Mass spectrometry: the most important analytical tool of modern times

Mass spectrometry (MS), arguably the most important analytical spectroscopic tool of modern times, is in its centenary year in 2013 along with two other celebrated discoveries of science, the Bohr atom model and the chemical bond of G. N. Lewis; both have profound connections to the first.

Sir J.J. Thomson, a Nobel Laureate, also known for the discovery of electrons, built the first rudimentary mass spectrometer in 1913 (it was built earlier, but a full description appeared in this year) which identified the existence of isotopes — atoms differing in mass but having the same atomic number and therefore occupying the same position in the periodic table (‘isos’ is equal and ‘topos’ is place, in Greek).

His student, Aston, who built more mass spectrometers, expanded the discipline, identified 212 of the 287 naturally occurring isotopes and became the first Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in the area. Five Nobel Prizes have been awarded to MS pioneers.

Mass spectrometry is a way to measure the mass of ions — electrically charged species, derived from atoms or molecules. In the preface of his celebrated book, Rays of Positive Electricity and Their Application to Chemical Analyses (1913) Thomson stated, “I feel sure that there are many problems in Chemistry which could be solved with far greater ease by this than by any other method. The method is surprisingly sensitive — more so even than that of Spectrum Analysis, requires an infinitesimal amount of material, and does not require this to be specially purified…”. The words were prophetic. Today, there is no single area of experimental science where mass spectroscopy is not being used. There is no university or research institution in the developed world without a mass spectrometer; this may even be said about India.

The technique is used to explore the chemical constitution of molecules from this planet and beyond, e.g. the hydrocarbon “seas” of Saturn’s moon Titan.

It is used to understand the fundamental atomic and molecular processes and at the same time those of immediate relevance to events within cells. As a technique, it helps to control processes in chemical and biological industries, diagnose diseases, discover new drugs, protect the environment and explore mysteries of nature.

In 100 years, it has been used to separate much of the uranium 235 used to make the Little Boy (the bomb that was dropped onto Hiroshima in 1945), led to understanding of thousands of chemical reactions, to the discovery of new molecules, to the resolution of protein structures, to solve crimes and to provide answers to complex questions of nature.

Mass spectrometers require a way to produce ions — e.g. remove or add electrons, generally one electron — to the sample, then analyse the mass of the ion formed and detect it.

In each of these areas (forming ions, analysing their mass, detecting them) innovations have led to multiple mass spectrometric techniques.

The most important developments have happened in ion formation. Years ago, it was necessary to evaporate a sample to generate vapours and bombard these with a stream of electrons in order to make ions, a process which required vacuum. This was possible only with simple molecules which can be evaporated, generally by heating. Today it is possible to measure the mass spectrum of complex proteins, extremely fragile molecular assemblies and even intact cells, none of which evaporate normally. It is now possible to measure mass spectra of ultra small volumes, as small as a single human cell.

It is possible to understand the spectrum of molecules from the surface of a rose while the plant is alive. Mass spectra of molecules — metabolites or drugs or cancer markers — can be measured on a patient’s skin or in his/her blood.

Mass spectrometers may soon arrive in physicians’ consulting rooms. It has been demonstrated that they can help in diagnosis during complex surgeries within the operating theatre.

Ions are enjoying a considerable following these days. The mass spectrometry community is probably the largest group of scientists working around a single tool. However, despite this large following, it is surprising that mass spectrometry is being removed gradually from our science curriculum. Mass spectrometry concerns ion chemistry and physics with an emphasis on scientific instrumentation.

However, in the past several years, paralleling the growth of applications of the method, spectrometers have become black boxes for the vast majority. Sadly, in the process, Thomson is forgotten.

Appreciation of instrumentation should be brought back to the curriculum. We must note that Thomson, after considerable work in theoretical physics, moved to experiments. The Nobel committee over many years has demonstrated its appreciation for scientific instrumentation; this is a lesson we in India cannot afford to discard.

