4 NATION CE THE TELEGRAPH CALCUTTA TUESDAY 21 OCTOBER 2008

NATION
BRIEFS
Court info
for all
 New Delhi, Oct. 20
(PTI): The Central Infor-
mation Commission has
ruled that a cause list,
which gives details of
cases to be taken up in a
court on a particular
day, is a public document
which any citizen can in-
spect.
The commission has
questioned Delhi High
Court’s decision to ask
an RTI applicant “reaso-
ns for seeking the infor-
mation”.
Malaysia trial
 Kuala Lumpur (PTI):
An ethnic Indian activi-
st of the outlawed Hindu
Rights Action Force we-
nt on trial on Monday for
sedition for alleging that
the Malaysian govern-
ment practised “ethnic
cleansing” policies, but
denounced the charge as
“malicious persecuti-
on”. P. Uttayakumar had
been detained for “incit-
ing racial hatred” after
he organised a rally to
protest the marginalisa-
tion of ethnic Indians in
the country in Novem-
ber last year.
LOOK ALIKE
A dog-owner dressed
like her Miniature
Pincher at an event in
Hyderabad. (AP)
Gay case
 New Delhi (PTI): Del-
hi High Court on Mond-
ay said homosexuality
could not be said to be a
disease. It objected to the
government’s contenti-
on describing it as an ail-
ment which, if legalised,
Moon mission: All you wanted to
know before the lift-off tomorrow
he countdown began on
T Monday for Wednesday’s
launch of Chandrayaan-1,
India’s unmanned moon mis-
sion, from the Sriharikota
spaceport. “The countdown
started at 5.20am today (Mon-
day). The 52-hour countdown
has been optimised to 49
hours,” Isro said.
Answers to frequently
asked questions about the
mission follow:
What is India sending to the
moon now?
Chandrayaan-1, a cuboid-
shaped spacecraft designed to
orbit the moon for two years.
Ten instruments aboard the
spacecraft will map the lunar
surface, search for ice near the
HOW LONG
WILL THE
JOURNEY
TAKE?
A launch on Oct. 22 will
allow the spacecraft to
approach its lunar orbit
around Nov. 8
lunar poles, study the mineral
composition of the moon and
assess the radiation environ-
ment on the moon. Three sci-
entific instruments from the
European Space Agency, two
from Nasa and one from Bul-
garia will piggyback on Chan-
drayaan-1 that carries four In-
dian-made instruments.
The spacecraft also carries
an impactor probe, an instru-
ment equipped with a radar al-
timeter that will be ejected
from Chandrayaan-1 to fall
onto the lunar surface. The de-
vice was developed at the
Vikram Sarabhai Space Cen-
tre, Thiruvananthapuram.
Chandrayaan-1 will ride
into space aboard an upgraded
version of India’s workhorse
Long questions off
rocket — the Polar Satellite
Launch Vehicle. About 20 min-
utes after lift-off, it will be
hurled into an initial elliptical
orbit around Earth. A series of
orbit-boosting manoeuvres
will then move the spacecraft
to greater distances from
Earth until it slips into the
lunar orbit about 18 days after
the launch.
What is the use of this mi-
ssion?
The lunar orbiter will
allow India to test its capabili-
ties in deep space missions. A
successful mission is expected
to boost India’s image in the
community of space-faring
nations, even though it is more
than four decades since Russ-
ian and US spacecraft made
the first fly-bys of the moon.
The instruments aboard
Chandrayaan-1 are intended
to gather scientific data that is
THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS
The Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft at the Isro centre in Bangalore
expected to guide future lunar
missions. The Bulgarian in-
strument measures radiation
in the moon’s vicinity and
could help in planning shield-
ing requirements for future
manned missions.
Chandrayaan-1 is intended
to be the first of a series of lun-
ar and possibly planetary mis-
sions. India and Russia plan to
collaborate on Chandrayaan-2
that will land on the moon and
carry a rover to cruise around
its surface. Isro has already
initiated in-house studies on
missions to Mars, some aster-
oids and comets.
If Chandrayaan-1 is suc-
cessful, when can we put an
Indian on the moon?
Putting a man on the moon
requires — first of all — the
capability for manned space
flight which India has not
demonstrated yet. Chan-
drayaan-1 at launch will be
only 1,400kg. A manned mis-
sion demands sending a much
heavier payload into space —
estimated to be about 10,000kg.
Isro engineers are working to-
wards building a rocket for
such a payload as well as a two-
astronaut capsule.
