Thursday, February 24, 2011

 

U.S. keeps options open on Libya


From The Hindu

The United States persisted with its muted response to the unfolding crisis in Libya on Wednesday, with President Barack Obama reiterating his condemnation of violence by Libyan forces against protestors, but stopping short of declaring sanctions or supporting any stronger measures.

In a statement to the press Mr. Obama said that his “highest priority” was to protect American citizens in Libya, adding however that the U.S. also strongly supported the universal rights of the Libyan people and “strongly condemn the use of violence in Libya.”

Yet unlike other leaders, notably French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was said to have publicly called for sanctions against Libya, Mr. Obama only hinted at a “full range” of measures that his administration might take against Libya for potential human rights violations.

He said, “I have also asked my administration to prepare the full range of options that we have to respond to this crisis. This includes those actions we may take and those we will coordinate with our allies and partners, or those that we will carry out through multilateral institutions.”

In a similar vein State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said to media here that while there were lots of actions that the U.S. could prospectively take, many of these actions required legal and executive orders to be undertaken, which implied a “standard of due diligence.”

Mr. Crowley said, “We are in the process of fully understanding and documenting what is occurring in Libya. We are prepared, as we are saying, to take appropriate actions internationally as well as... nationally, but many of these steps require some preparation.”

In his comments Mr. Obama however noted that he had asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to travel to Geneva on Monday to join with the foreign ministers of other nations in a discussion on developments in Libya and other parts of the Middle East by the Human Rights Council.

Additionally, William Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, was slated to make several stops in Europe and the region to intensify the U.S.’ consultations with allies and partners about the situation in Libya, Mr. Obama added.

Labels: ,


Tuesday, February 22, 2011

 

500 Indians allegedly trafficked to U.S.

From The Hindu

Over 500 Indian citizens who were brought to the United States to work in shipyards, following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, have initiated what might well become the largest class action lawsuit for human trafficking in U.S. history.

According to a statement by the American Civil Liberties Union, which has joined in the lawsuit in support of the plaintiffs, the workers were trafficked into the U.S. through the federal government's H-2B guest-worker scheme “with dishonest assurances of becoming lawful permanent U.S. residents and subjected to squalid living conditions, fraudulent payment practices, and threats of serious harm upon their arrival.”

The court filing by the plaintiffs alleges that recruiting agents employed by the marine industry company Signal International withheld the guest-workers' passports, forced them to pay exorbitant fees for recruitment, immigration processing and travel, and threatened the workers with serious legal and physical consequences if they did not abide by restrictive employment conditions imposed by the company.

Psychological abuse

Further, the complaint against Signal International alleges that after they arrived in the U.S., the men were compelled to live in the company's “guarded, overcrowded labour camps, subjected to psychological abuse and defrauded out of adequate payment for their work.”

In a statement, the ACLU said it was also charging the federal government with falling short of its responsibility to protect the rights of guest-workers in the country. According to the lawsuit that it filed along with the workers, the treatment of the workers violated the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

In comments made to the ACLU, Kurian David, a class representative in the lawsuit, said: “We hope the court will give us all a chance to make our voices heard and to right the wrongs that were done against us. Signal and the other defendants should be held accountable for what they did to so many guest-workers who worked for them.”

Further, the ACLU quoted Murugan Kandhasamy, a class representative in the lawsuit, as saying: “I speak on behalf of hundreds of Indian guest-workers subjected to abuse by Signal and its co-conspirators. We came to America for good jobs and opportunity, which we were denied, and now we are asking for justice.”

An ACLU Human Rights Programme attorney, Chandra Bhatnagar, noted that the workers had been “victimised by systemic deficiencies in the U.S. guest-worker program and subjected to trafficking and racketeering at the hands of the defendants,” adding that they would be seeking to assert their fundamental human rights.

Labels: , ,


 

Raymond Davis said to be CIA operative

From The Hindu

Reports have revealed that Raymond Davis, the employee of the United States Pakistan embassy who was jailed for killing two Pakistani citizens, worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

On Tuesday foreign media, as well as U.S. media that had earlier been requested by the Obama administration not to reveal any details of the case, said that Mr. Davis was involved in covert CIA operations aimed at intelligence-gathering and surveillance on “militant groups deep inside the country.”

Quoting American government officials the New York Times said that Mr. Davis was a retired Special Forces soldier who had formerly served as a CIA contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide, the private security firm that is now called Xe Services.

According to sources, Mr. Davis’ visa described his job as a “regional affairs officer,” said to be a frequently used job description for CIA-related officials. As per his visa application Mr. Davis was reported to have held a U.S. diplomatic passport and was classified as “administrative and technical staff,” a category that is said to “typically [grant] diplomatic immunity to its holder.”