Mars spacecraft cruising towards sun-centric orbit

With India’s spacecraft to Mars slung out of its earth-bound orbit early in the morning of December 1 and its cruising towards the sun-centric orbit, its 300-day voyage to the Red Planet has begun. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) accomplished this tricky manoeuvre called Trans-Mars Injection (TMI) of the spacecraft by giving commands to the spacecraft’s propulsion system to start firing at 00.49 hours Sunday (December 1). The propulsion system came up with a cameo performance for 23 minutes, imparting the required velocity to the spacecraft, which was catapulted out of its earth-bound orbit into the sun-centric phase. Eight control thrusters on board also erupted into life, aiding the propulsion system to give the needed velocity to the spacecraft. “The spacecraft is now on course to encounter Mars after a journey of about 10 months around the Sun,” said an ISRO statement. The orbiter is now in a hyperbolic orbit and it will escape from the sphere of influence (SOI) of the Earth around 1.15 a.m. of December 4. The SOI of the Earth extends to about 9.25 lakh km from the Earth.

According K. Radhakrishnan, ISRO Chairman, the TMI was a “crucial” manoeuvre because the spacecraft needed to be given the exact velocity to push it out of the earth-orbit, make it escape from the SOI of the Earth, then make it coast around the sun for about 300 days and ultimately insert the spacecraft into the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014.

On that day, the propulsion system will be fired again after it has idled for 300 days during its voyage in deep space. This ignition will lower the spacecraft into the Martian orbit.

Orbiter heading out of Earth’s sphere of influence

With the successful completion of the Trans-Mars Injection procedure by the ISRO, the earth’s dominance over the Mars orbiter is set to end.

S. Arunan, Project Director, Mars orbiter, ISRO, said on Sunday afternoon that after the successful firing of the spacecraft’s 440 Newton engine, “the spacecraft has gone into a highly hyperbolic orbit, it will leave the SOI (sphere of influence) of the Earth and enter into a perfectly sun-centric orbit.”

“The velocity required for the spacecraft to escape from the earth’s gravity has been provided to it and it will escape from the SOI of the Earth with a perfect sun-centric elliptical orbit,” Mr. Arunan explained.

M. Annadurai, Programme Director, Indian Remote-sensing Satellites and Small Satellites Systems, ISRO, said the total velocity given to the spacecraft at the end of 23 minutes of firing of the 440 Newton engine including the previous firings was 11.4 km per second. The spacecraft would travel 3.5 lakh km in 24 hours after the accomplishment of the TMI and it would cross the SOI of the Earth 72 hours after the TMI, Dr. Annadurai said.

“The health of the spacecraft’s system including its main and redundant systems are all right,” Mr. Arunan said. “The orbiter’s health is normal. It is in a perfect hyperbolic orbit now. It means the orbit is open. There is no ending. There is no apogee,” he explained. After the ground station at Canberra, Australia, acquired the spacecraft and started tracking it soon after the TMI was achieved, the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Tracking Station in the U.S. and the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu village, near Bangalore, would start tracking it. The IDSN at Byalalu has an 18-metre and 32-metre dish antenna to communicate with the orbiter. The medium-gain and the high-gain antenna on board the spacecraft would be used to communicate with it from the ground stations.

The spacecraft, which weighs 1,350 kg, carries 850 kg of fuel. About 198 kg of fuel were used for firing the 440 Newton engine for 23 minutes.

ISRO engineers said they were “bugeting” the fuel in a judicious way for three mid-course corrections of the spacecraft’s trajectory and its insertion into the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014.

Our Bangalore correspondent adds:

Set to cover a million km a day

As it hurtles towards its planetary goalpost on a path of 680 million km, the Mars Orbiter will cover one million km each day, according to S.K. Shivakumar, Director of the ISRO Satellite Centre, which made the 1,330-kg satellite.

The spacecraft has been designed to travel over 300 days and take a path half way round the Sun. Ground controllers expect to make four ‘course corrections’ to keep it on the right track.

The first one is likely on December 11, or a couple of days later, ISRO Scientific Secretary V. Koteswara Rao said at a a recent briefing. “During the journey, if the spacecraft makes any minor deviations from the path, we have to make corrections. One will be on December 11, another in April 2014, the third in August 2014, and the last one will be on September 14, 10 days before we insert it into the Martian orbit.”