A manned mission also re-
quires capability for capsule
recovery, safety and life-sup-
port. Isro demonstrated its
first successful capsule recov-
ery experiment last year. India
has yet to develop technolo-
gies for life-support. The US
initiated its manned Apollo
missions in the late 1960s only
after several lunar fly-bys and
orbiter missions by un-
manned spacecraft.
Which country did this
first?
India is sending a space-
craft to orbit the moon 100km
Naren
▼
above the lunar surface. A
Russian spacecraft Luna 1 was
the first to fly near the moon at
a distance of about 6,000km on
January 4, 1959. But the first
true lunar orbiter was Rus-
sia’s Luna 10 which went
around the moon for 60 days in
April-May 1966.
Are other Asian countries
pursuing lunar missions?
China and Japan are. Jap-
an launched Hiten, its first lu-
nar probe in 1990, and Kaguya,
its second lunar orbiter in Sep-
tember 2007. China launched
its lunar orbiter, Change’e-I, in
October 2007 to study the lu-
nar environment and surface.
Why did it take India so
long to do this?
For nearly four decades,
Isro concentrated on applying
space technology to develop-
ing telecommunication,
Short service plan to
weather observation and re-
mote-sensing satellites. Devel-
oping launch vehicles, satel-
lites and ground segments re-
quired for this task took time.
It was only in the mid-1990s
that senior Isro officials began
pitching ideas about space-
craft to explore the moon and
beyond.
In one unique exercise,
about eight years ago, Isro
asked some of its young scien-
tists — known as the Space
Generation Task Group beca-
use members were born after
1957 (year of the Sputnik) — to
pencil their visions of what
India should be doing in space
in the years to come. Space ex-
ploration was high on the list.
Does India stand to gain
from the entire mission?
Isro officials believe estab-
lishing its credentials in
deep space exploration would
help India join future collabo-
rative international space
projects. The high cost of
space exploration is expected
to nudge many countries into
a collaborative mode. Chan-
drayaan-1 itself symbolises
collaboration — with six for-
eign-made instruments.
How much does the current
programme cost?
Rs 386 crore. This includes
Rs 100 crore for two giant an-
tennas for India’s deep space
tracking network that will be
used in all future deep space
missions.
Chandrayaan-1 costs less
than a Boeing 737-800 ($70 mil-
lion to $79 million, according
to the plane manufacturer’s
HOW
MUCH
DOES IT
COST?
Rs 386 crore,
less than half the
cost of a new IIT
website) and the total bill for
this round is less than half
the cost of a new Indian Insti-
tute of Technology (Rs 800
crore).
Do the gains justify the
costs?
Space scientists will say an
emphatic yes. Critics may say
the money could have been
used to solve problems on
Earth.
If I pay, can I be the first In-
dian on the moon?
We’re too far away from
this question. Commercial fli-
ghts to the moon are not a real-
ity yet from anywhere in the
world.
G.S. MUDUR

would bring “devastati- FROM PAGE 1

on”. The Centre had also
contended that gay sex
was responsible for the
spread of AIDS in India.
Factory fire
 Mumbai (PTI): Fire
broke out at an industri-
al estate in Jogeshwari
on Monday. Sixteen fire
engines, ten jumbo tank-
ers and three ambula-
nces were rushed to the
spot. No casualties have
been reported so far.
HANDICRAFT
A potter makes earthen
lamps in Raipur ahead
of Diwali. (PTI)
Family killer
 Aluva (PTI): A 40-
year-old man stabbed to
MBBS entry test
OUR LEGAL
CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, Oct. 20: From
next year, students sitting the
all-India pre-medical test for
MBBS or dental courses will
not have to answer long ques-
tions.
Instead, they will first take
an objective, multiple-choice
preliminary test on April 6,
and the successful candidates
will then appear in a final test
on May 10 that too will have
only objective questions.
Earlier, candidates were
set multiple-choice questions
in the preliminary exam and
long questions in the final
exam.
The Supreme Court today
accepted the new format, sug-
gested by the Central Board of
Secondary Education (CBSE),
which conducts the all-India
test.
The board told the court
the new system would do away
with “subjective” marking (of
“descriptive” answers to long
questions) and also make the
process faster since answers to
objective questions can be
evaluated by computer. So, the
results can be declared quick-
ly, freeing up more time for
counselling.
The three-hour prelimi-
nary exam will have 200 ques-
tions: 50 each in physics and
chemistry and 100 in biology.