Mr. Davis was arrested on January 27 after he fatally shot two men on a motorcycle in a bustling Lahore neighbourhood. According to the account of the incident put out by U.S. officials Mr. Davis was driving alone an isolated area and pulled over at a busy traffic intersection.

At that point two Pakistani men with weapons allegedly got off from their motorcycles and approached Mr. Davis, who killed them with his Glock pistol in what was described as “an act of self-defence against armed robbers,” the New York Times reported.

However the Pakistan’s The Daily Times published a different account of events based on the Lahore Police Department’s crime report, in which it said that Mr. Davis admitted to the police that he shot the two men, stepped out of the car to take photographs of them, and then called the U.S. consulate in Lahore for assistance.

Further the Daily Times story suggested that the victims had been “shot several times in the back, a detail that some Pakistani officials say proves the killings were murder.” The report also suggested that after the shooting Mr. Davis climbed back in his car and sought to escape but was “overpowered” at a traffic junction nearby.

The incident has since sparked a diplomatic crisis, with CIA Director Leon Panetta, Chief of Army Staff Mike Mullen and even U.S. President Barack Obama making pleas for Mr. Davis’ release.

Yet public opinion in Pakistan has primarily comprised anger against the U.S. so-called “secret war” in the country, including the highly unpopular drone strikes in the border area near Afghanistan. Recent days have witnessed “hundreds of Pakistanis” participating in street protests and calling for Mr. Davis to face trial, reports said.

Labels: , ,


Monday, February 21, 2011

 

Disturbing reports, says U.S.


From The Hindu

The United States is “gravely concerned” by “disturbing reports and images coming out of Libya", according to a statement issued over the weekend by State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

In remarks to media posted on Sunday, Mr. Crowley said the State Department was working to ascertain the facts, but had received multiple credible reports that "hundreds" of people had been killed and injured in the recent period of unrest in Libya.

While admitting that the full extent of the death toll was as yet unknown due to the lack of access of international media and human rights organisations, U.S. diplomats had raised to a number of Libyan officials, including Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa, “our strong objections to the use of lethal force against peaceful demonstrators", according to an official.

The comments regarding developments in Libya follow growing concern in the U.S. surrounding protests across the Middle East, beginning in Tunisia and Egypt and more recently spreading to Bahrain and Libya.

Both President Barack Obama and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon had respectively reiterated their condemnation of the "violence used against peaceful protesters", to the King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa of Bahrain.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Donilon were said to have “strongly urged the government of Bahrain to show restraint, and to hold those responsible for the violence accountable.”

Similarly, in an interview this weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. had been “very clear from the beginning that we do not want to see any violence", describing the action against protestors in Bahrain as deplorable and "absolutely unacceptable".

While pressing Bahrain to return, as quickly as possible, to the reform that it had started, Ms. Clinton also cautioned that the U.S. was keen to see the human rights of the people protected, including right to assemble and the right to freedom of expression.

Labels: ,


Saturday, February 19, 2011

 

U.S. isolated over Israel vote


From The Hindu

The United States found itself isolated among the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council on Friday when it was the sole nation to veto a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The 14 UNSC members other than the U.S., including Britain and France, supported the resolution, which follows Israel’s consistent defiance of international pressures to halt settlement activity in the disputed territories. Palestinian authorities have refused to return to the negotiating table unless settlement activity is halted.

The UNSC vote also left the U.S. exposed at a time when its influence over West Asia as a whole has been called into question. The recent civil unrest and upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain have been tinged with an element of anti-Americanism, particularly after the U.S. was seen as prevaricating over whether or not to condemn Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the early days of the Cairo protests.

On a conference call with journalists following the vote, U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Susan Rice said while the U.S. considered continued settlement activity as “not legitimate... [and] corrosive to the peace process”, it also viewed the resolution as “unbalanced and one-sided”, and a measure that would likely harden positions and leave the two parties more entrenched and less willing to return promptly and constructively to direct negotiations.

In response to a question on the reaction of other UNSC members to the U.S.’ veto, Ms. Rice said other nations would “understand that the U.S. made an unprecedented and energetic good-faith effort to put forward an approach that would have advanced the process, taken us closer to the goal of a two-state solution, and would not have been the outcome that we saw today”.

However, according to reports, the Obama administration’s refusal to back the condemnatory resolution “riled” other members of the UNSC, with Britain, France and Germany releasing a joint statement reiterating their support for the resolution.

In that statement, they reportedly said they supported the resolution “because our views on settlements, including east Jerusalem, are clear: they are illegal under international law, an obstacle to peace, and constitute a threat to a two-state solution. All settlement activity, including in east Jerusalem, should cease immediately”.

