protests would erupt. In fact, the union cabinet had decided to fly her out of Delhi after spontaneous protests broke out in the heart of Delhi. Last week had seen several surges of protests when protesters marched to South and North Block that houses the Prime Minister’s Office and the union home ministry as well as Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Arrangements are being made to fly her back to India.

HIGH ALERT IN DELHI

All roads leading to India Gate, Rajpat and Vijaychowk, where violent clashes broke out over the last weekend in the wake of the brutal assault, were barricaded, have been closed. The Delhi Police tightened security across the national capital on Saturday as soon as the news of the death of the victim reached.

The Delhi traffic police posted a tweet early this morning: “Entire central Vista including Rajpath, Vijay Chowk and all road leading to India Gate will be closed for general traffic, Kamal Attaturk Marg also closed. All travelers (sic) are advised to avoid these roads..”

10 metro stations have been closed. These include Rajiv Chowk, Barakhambha Road,

PM’s CONDOLENCE MESSAGE

PM Manmohan Singh condoled the death of the 23-year-old medical student. His message:

I am deeply saddened to learn that the unfortunate victim of the brutal assault that took place on December 16 in New Delhi has succumbed to the grievous injuries she suffered following that attack. I join the nation in conveying to her family and friends my deepest condolences at this terrible loss. I want to tell them and the nation that while she may have lost her battle for life, it is up to us all to ensure that her death will not have been in vain. We have already seen the emotions and energies this incident has generated. These are perfectly understandable reactions from a young India and an India that genuinely desires change.

It would be a true homage to her memory if we are able to channelize these emotions and energies into a constructive course of action. The need of the hour is a dispassionate debate and inquiry into the critical changes that are required in societal attitudes. Government is examining, on priority basis, the penal provisions that exist for such crimes and measures to enhance the safety and security of women.

I hope that the entire political class and civil society will set aside narrow sectional interests and agenda to help us all reach the end that we all desire – making India a demonstrably better and safer place for women to live in. I pray for the peace of the departed soul and hope that her family will have the strength to bear this grievous loss.

SIGNIFICANT BRAIN INJURY

The Singapore hospital said earlier that the woman had suffered “significant brain injury” and was surviving against the odds. She had already undergone three abdominal operations before being flown to Singapore. Protests over the lack of safety for women erupted across India after the attack, culminating last weekend in pitched battles between police and protesters in the heart of New Delhi. New Delhi has been on edge since the weekend clashes. Hundreds of policemen have been deployed on the streets of the capital and streets leading to the main protest site, the India Gate war memorial, have been shut for long periods, severely disrupting traffic in the city of 16 million. Commentators and sociologists say the rape has tapped into a deep well of frustration that many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social and economic issues. Many protesters have complained that Singh’s government has done little to curb the abuse of women in the country of 1.2 billion.

A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide, child marriage and slavery.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India’s major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures.

Government data show the number of reported rape cases in the country rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.

Saikat Datta

Salty Hard Drives Have More Bytes

Scientists in Singapore discover adding common table salt increases hard drive capacity.

THE GIST

• Adding common table salt to current hard drive systems increases their capacity.
• The table salt causes the bits to align in a more organized fashion, making room for more bits in the same space.

Scientists in Singapore proved they are worth their salt by sextupling hard drive space with no equipment upgrades.

Scientists at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in collaboration with National University of Singapore and the Data Storage Institute discovered that simply adding table salt to a solution used when creating hard drives increased the capacity by almost six times.

This advance means a hard drives holding 1 Terabyte (TB) of data today, in the future, could hold 6 TB of data within the same size and form factor. The salt causes this increase because it forces the bits (pieces of information on your hard drive) into predictable, organized patterns on your hard drive. A*STAR likens the system to packing your clothes in your suitcase when you travel. The neater you pack them the more you can carry.” Current methods use clusters of data without such a specific organizational system.

The secret to their research lies in their salty solution. Using an existing production method the scientists discovered adding table salt would produce highly defined nanostructures without the need for expensive equipment upgrades.This ‘salty developer solution’ method was invented by Dr. Yang when he was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Joel Yang, the Singapore scientist who heads up the project told AFP, “It can give you a very high contrast. We are now able to see fine lines that would normally be blurred out.”

This method is still, solidly, in the development stages. Dr. Yang hinted the salty bit-patterning process will be adopted by the industry by 2016 “when the current techniques run out of fuel and (hard drive manufacturers) need to find alternate methods” of increasing data storage space. So, don’t go dipping your hard drives in salt to increase their storage capacity.

Related articles

• Table salt used to boost digital storage: Scientists (canada.com)
• Researchers add a dash of salt to hard drives for capacities up to 18TB (arstechnica.com)
• 18TB hard drives made possible using table salt (geek.com)
• How To Enable 18TB Hard Drives? Just Add Salt (techcrunch.com)