The final exam, also of three
hours, will have 120 questions
of higher “difficulty”: 30 each
in physics and chemistry and
60 in biology.
In both exams, students
will be offered a choice of four
answers — only one of them
correct — for every question.
Each correct answer will
bring four marks and each
wrong answer one negative
mark.
The cutoff marks for the
preliminary round will re-
main 50 per cent for the gener-
al category and 40 per cent for
quota students. All candidates
scoring above the cutoff — or
a number that is 10 times the
number of seats available,
whichever is less — will quali-
fy for the final exam.
The results for next year’s
preliminary exam will be de-
clared in end-April so the stu-
dents can take the final exam
on May 10.
The pre-medical test used
to be a single-round, wholly
objective-type exam till the
CBSE introduced the two-
round, objective-cum-descrip-
tive exam in 2004. But it told
the court this system was cre-
ating difficulties.
“Evaluation (of the final
exam) is done mostly in the
last 10 days of May. Because of
the summer vacation… (the
examiners) too remain on va-
cation. Further, (they) are re-
luctant to work for the entire
duration, i.e. 9-10 days, at one
stretch in the scorching heat,”
the CBSE said.
The time-consuming eval-
uation of descriptive answers
means it takes 25 days to de-
clare the results, allowing just
seven days before counselling
begins.
“Many a time the candi-
dates do not get rank letters in
time,” the CBSE said.
Now, with both exams set-
ting objective-type questions,
human evaluators will not
be needed and 10 days can
be saved.
As the word spread, Bloc sup-
porters blocked GT Road for
two hours from noon.
The police traced the Sumo
to Bhadreswar, barely a kilo-
metre from where the Scorpio
had been stopped, and arrest-
ed seven youths.
“They said they were loan
recovery agents of a private
financial company and had st-
opped Chatterjee’s car by
mistake. We are looking for
two others who have fled,”
said Salil Ganguly, inspector
in charge of Serampore police
station.
No revolver was found on
the arrested youths, the police
said.
Officers informed Chatter-
jee about the arrests tonight
but he was not convinced.
“Why should recovery agents
carry a revolver? My car has
the official plate of the mar-
keting board and an Assembly
car-park sticker. It also has a
red light on the bumper. Why
should they mix up my car
with any other?” he asked.
The Supreme Court has
told banks and financial insti-
tutions they cannot hire
musclemen to threaten and
humiliate loan defaulters
into paying up, but the tactic
continues and leads many
to suicide.
beat army crunch
OUR SPECIAL
CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, Oct. 20: The
army will recruit more offi-
cers on short service commis-
sion to overcome a shortage
after the Centre accepted a
proposal to restructure the of-
ficers cadre, defence minister
A.K. Antony said in Parlia-
ment today.
Army headquarters has
proposed that the intake of
permanent commissioned of-
ficers be reduced and a new
scheme to recruit non-techni-
cal officers on short service
commission be introduced,
Antony said. The Centre has
granted “in-principle” ap-
proval to the suggestion.
Officers on short service
commission have the option of
quitting service after 14 years
or taking permanent commis-
sion if medically fit.
Last month, the Centre
also announced that it was
framing new rules to grant
women permanent commis-
sion in non-combat wings of
the armed forces.
In a separate answer to a
OFFICER HEADCOUNT IN FORCES
Authorised strength
Current strength
Shortage
question in Parliament,
Antony said: “The shortage of
officers in the three services is
largely attributable to changes
in the socio-economic environ-
ment and the resultant change
in career preferences, better
employment opportunities in
other sectors, tough selection
procedures and service condi-
tions required for the armed
forces, etc.”
Statistics released by the
minister showed that there
was a shortage of over 11,000
officers in the army alone (see
chart) despite a drive in the
last three years to increase re-
cruitment.
The defence minister said
the armed forces had detailed
their grievances with the rec-
ommendations of the Sixth
Pay Commission.
ARMY NAVY AIR FORCE
46614 8945 12120
35495 7586 10768
11119 1359 1352
He said no officer of the
navy or air force had sought
premature retirement on the
ground of dissatisfaction with
the Sixth Pay Commission re-
port.
“However, in the army,
since March 2008, a total num-
ber of 584 officers (less army
medical corps/army dental
corps and military nursing
service) have applied for pre-
mature retirement/resigna-
tion on ground of non-empan-
elment, compassionate grou-
nd, low medical category, fail-
ure to acquire minimum tech-
nical qualification and better
employment in civil life. How-
ever, from this it cannot be as-
certained that they have soug-
ht an exit because of resentm-
ent against the Sixth Pay Com-
mission report,” Antony said.