The ultimate test will be the Martian orbit insertion, planned for September 24 next. It will be done by slightly breaking the spacecraft’s speed through an engine burn. It will then start orbiting the Red Planet elliptically.

The spacecraft will be among Earthly friends when — or if — it reaches the barren Martian environment.

Two rovers and three orbiters of two other space agencies are already probing untold Martian mysteries. Four of them are from NASA, whose latest orbiter mission MAVEN left on November 18 and is also on its way there. MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) is designed to be near Mars two days ahead of the Indian spacecraft.

NASA’s rover Opportunity has been digging around since it landed on the Martian surface in 2004. It was joined by the iconic Curiosity robotic laboratory in 2012. Then there are two active NASA spacecraft, the Mars Odyssey (2001) and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2005), apart from the Mars Express sent by the European Space Agency in 2003 — all of which are circling Mars.

China ready for space cooperation with India

China, which successfully launched its first ever mission to land an unmanned spacecraft on the Moon, has expressed interest in space cooperation with India which has sent its first interplanetary mission to Mars.

The probe Chang’e-3 was launched into orbit on Monday night aboard an enhanced 56.4 meter high Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre.

The launch came a day after India’s Mars orbiter Mangalyaan left the Earth for a 300-day journey to the Red Planet.

Chinese space scientists are looking forward to cooperation with other countries, including the country’s close neighbour India, 

Li Benzheng, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of China’s lunar programme,

“We are open in our lunar programme, and cooperation from other countries is welcome. We hope to explore and use space for more resources to promote human development,

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The Chang’e-3 lunar probe is expected to land on the moon in mid-December to become China’s first spacecraft to soft land on the surface of an extraterrestrial body.

The probe’s carrier, an enhanced Long March-3B rocket, put the probe in the designated orbit in a text book launch from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.

The probe, which is carrying a robotic rover to explore the moon besides a telescope, entered the earth-moon transfer orbit as scheduled, with a perigee of 200 kilometres and apogee of 380,000 km, officials said.

Mars orbiter now in interplanetary space

In its epic voyage towards the Red Planet, it broke out of the Sphere of Influence (SOI) of the Earth at 1.14 a.m. on Wednesday, traversing beyond 9.25 lakh km. Chandrayaan-1 had travelled up to four lakh km.

Sun-centric orbit

The Mars orbiter crossed the SOI 72 hours after it was cannoned out of its Earth-bound orbit on Sunday. It is now in a proper Sun-centric orbit.

 This is the first time that an Indian spacecraft has crossed this distance of 9.25 lakh km. It is in interplanetary space now.”

It was coasting, coming under the influence of the Sun and other planets.

“The Earth is no longer pulling it.”

Meeting with Mars

The spacecraft will now coast around the Sun for about 300 days. This helio-centric flight will total 68-crore km before it has its rendezvous with Mars on September 24, 2014.

Around 00.49 hours on Sunday (December 1), ISRO fired the spacecraft’s propulsion system for 23 minutes. As the operation ended, the craft was catapulted out of its Earth-bound orbit towards the Sun-centric phase.

In the interplanetary space, ISRO will correct the spacecraft’s trajectory three or four times before firing the propulsion system again on September 24, 2014, to insert the craft into the Martian orbit with a periapsis of 376 km and an apoapsis of 80,000 km.

If the insertion is successful, ISRO will turn on the five scientific instruments onboard.

China set for Moon landing

It is a technological feat thus far achived only by the Soviet Union and U.S.

Towards the middle of this month, China intends to achieve a major landmark in space exploration with its recently-launched Chang’e-3 mission — to make a soft landing on the Moon, a technological capability that has thus far been demonstrated only by the Soviet Union and the United States.

After getting into orbit around the Moon, the Chang’e-3’s lander is to carry out a carefully controlled descent and touchdown on the Sinus Iridum (Latin for ‘Bay of Rainbows’), a flat lava-filled lunar crater. A six-wheeled rover will then roll down from the lander and set off across the lunar surface.

Influential Chinese scientists began urging their Government to undertake a programme of lunar exploration in the early 1990s. But the Communist Party’s Central Committee finally gave the go-ahead only a decade later, in January 2004.