Labels: , , ,


Friday, February 18, 2011

 

Bernanke warns of destabilising capital flows


From The Hindu

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said that challenges to macroeconomic adjustment and financial stability such as those seen during the financial crisis of 2008, arose in part because “the rules of the game of the international monetary system... are either poorly articulated or not observed by key countries.”

In a speech this week at the Banque de France Financial Stability Review launch event, Mr. Bernanke did not name any country in particular but said that emerging market economies had not followed through with “the policy responses that countries are expected to take to help foster a balanced global economy over time.”

Savings glut

Quoting a recent paper that he had authored, in which he identified a “global savings glut” as one of the factors that created some of the pre-conditions for the crisis, he said that it was an empirical fact that the global saving glut countries including “emerging Asian economies and Middle Eastern oil exporters” evinced a “strong preference for very safe and liquid U.S. assets... especially Treasury and agency securities.”

However, Mr. Bernanke added, the preference by many investors for perceived safety had created strong incentives for U.S. financial engineers to develop investment products that “transformed” risky loans into highly rated securities.

Thus, he said, it was remarkable that even though a large share of new U.S. mortgages during the housing boom were of weak credit quality, financial engineering resulted in the overwhelming share of private-label mortgage-related securities being rated AAA. “The underlying contradiction was, of course, ultimately exposed, at great cost to financial stability and the global economy,” Mr. Bernanke noted.

Touching upon recent macroeconomic concerns the Fed Chairman cautioned that while the global financial crisis was receding, capital flows were “once again posing some notable challenges for international macroeconomic and financial stability.”

Negative spillovers

He said that such capital flows reflected in part the “continued two-speed nature of the global recovery, as economic growth in the emerging markets is far outstripping growth in the advanced economies.”

Warning of some of the dangers of capital from advanced economies flooding emerging markets Mr. Bernanke said that some observers argued that monetary policies in advanced economies were generating “negative spillovers.”

“In particular, concerns have centred on the strength of private capital flows to many emerging market economies, which, depending on their policy responses, could put upward pressure on their currencies, boost their inflation rates, or lead to asset price bubbles,” he said.

Labels: , , ,


 

Ottawa networks compromised in cyber-attack

From The Hindu

Unidentified hackers deployed a technique known as “spear-phishing” to breach top-secret caches within the computer networks of the Government of Canada, media reported on Thursday.

Unnamed government sources speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation admitted that the hackers, who used Chinese-origin servers, managed to obtain highly classified data from three departments of the government — the Finance Department, the Treasury Board, and Defence Research and Development Canada.

In a series of cyber-attacks against the Canadian government that was initially detected in early January, the hackers were said to have somehow obtained access to the files of senior government officials and then masqueraded as the officials to trick government technicians into revealing network passwords.

Using this technique of spear phishing, the hackers also sent emails to government employees that unleashed viral data mining programmes, said the CBC report. When the embarrassing scale of the security breach was discovered, reports said, officials cut off Internet access to the thousands of employees in the affected departments.

Officials were however cautious in indicating the source of the attack. Sources speaking to CBC said, though the source of the hack was traced to servers in China, that did not necessarily imply that the hackers were Chinese. Rather, said the sources, the attackers could have routed their paths through China to hide their identities.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in his first comments on the attack, said at a press conference on Thursday his government did have a strategy in place to protect computer networks. He added he recognised cyber-security was "a growing issue of importance, not just in this country, but across the world".

He said in anticipating potential cyber-attacks, “We have a strategy in place to try and evolve our systems as those who would attack them become more sophisticated."

This week's revelations suggest that the most recent in a spate of cyber-attacks took place despite a June 2009 warning from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, that such attacks "on government, university and industry computers had been growing significantly".

Labels: , ,


Friday, February 11, 2011

 

'Not many countries offer someone who comes for education an opportunity to lead'


From The Hindu

Subra Suresh, who was awarded a Padma Shri last month in recognition of his contribution to science and engineering, was appointed, in 2010, as the Director of National Science Foundation (NSF ) by United States President Barack Obama. The NSF, which has historically played a key role in the strategic development of scientific projects, has been thrust into even more prominence under the Obama administration as the President has increasingly sought to emphasise the role of innovation and research in ensuring that the U.S. remains a global technology leader.


A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, Dr. Suresh earlier served as Dean and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as the head of MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He further held numerous joint faculty positions in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Biological Engineering and the Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Apart from MIT Dr. Suresh was also a faculty member at Brown University in the Division of Engineering.


Winning wide recognition for ground-breaking research, Dr. Suresh was the recipient of the 2007 European Materials Medal, “the highest honour conferred by the Federation of European Materials Societies,” and the 2006 Acta Materialia Gold Medal. Technology Review magazine selected Dr. Suresh’s work on nano-biotechnology as “one of the top ten emerging technologies that will have a significant impact on business, medicine or culture.”