Adoption glare on bishop Orissa no to CBI

death his mother, wife
and six-year old daugh-
ter before attempting to
end his life at Kerala’s
Paravur on Monday. Po-
lice said Sajith, who was
taken to hospital and is
stable, was suffering
from depression.
Director dies
 Chennai (PTI): C.V.
Sridhar, the Tamil film
director who introduced
Jayalalithaa to the scre-
en, died of cardiac arre-
st on Monday. He was 73.
He made his debut with
a Gemini Ganesan-star-
rer, Kalyana Parisu, in
the 1960s. Sridhar also
directed Hindi films like
Dil Ek Mandir, Nazrana
and Pyaar Kiye Jaa.
JOHN MARY
Thiruvananthapuram, Oct.
20: A Kerala bishop who
adopted an unmarried wom-
an as his spiritual daughter
today said he regretted
misleading the flock but
would revoke the special re-
lationship only if the Vati-
can convinced him it was il-
legal.
Bishop John Thattungal
of the Kochi Latin diocese
adopted 26-year-old Sonia at
the office of the sub-regis-
trar in Mattancherry on Sep-
tember 15.
The woman then spent a
few days in a guesthouse on
the Bishop’s House premises.
A priest of the Protestant
Orthodox Church, who had
adopted Sonia when she
was a child, also stayed with
her.
There is no precedent of a
Catholic priest or bishop
adopting a believer because
the Church treats all as its
spiritual children.
The bishop, who holds a
doctorate in canon law, first
spoke about the adoption at a
monthly recollection of
priests under the Kochi dio-
cese. He reportedly said he
enjoyed a special relation-
ship with the woman who
had extraordinary spiritual
powers. He is believed to
have told the meeting he was
convinced of Sonia’s powers
to cure.
The 58-year-old bishop
had come close to Sonia dur-
ing a foreign tour. Later,
back in Kerala, they had
travelled in his car, he re-
portedly said.
The priests at the meeting
were scandalised. Some of
them wanted him to give
up charge of the congrega-
tion.
The Vatican sought a re-
port from its representative
in Delhi, Archbishop Pedro
Lopez Quintana.
It was in this context that
Bishop Thattungal convened
a meeting of priests today.
He said he regretted disclos-
ing his special experiences at
the monthly recollection th-
at had spawned misunderst-
anding and a crisis of faith
among the clergy and the
laity.
He is also believed to
have blessed the Bishop’s
House with the wine symbol-
ising the blood of Christ —
seen as an unusual practice.
On this, the bishop said
he was not averse to a
priest undoing the act
through a routine blessing
followed by the Catholic
Church.
He regretted offering
Mass at St Lawrence Church
in Kochi on October 19 along
with the priest of the Protes-
tant Orthodox Church.
Catholic priests are barred
from conducting Mass with
Protestant priests.
SAMANWAYARAUTRAY
New Delhi, Oct. 20: The Orissa government
today opposed any move to transfer the Kand-
hamal nun-rape case to the CBI and said com-
pensating religious institutions was against its
“secular” policy.
“There are no grounds nor any need for
transfer of the investigation of this case to the
CBI,” an affidavit filed by state home secretary
Tarun Kanti Mishra said.
The affidavit for the state, where several
churches have been destroyed or damaged
in the ongoing violence, added: “…no compen-
sation is paid for damaged religious institu-
tions, irrespective of their religious affilia-
tions, as per the secular policy of the state gov-
ernment.
“However, the state government gives
lump-sum compensation in the nature of
ex-gratia payments for damage to schools,
colleges and shelter homes and other
public/charitable institutions run by religious
institutions.”
The state denied allegations that it had not
taken action against those accused in the nun-
rape case.
It said the nun had left the area and refused
to co-operate with investigations, but an FIR
had been filed against unknown persons for
rape and molestation.
Eight persons had also been arrested so far,
it said. Santosh alias Mitu Patnaik, Saroj Bad-
hei and Muna Badhei were picked up on Octo-
ber 9 from a rice mill in Kerala’s Palakkad dis-
trict.
“…investigation of the case is continuing
very diligently and earnestly and the matter is
being monitored at the highest level.”
The affidavit said the ethnic and religious
nature of the divide between the Kandhs,
a Scheduled Tribe, and the non-tribal Sched-
uled Castes, as well as the district’s hilly terrain
had hindered movement of police forces.