China’s current lunar programme involves three stages — orbiting the Moon, landing on its surface and, finally, bringing back lunar samples.

In 2007, a year before India launched its Chandrayaan-1 lunar probe, China sent the Chang’e-1 spacecraft to image and study the Moon from orbit.

Three years later, the Chang’e-2 was despatched, which too orbited the Moon and took high-resolution images that helped choose the landing site for its successor.

After the spacecraft’s primary mission was completed, its controllers sent it about 1.5 million km from Earth. Thereafter, it conducted a fly-by of the asteroid Toutatis about seven million km from Earth. The Chang’e-2 was currently about 60 million km away and would travel to a distance of 300 million km, according to a senior Chinese official quoted in a Xinhua news agency report.

The Chang’e-3’s lander, which is now on its way to the Moon, will use a liquid propellant engine, with variable thrust, to slow the spacecraft as it descends to the lunar surface. The lander has been provided with an autonomous capability to hover above the lunar surface, check for obstacles below and, if necessary, to move away from them before touching down, according to a paper published by Chinese space scientists.

“Autonomous hazard avoidance is a capability that NASA has tested on Earth, but has not yet flown on any lander spacecraft,” commented Dwayne Day

Apart from transporting the rover, the lander is carrying a near-ultraviolet telescope for astronomical observations as well as an extreme ultraviolet camera to observe a region of charged particles around Earth.

The 140-kg rover has a robotic arm that can analyse the chemical composition of lunar rocks and soil. It also carries a ground-penetrating radar to provide information about the Moon's crust.

Both the lander and rover are equipped with radioisotope heating units, containing radioactive plutonium-238, to keep them warm during the long lunar nights when temperatures can plunge to -150 degrees Celsius. This will be another important first for China as radioisotope-based systems to produce electricity and for heating spacecraft are widely used in deep space missions.

This mission will be followed by another lander-rover effort, the Chang'e-4. Then, with the Chang'e-5 currently scheduled for 2017, China will attempt to bring back lunar rock and soil samples.

Given China’s steady progress in manned space, many believe that its next step will be to land astronauts on the Moon. 

“I do not believe China has made a decision on a human lunar mission,” observed Gregory Kulacki, China project manager and senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S.-based nonprofit science advocacy group.

Trackable user ID can curb cyber foes: Balakrishnan

As cyber attacks are increasingly being mounted through social media and infected “botnet” computers to harm people and economies, a traceable cyber identity for every single user may be one way of thwarting such attacks, according to N. Balakrishnan, Associate Director of the Indian Institute of Science.

Biometrics could be a traceable solution. Another tool is to educate people about good cyber practices, he told 

The country’s security agencies and policy-makers, he said, were today up against deadly cyber threats from botnets; these armies of breached computers fleece the financial systems and mislead people with misinformation through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and mobile phone texts. Botnets had become the most virulent as their aim was “not to kill the victim but let it bleed to death.”

Dr. Balakrishnan was chairman of the multi-agency joint working group that crafted guidelines on securing the national cyber infrastructure.

Fake or compromised IDs were at the heart of botnets that sent out trouble-causing mails, messages and tweets. “Every crime meets the social media. [Therefore] Every individual should have a traceable identity” to make out machine-generated false information in these media, Dr. Balakrishnan said.

In today’s Internet explosion led by millions of new websites, searches and instant communication, he said “there is a huge impending threat to society from social media.” Indians were also targeted from outside as in the case of people of the northeast fleeing the southern States in August 2012.

People should also be educated about these dangers and how to use their digital devices safely, by practising password protection and logout discipline, he suggested.

Sharat Chandra Babu, Executive Director of the Centre for Development Advanced Computing, which works on cyber security among other areas, said honest designers lagged attackers and should be updated. The countering forces should also make the system smarter, impregnable and confusing to the attacker, he said.

Everything You Need to Know About the Future of Money

The price of a bitcoin topped $900 last week, an enormous surge in value that arrived amidst Congressional hearings where top U.S. financial regulators took a surprisingly rosy view of digital currency. Just 10 months ago, a bitcoin sold for a measly $13.