Dr. Suresh spoke to Narayan Lakshman of The Hindu at his office near Washington, about priorities for the NSF, the role of scientific education in the 21st-century technology landscape, and his specific area of research.

Starting with your appointment, you have obviously spent a lot of time in academia, and I wanted to understand whether this is much more of an organisational and administrative role. Also what is the length of your tenure in this role?

This role is definitely a major administrative role but on the other hand it is in science administration. Having a science background and, in my previous job, having the opportunity to lead a very large and prominent engineering school was a good training ground for this position. This role has both national and international vantage points with the potential of impact in both arenas. From that point of view it is somewhat different from the kinds of things that I have done. I definitely draw on the past experiences and positions as I work to contribute in this particular job.

My appointment to this position is for a six year term. That is typical for a National Science Foundation Director.

In terms of what you are doing here, some have argued that the locus of production in science and technology has shifted to other countries of late, in some sectors. On the other hand you have, especially under the Obama administration, a sense that the U.S. is seeking to boost its technology exports. How do you see the tension between these two things impacting the U.S.’ future as a global technology leader?

The NSF plays a key role as a major contribution to the innovation ecosystem of the country. Scientific discoveries begin with the kind of efforts that the NSF sponsors. But even efforts that are usually the single kernel of an idea that may start with an individual investigator can translate into an innovation that impacts multiple industries and it may impact society globally. These innovations can come from many different arenas. The NSF has for the last 60 years played a significant role in nurturing and fostering this innovation through a variety of modes. It could be a single-investigator project, where one innovator sits in isolation and comes up with a brilliant idea that changes society. It could be in a group or collaborative project that involves multiple people in the same institution or in multiple institutions. It may involve a project that requires large facilities. The NSF partnered in all of these models for the advancement of science. Even though manufacturing, at some level, may have shifted to other parts of the world, in an innovation economy one can continue to move to a higher levels of understanding and analysis and innovate, and this contributes to the economy, to jobs and is vital to national security. In all those aspects the NSF continues to play a very critical role.

Regarding what you said about the NSF’s approach to encouraging innovation, is there an inherent uncertainty about the fruits of such an innovative process, at least in the early phases? In that sense, how does the NSF view the financing for these projects and decide which of these are likely to yield the longest-term results that you need?

The NSF is very unique in its mission. It is the only federal agency in the U.S., and perhaps globally, that funds research in all branches of science and engineering. Secondly, it is an agency that does not fund projects solely on the basis of a mission. For example, take the National Aeronautical and Space Administration. NASA’s mission is aeronautics and space research and exploration. The Department of Energy’s mission is energy, similarly the Department of Commerce – they all have a mission. The NSF’s mission is to foster science and engineering, to create discoveries in the country and thereby benefit to society and contribute to STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] education and the research workforce in the country. In that respect the NSF is has a unique perspective on being mission-driven. The mission of the NSF is to contribute to all of the things that I have mentioned.

Research is an inherently long-term process. We cannot be short-sighted and go after the latest fashion. Just because we have a high unemployment rate we cannot fund all of our research into a direction that will lead to employment in the next two years because that is really not long-term research, even though we want to contribute to the economy. That does not necessarily mean that the near-term or mid-term are not important – we do have three year goals and annual reports. We cannot lose sight of the long-term benefits. We cannot fund everything that is purely hypothetical and some day may lead to some result. But on the other hand we have to balance intellectual curiosity with relevance and you have to walk a very fine line. Keeping a long-term perspective in mind is what the NSF does.

It is also probably a line, or criteria, that change from time to time?

Of course, the organisation has to be nimble. Fields change, intellectual disciplines change. The web came into existence 15 years ago and that has changed the way we do research, science and engineering and the way society lives. We have to also look at the societal impact of science and that keeps changing as well. Especially as new technology emerges the benefits of science and engineering and technology to society and the drawbacks of the implementation of a particular technology to society – we have to look at all of that. The bottom line is that just like the intellectual disciplines of science and engineering that the NSF sponsors change continually, the NSF as an organisation has to be nimble enough to adapt to these changes.

On the subject of being nimble and picking the types of projects that lead to the goals that you have enunciated, how important is federal financing? In that context can you talk about the America COMPETES Reauthorisation Bill, which, I believe, has just gone through? Also in 2009 and 2010 there was a spike in funding but do you expect that to be sustained?

As you know the motivation for the first America COMPETES Act, in 2007, came from the studies released by the National Academy’s study, “Rising above the Gathering Storm,” and more recently there was a report called “Category Five,” which is a follow-up to the original report. Essentially, the National Academy’s report called for refocusing our national attention on the ability of the U.S. to remain a leader in the international arena in the realm of science and engineering in research and, therefore, remain an economic superpower, especially in the light of the increased competition from around the world and from major developing countries.