The spike was big news across the globe, from Washington to Tokyo to China, and it left many asking themselves: “What the hell is a bitcoin?” It’s a good question — not only for those with little understanding of the modern financial system and how it intersects with modern technology, but also for those steeped in the new internet-driven economy that has so quickly remade our world over the last 20 years.

The spike was big news across the globe, from Washington to Tokyo to China, and it left many asking themselves: ‘What the hell is a bitcoin?’

Bitcoin is a digital currency, meaning it’s money controlled and stored entirely by computers spread across the internet, and this money is finding its way to more and more people and businesses around the world. But it’s much more than that, and many people — including the sharpest of internet pioneers as well as seasoned economists — are still struggling to come to terms with its many identities.

With that in mind, we give you this: an idiot’s guide to bitcoin. And there’s no shame in reading. Nowadays, as bitcoin is just beginning to show what it’s capable of, we’re all neophytes.

Bitcoin isn’t just a currency, like dollars or euros or yen. It’s a way of making payments, like PayPal or the Visa credit card network. It lets you hold money, but it also lets you spend it and trade it and move it from place to place, almost as cheaply and easily as you’d send an email.

As the press so often points out, Bitcoin lets you do all this without revealing your identity, a phenomenon that drove its use on The Silk Road, an online marketplace for illegal drugs. But at the same time, it’s a system that operates completely in the public view. All Bitcoin transactions are recorded online for anyone to see, lending a certain transparency to the system, a transparency that can drive a new trust in the economy and subvert the anonymity sought by those on The Silk Road, which the feds shut down last month.

Bitcoin is much more than a money service for illegal operations. It’s a re-imagining of international finance, something that breaks down barriers between countries and frees currency from the control of federal governments. Bitcoin is controlled by open source software that operates according to the laws of mathematics — and by the people who collectively oversee this software. The software runs on thousands of machines across the globe, but it can be changed. It’s just that a majority of those overseeing the software must agree to the change.

Comet ISON to be visible in December

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), discovered on September 21, 2012, by Eastern European and Russian astronomers Arytom Novichonok and Vitali Nevski, using a 16-inch telescope as part of sky survey programme of International Scientific Optical Network, will make its closest approach to earth on December 26.

Comet ISON, said to have the potential to become a bright object visible to the naked eye, could not be sighted on November 28 (Thanksgiving Day 2013) due to cloudy skies, but can be sighted on December 26. The comet is named after the organisation, where its discovery was made, the Russia-based International Scientific Optical Network (ISON).

The comet is believed to have originated from the oort cloud region, a cloud of icy bodies, well beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto.

“According to its calculated orbit, on December 26, the comet is set to pass 6.3 crore km from the earth approximately. The ISON does not have chances of colliding with our planet,

Metals in your smartphone have no substitutes

Our lives are so dependent on these materials that a scarcity of a handful of elements could send us back in time by decades.

A few centuries ago, there were just a few widely used materials: wood, brick, iron, copper, gold and silver. Today’s material diversity is astounding. A chip in your smartphone, for instance, contains 60 different elements. Our lives are so dependent on these materials that a scarcity of a handful of elements could send us back in time by decades.

If we do ever face such scarcity, what can be done? Thomas Graedel of Yale University and his colleagues decided to investigate. He chose to restrict his analysis to metals and metalloids, which could face more critical constraints because many of them are relatively rare.

The authors’ first task was to make a comprehensive list of uses for these 62 elements. This is a surprisingly difficult task. Much of the modern use of metals happens behind closed doors of corporations, under the veil of trade secrets. Even if we can find out how certain metals are used, it may not always be possible to determine the proportions they are used in. Their compromise was to account for the use of 80% of the material that is made available each year through extraction and recycling.

The next task was to determine if there were any substitutes for these uses. But, as Graedel writes, “the best substitute for a metal in a particular use is not always readily apparent.” Elemental properties are quite unique and substitution will often reduce the performance of the product. But it can be done.

Two examples stand testament to that. In the 1970s, cobalt was commonly used in magnets. When a civil war in Zaire caused scarcity of cobalt, scientists at General Motors and elsewhere were forced to develop magnets that used no cobalt. More recently, a shortage of rhenium, which is used in superalloys for gas turbines, forced General Electric to develop alternatives that use little or no rhenium.