As an outgrowth of the original report and the America COMPETES Act in the last couple of years, President Obama and Congress have strongly supported the need for increasing the NSF’s funding. The NSF is one of three or four agencies where funding for basic research had to be increased. The NSF was identified as one of the agencies whose budget would double over a period of time. Given the financial crisis that happened in 2008 and the aftermath of that, we need to wait and see how long it takes for us to reach that doubling goal. But the hope and the expectation, especially in the light of the recent reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act, is that we will continue to be on the path to the doubling of the budget, perhaps if delayed by one or two years at most. President Obama has again reinforced his strong commitment to science and engineering. In fact the President has repeatedly talked about the need for science and engineering and also talked about the goal of Research and Development being about three per cent of Gross Domestic Product. All of this, we believe, will lead to continued support for the activities that the NSF does. We rely exclusively on federal funding so it is very critical for us. The NSF supports about 200,000 people in the country – from educators to K-through-12 teachers to researchers in roughly 2000 institutions. It is tax payer money, appropriated by Congress, which reaches a large segment of the intellectual and educational enterprise in the country. There are also many areas of academic research where the NSF is the major sponsor of research – in universities, areas such as mathematics and computer science, where more than 80 per cent of the research funding in the universities is from the NSF. So, there are many areas where, if the NSF does not provide support, there may not be other sources of support. It is very, very important that we keep that in mind.

Many different areas of policy have been affected by bipartisan tensions that you see in the U.S. at the moment. I have a quote from Ralph Hall, Republican from Texas and Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology, who described the America COMPETES Reauthorisation Bill as “far too expensive, particularly in light of the new and duplicative programmes it creates,” not allowing for “proper oversight to the programmes... in the first COMPETES Bill,” and going “way beyond the goals and direction of the original America COMPETES Bill, taking us from good, solid fundamental research and much too far into the world of commercialisation, which [we] do not believe is the proper role of the federal government.” Some of this is rhetoric but do you fear that this may be the biggest obstacle to that goal you mentioned of doubling federal financing for science?

Let me articulate two caveats to that. The first is that I do not know the context in which that quote was embedded. Secondly, there is a distinction between support for a particular legislation, or act, versus support for science and engineering. Just because a Congressman or a Senator has a concern for a particular piece of legislation does not necessarily mean that they do not support that particular concept. There are so many items in legislation and so much language that objections can occur, even though even though it may not necessarily mean that they are opposed to [financing science and engineering projects].

In fact I had a very nice meeting with Congressman Hall in his office not too long ago. One of the things I have found in my few months at the NSF is that everyone may not agree with everything that is done at the NSF, but by and large NSF is highly respected and admired by both sides of Congress, regardless of party affiliation. This support has always been non-partisan. That is one reason why the Director of the NSF is a Presidential appointee and is appointed for a six-year term – so that it is specifically out of phase of the presidential election cycle. When I went through my Senate confirmation, I met with Senators from both sides of the aisle. Even though there are differing viewpoints about how a particular project should be funded or how science should be done and what should be included and what should not be included, by and large there is very strong support for science and engineering. I hope that that support, especially during tight financial times, will continue and agencies like the NSF will continue to receive support from Congress because of what we do for the country and for the world.

Going back to something you alluded to earlier – the “supply side,” which is education and scientific and technological knowledge in society here in the U.S. – there have been some statistics showing that since 1980, science and technology jobs in the U.S. have grown “at almost five times the rate of the U.S. civilian workforce as a whole; yet the number of science and technology degrees earned by U.S. citizens is growing at a much smaller rate.” Do you think America of the 21st century will increasingly come to rely on tech specialists from beyond its borders? Or do you see reforms in science education in the U.S. as pushing society towards supplying the tech workers of the future?

In the U.S. the scientific workforce and pipeline have multiple components to it. If you look at the number of PhDs granted in the last ten years to American citizens and permanent residents that number has increased for science and engineering. It may not keep up with demand but there is still a sufficient supply. It is less than what it was 30 years ago, but there is still a sufficient supply of science and engineering PhDs. In fact the increase in doctorates in the last ten years is primarily due to a significant increase in the number of women getting PhDs in science and engineering in the U.S.

Added to that, I think one of the remarkable attributes of this country is that it has been the destination for people all over the world. I am a good example of that. I hope that this continues. There are not many countries in the world where somebody who comes to get an education as a student has an opportunity to lead an agency like the NSF. I think this has been one of the remarkable things about the U.S. and as long as that possibility exists in the country one would hope that people would come here from all over the world. If you look at my previous job, the School of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there were 375 faculty and 43 per cent of them were foreign-born. In science and engineering across the country, this has been a preferred destination.