Graedel’s analysis of substitutes involved ploughing through scientific literature and interviewing product designers and material scientists. The results are a sobering reminder of how critical some metals are. On seeing the data, Andrea Sella of University College London said, “This is an important wake up call.”

None of the 62 elements have substitutes that perform equally well. And 12 out of the 62 have no substitutes at all (or if there are substitutes, then they are inadequate). These 12 elements are: rhenium, rhodium, lanthanum, europium, dysprosium, thulium, ytterbium, yttrium, strontium, thallium, magnesium and manganese.

Economists have long assumed that a shortage of anything will promptly lead to the development of suitable substitutes, an attitude fostered in part because there have been successful substitutions in the past, such as the cobalt and rhenium examples. But metals are special, Graedel said: “We have shown that metal substitution is very problematic. Substitution would need to mimic these special properties – a real challenge in many applications.”

“The clarity of Graedel’s thinking is impressive,” said Sella. “No one has analysed metal criticality in such detail.” One of Graedel’s biggest contributions has been developing a visual way of understanding how critical metals are. They created a 3D map, where the three axes represent supply risk, environmental implications and vulnerability to supply restriction.

The scarcity of metals came to public attention in 2010 when China suddenly decided to restrict its export of a group of metals called the rare earths. Prices of these metals shot up by as much as five times and caused companies around the world to consider reopening their rare earth mines. This hadknock-on effects on the prices of everything from gadgets to wind turbines.

Some comfort may be drawn from the fact that consumptions of some metals can peak. For example, the use of iron has reached saturation in many countries. And, in the US, this seems to have happened for aluminium too. This, however, is the case only for bulk metals. Scarcer metals, even with superior recycling, may never reach saturation.

Apart from China, a handful of countries, including the US, South Africa, Australia, Congo, and Canada, hold the most diverse and largest metal reserves. “A national disaster or extended political turmoil in any of them would significantly ripple throughout the material world in which we live,” said Graedel.

As Sella puts it, Graedel’s measured analysis, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a warning of a serious issue. “But he has a thoughtful way of putting it.”

India to push for freeing Internet from U.S. control

To insist on Internet data storage within the country

In view of its growing cyber security concerns, India has decided to challenge the U.S. government’s control over the Internet and ensure that the trio of the U.S., Russia and China does not ignore India’s concerns while developing an international regime for Internet governance.

India will also push for storing all Internet data within the country, besides ensuring control and management of servers.

“The control of Internet was in the hands of the U.S. government and the key levers relating to its management was dominated by its security agencies…Mere location of root servers in India would not serve any purpose unless we were also allowed a role in their control and management. We should insist that data of all domain names originating from India…should be stored in India. Similarly, all traffic originating/landing in India should be stored in India,” says an internal note prepared after the meeting of Sub-Committee on International Cooperation on Cyber Security under the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS).

Notably, the key function of domain name system (DNS) management today is in the hands of the U.S. National Telecommunication and Information Administration and the Department of Commerce. Though after persistently putting pressure on companies, India managed to get root servers installed in the country, it wants a say in management of these servers. India is also seeking a key role in policy making on Internet governance at the international level, said a senior government official engaged in India’s cyber security preparedness.

“It was important that management and control of the DNS should be supervised by a ‘Board’ consisting of technical experts nominated by governments and India should be represented on this Board. We should seek a larger determinate role for the GAC [Government Advisory Committee] in ICANN [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number] a U.S.-based non-profit organisation that coordinates global Internet systems, which we should be effectively represented,” the note adds.

Significantly, under the ‘Affirmation of Commitments’ between the ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce, the ICANN committed that it would not shift outside of the U.S. without the concurrence of the U.S. government and the process of Internet management would be led by private sector. At the meeting, held last month and headed by Deputy National Security Advisor and NSCS Secretary Nehchal Sandhu, it was decided that the Ministry of External Affairs along with the Department of Electronic and Information Technology (DEITy) and the NSCS, will develop a position paper, highlighting India’s concerns regarding representation and management control in the Internet governance domain.