There are areas in which we need to do better. I mentioned the increase in the number of women in the U.S. who get PhDs in science and engineering. That is very good news. The bad news is that the proportion of women in the workforce is still relatively low.

Do you know what it is, approximately?

It is about 26 per cent in science and engineering. But compared to the number of women who enter the workforce, the number of women who stay in the workforce is less. Given that they make up half of the population, there is a lot of room for improvement in that arena.

Another area where we have not done very well is increasing the number of under-represented groups and under-represented minorities in the science and engineering workforce. That number is relatively low. The NSF has taken steps and other agencies have taken steps, but there is a lot of room for further improvement in those arenas.

The third area is for the science and engineering enterprise of this country to be a sought-after a destination that attracts top talent from all over the world, especially in areas that lead to innovation.

All three are very important pipelines. These are very important to me.

In many countries including India there is a lot of debate surrounding education reform, particularly to get children interested in science and spark an interest at an early age. Is there any reform underway in the U.S. educational system, or maybe something that the NSF is working on at the school level?

The NSF is very heavily engaged in education research, developing new models, working in partnership with the Department of Education and other federal agencies. Part of our job is also to focus on K-through-12 education, especially in STEM. There is a lot activity in place. The NSF sponsors a lot of programmes for outreach and science literacy. This is also embedded in our broader impacts criteria, which we use for proposals.

There are many different ways in which the NSF works – we have sponsored public education programmes in science and engineering, including the NOVA programme [a top-rated and critically acclaimed science series on U.S. public television]. In fact there is a new NOVA programme on “Making things stronger and better,” which is about to be aired which the NSF was a co-sponsor of. We sponsor “Science Friday,” which is a talk show every week. We also provide funds for universities and colleges to attract undergraduates to do research so that they get hooked to the excitement of doing science and engineering research – this is a programme called Research Experience for Undergraduates.

There are many, many examples of these kinds of projects that the NSF is engaged in. We also participate in a variety of talent competitions, public awareness, we sponsor programmes in the Museum of Science, and so there are multiple dimensions to that.

You spoke earlier on about how you pick areas of support with a long-term goal in mind, usually in terms of innovation. You also mentioned that there are several other government entities that work on specific areas, like NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy. Could you outline any major priority areas for the NSF and do you share responsibility for some of these projects with the other entities or do you have separate areas of focus?

The NSF is not a top-down organisation. We invest in the best ideas and we invest in the best people – that is our dual mission. The best ideas actually come from the community. A typical way for us to decide what a priority is would be to have some broad areas outlined and get the best experts from the universities and research community and the educator community together. We sponsor workshops, they get together and they discuss and debate. These are the people who are at the cutting edge of research. They tell us, “These are the pressing problems,” and the community also tells “These are global challenges.”

So [we proceed] on the basis of this input from a broad spectrum of sources, plus we have Advisory Boards for every directorate. The members of these Advisory Boards are experts in the field from the community. They are educators, they are from industry, they include university Presidents, and they are researchers and famous professors, and some Nobel laureates. They come here periodically and give us input. We synthesise all this input and we create ideas.

We have priorities. We articulate them. We invite proposals and ideas from the community. We have a very well established merit review process through which we select the best ideas and best people. Let me give you a couple of examples of initiatives that have evolved through this process.

One is called SEES, or Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability. That involves every field that the NSF supports and every directorate and office inside the NSF. This is a theme that is synthesised together and is one of themes that we will include in everything that we do for science, engineering and education with a view to sustainability in everything that we do. Sustainability could be with respect to energy, with respect to transportation, with respect to the environment, with respect to educational activities that we do and so forth.

The other area that involves multiple directorates and offices within the NSF is cyber-infrastructure. We have an exponential growth in information, whether it is through published literature, through newspapers and magazines, through websites, through blogs, or through text messages. Information is exploding. How do you, first of all, organise, sort, mine and filter this information and how do you separate the signal from the noise, so that you can extract useful information out of it? What is the infrastructure needed to do this? What are the hardware and software requirements? There is a lot of science that goes into this, so we sponsor the science. But it also requires infrastructural issues that we need to address. This we do not do in isolation – we work with other federal agencies.

Another example. We sponsor a lot of research in the biological sciences. The biological sciences include basic biology, it includes biological engineering...

Your own field...

My own field, which is the intersection of engineering and life sciences. It also includes biology applied to agriculture. We not only work between biology and engineering, we work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We also work with the National Institutes of Health and other institutes within NIH. There are many different angles to this.

Do you do anything in defence, perhaps with DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency)?

Of course. DARPA’s mission is not as upstream as ours. They have more of a focus on translation and deliverables. But still there are a lot of themes and intellectual areas that overlap. We may fund upstream research and they may fund more downstream research but there is a lot of conversation that goes on. In fact we have constant conversations with different parts of the Department of Defence – [for example] the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Office of Naval Research is only next door [in Ballston, Virginia, near Washington DC]. DARPA is not too far from here either. They are all nearby. We interact quite closely with them.

Out of curiosity, could you tell us a bit about your own area of research, nano-biomechanics, and why some people have described your work in that area as “one of the top ten emerging technologies that "will have a significant impact on business, medicine or culture?”

Regarding my background, I started as an engineer. My initial work was looking at the mechanical properties of large structures [including] the structural integrity of the fuselage of an airplane, the cabin of the aircraft, the wing of an aircraft, the lifetime of an aircraft, nuclear pressure vessels, pipelines and so forth. Over time I started to look at smaller and smaller things. This was in the early to mid-1980s – I was looking at large structures. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I was looking at mechanical properties of small-scale structures.

Then when the National Nanotechnology Initiative started, I was the Director of a large programme on nano-structured materials, which was funded by the Office of Naval Research, with Department of Defence funding. Even though mine was basic research with no defence applications, it was 6.1 Funding, which is Basic Research Funding [by the Department of Defence.]

About eight years ago I thought I would still continue on the theme of mechanical properties, but now in living systems. I thought it would be wonderful if I took my expertise to a topic that also addresses human diseases. I started looking at diseases like malaria, which affect human red blood cells. It turns out that the pathogenic basis for the development of malaria in the human body has a lot to do with the mechanical properties of red blood cells. When the properties of the red blood change because of a parasite, the ability of the blood cell to do its job, which is to deliver oxygen, to the brain, is severely compromised. That can ultimately lead to cerebral malaria or placental malaria in pregnant women.

That brought very interesting side topics for us to study: anything that causes, at the cellular level, compromised mechanical properties for a cell, whose function it is to deform, will lead to a disease. What is the origin of a disease as it relates to a mechanical property? This is an interesting perspective at the cell and molecular level because we know mechanical properties are important. The pumping of the heart is a mechanical function. The blood flow through the arteries and veins is a mechanical function. But what is new in this [approach] is that it looks at things at the cell and molecular level and the tools to study that did not exist ten or fifteen years ago. My timing was right, starting about eight years ago, and I was able to use new experimental tools and also computer tools to model, with the kind of information that I had access to, which I could not have done earlier. That put me in touch with the medical and biology communities, and that was what I was doing until more recently.

Finally, with all your achievements, I am sure that you are a role model for many children in India who aspire to study science. Would you have any words of advice for them? Also, do you retain any links to India, personal or work-related?

Yes, I retain links to India, quite closely, partly because I have family in India. I go there quite frequently – I was just there two weeks ago.

In large portions of Indian society, and this is historic, going back hundreds or thousands of years, there has always been a strong emphasis on education, knowledge and scholarship, including science and engineering. The last 18 years in India are very interesting, especially in areas like information technology, where India has emerged as a leading participant in the global scene. Science and engineering play a huge role in that. Also, the middle class in India has moved up quite a bit in the last 18 years. This is a very good illustration, in the context of a large country, a large population and a large democracy, that education broadly in any field and science and engineering education in particular, can be a ticket to prosperity. If that continues it will be a very good thing not just for India but for the whole world.

Labels: , ,


Thursday, February 03, 2011

 

U.S. says time for transition in Egypt is "now"


From The Hindu

Even as Cairo’s central Tahrir Square was gripped by violent, pitched battles between pro- and anti-government protestors for a second day, the United States government appeared to have changed tack towards a more critical view of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his regime.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Egyptian Vice President Omar Soliman to convey that the violence in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and elsewhere "was a shocking development after many days of consistently peaceful demonstrations."

The Secretary was said to have urged that the government of Egypt “hold accountable those who were responsible for violent acts," underscoring the importance of the Egyptian Armed Forces "exercising restraint in the face of peaceful demonstrations."

In a call with Mr. Mubarak after the early days of the protests, U.S. President Barack Obama had said that concrete steps were required to advance the rights of the Egyptian people through a meaningful dialogue between the government and its citizens.

However on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs delivered a more forcefully critical statement quoting Mr. Obama, saying, "The time for a transition has come and that time is now. The Egyptian people need to see change."

Meaningful transition

Touching upon the role of the opposition, which includes the Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Gibbs added, "We know that that meaningful transition must include opposition voices and parties being involved in this process as we move toward free and fair elections. But that process must begin now."

The State Department also formally denounced the "violent attacks on peaceful demonstrators and journalists" in Egypt, with its spokesman P.J. Crowley issuing a statement saying, "The U.S. denounces these attacks and calls on all engaged in demonstrations currently taking place in Egypt to do so peacefully."

Arguing that the attacks were a direct threat to the aspirations of the Egyptian people, Mr. Crowley added, "The use of violence to intimidate the Egyptian people must stop... We strongly call for restraint."