India is also concerned about the proximity of the U.S., Russia and China while deciding on issue of Internet governance. “There was a possibility that the U.S., Russia and China may work out an arrangement that met their concerns and this arrangement was thereafter forced upon other countries. We need to guard against this possibility and ensure that India’s concerns were also accommodated in whatever international regime for Internet governance that ultimately emerged,” the note adds. Notably, today India has third largest Internet users in the world at over 15 crore, only after China (56 crore) and the U.S. (25 crore).

Similarly, India has also decided to favour a pre-dominantly multilateral approach on issues related to Internet governance rather than multi-stakeholder approach which is mainly being advocated by the West. “India feels that the very term multi-stakeholder was something of a ‘misnomer’. A small unrepresentative group of certain individuals, supported by vested interests, appear to have arrogated themselves the right to present certain views in discussions relating to Internet governance. It was not clear as to who they represent and whether who they claimed to represent had in fact nominated them. These persons undermine the positions of the government and were really spokespersons of certain Western interests,” the note says.

Madi to turn into a ‘very severe cyclonic storm’

Officals of the Indian Meteorological Department have forecast that Cyclone Madi would turn into a very severe cyclonic storm and move nearly northwards, slowly. As of 10 p.m. on Saturday, the cyclone is located over south-western Bay of Bengal, 520 km east-south-east of Chennai, and 440 km north-east of Trincomalee, the IMD said.

Rainfall was reported at a few places over south coastal Andhra Pradesh, coastal Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands under the influence of the cyclone.

Officials are trying to figure out the speed in which Madi would move, and where it would make landfall. It had moved a distance of 20 km away from Chennai and 70 km off Trincomalee in about 11 hours, from the time of the last report.

With rainfall forecast under the influence of this system, fishermen have been advised to be cautious while venturing into sea and to stay away from deep sea.

China’s lunar probe leaves trace on moon

China’s first lunar probe on Sunday successfully separated from the lander and left deep trace on its loose soil, hours after the communist giant carried out the world’s first soft landing on the lunar surface in nearly 40 years.

“China’s first moon rover, Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, separated from the lander early on Sunday. The 140 kg six—wheeled rover touched the lunar surface at 4:35 a.m., leaving deep trace on the loose lunar soil,” state—run Xinhua news agency reported.

The process was recorded by the camera on the lander and the images were sent to the earth. After the separation, the rover and lander took photos of each other and started their own scientific explorations, the report said.

At about 11:42 pm Beijing Time, the six—wheeled moon rover moved to a spot about 9 metres to the north of the lander and the photographing began, it said.

Yutu will survey the moon’s geological structure and surface substances and look for natural resources for three months, while the lander will conduct in—situ exploration at the landing site for one year.

China’s first lunar rover yesterday successfully landed on the moon, making the communist giant one of three world powers to make a soft landing as part of an ambitious programme that aims to put a Chinese astronaut on the moon.

Cannot ignore benefits of GM crops, says ‘Venki’ Ramakrishnan

Nobel laureate Venkataraman ‘Venki’ Ramakrishnan on Monday came down heavily on those opposed to genetic modification of agricultural crops.

 he said there was definitely a need to be careful while dealing with GM crops with proper regulatory mechanism, but one should not ignore the tremendous potentials on offer such as in terms of developing drought resistant varieties and crops with more nutrients and with greater shelf life.

“India has to feed a large number of people. We can’t ignore the potentials of GM crops. We, no doubt, need to be careful, and have proper controls and effective regulations.”

He noted that varieties of wheat, rice and other crops that are cultivated today were developed over the centuries from the wild varieties through various man-made techniques of selection. “Genetic modification is just another tool for selection [developed scientifically].”

He rejected the argument of anti-GM groups and activists that GM crops are promoted by large multinationals and must, therefore, be opposed in the interest of the sovereignty of developing countries and to protect their small and marginal farmers.

“If needed, India and other countries can set up their own national agencies or institutions to ensure that genetic modification could be pursued independent of the MNCs. But, we can’t ignore the great potentials of GM crops. We can’t do without them. We should not mix up issues.”

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