Labels: ,


 

Flurry of U.S-India meetings in the offing

From The Hindu

There will be a spate of meetings between top officials of the United States and Indian governments over the next few months, including visits by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano, and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, according to official sources here.

The recent trip to India by Jane Lute, Deputy Secretary of the DHS, between January 11-12, helped lay the ground for a visit by Ms. Napolitano “sometime in April,” a senior Indian diplomat here said.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao is expected to visit Washington around February 13-15.

During her visit, Ms. Rao will consult with her U.S. counterpart William Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and also with Eric Hirschhorn, Under Secretary of Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), who is taking the lead on the matter of relaxation of export control restrictions vis-á-vis bilateral high-technology trade.

The meeting with Commerce Department officials would follow the U.S.' January 21-issuance of an export control notification removing organisations such as the Indian Space Research Organisation and Bharat Dynamics Limited from the BIS' Entity List.

Diplomatic sources here said that some export controls which were retained as of now could follow suit, as there were still “some actions [pending] on [the Indian] side regarding provision of assurances on re-export.” However, such assurances are regularly provided by the Indian government when appropriate. During the first few weeks of March, top military officials from both sides will meet their counterparts, following which, Ms. Clinton will travel to India to take forward the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue.

'Full agenda'

An Indian diplomat here said that there was a “very full agenda” on the bilateral side between now and April.

On the trade front, said officials, revised bilateral trade data suggested that the trade in goods rose by 30 per cent in 2010, following a dip in 2009. Also the trade in services, in 2008, between India and the U.S., had been revised upward from $22 billion to $38 billion.

Of this, a little over $18 billion was comprised exports from India, while nearly $20 billion represented U.S. exports to India, officials confirmed, suggesting that “data shows that bilateral trade is broadly balanced.”

The key bilateral policy initiatives that will be considered in the coming months include a monsoon modelling cooperation initiative that will be housed in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Agency, sources said.

There was also an intention to take the civil nuclear cooperation agreement forward during the visit of Mr. Locke, who would be accompanied by representatives of U.S. nuclear companies. Discussions in this space would further touch upon the plan to develop a Global Centre of Excellence for Nuclear Energy.

Labels:


Wednesday, February 02, 2011

 

U.S. authorities promise “good judgement and commonsense”


From The Hindu

United States officials handling the cases of Indian students caught up in the alleged immigration fraud by Tri-Valley University in the San Francisco area promised Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Meera Shankar, that they would exercise “good judgement and commonsense,” in handling the case, according to sources.

Since the case against TVU and its head, Susan Xiao-Ping Su, became evident last week, the fate of hundreds of students, many from Andhra Pradesh, hung in limbo with “a small proportion of them” facing deportation or criminal proceedings, according to official statements here.

Officials in India and representatives of the students had also expressed dismay when it became clear over the weekend that ICE intended to use ankle-attached radio tags to monitor the movements of some of the students involved.

Official sources confirmed that some students were in “detention” over the use of the radio tags, even as State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in response to a question from The Hindu, “[The use of] ankle monitors... is widespread across the U.S. and standard procedure for a variety of investigations. It does not necessarily imply guilt or suspicion of criminal activity.”

However Ms. Shankar was said to have received assurances from the Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, that his team would “handle the case with good judgement and commonsense.”

Further, ICE officials conveyed to the Indian embassy their assessment that while fraud was involved in the case of some students, there were definitely other cases where the students were “victims.”

Sources here also made clear that the Indian embassy had been intensively involved in back-channel discussions surrounding the TVU case. “Our position is that students should not be victimised and should be given the option to either transfer to another university or visa or return to India and reapply for a visa,” officials said.

In touch with affected students

The embassy also confirmed that the consulate in San Francisco had been in contact with ICE officials there and Indian consular officials had consulted with three groups of affected TVU students, both in San Francisco and in Washington, respectively.

Further, embassy officials said that three dedicated email accounts had been set up as a virtual hotline for those seeking advice on this case, and these were accessible through the embassy’s website.

Mr. Crowley indicated that ICE had also set up a helpline for Indian students affected, adding that the State Department was “in regular communication with officials of the Government of India. [The] Department of Homeland Security and ICE are leading this investigation.”

Touching upon some of the details of the case, official sources said that TVU head Ms. Su had allegedly offered some of the students a “profit-sharing scheme” that entailed a fee-waiver in exchange for referrals that led to further student recruitment.

Under this scheme TVU also offered the “grandfather” student even more benefits when one student that he referred in turn made another successful referral.

Labels: , , , ,


Tuesday, February 01, 2011

 

Judicial blow to Obama's plan

From The Hindu

A federal judge in Florida on Monday dealt a severe blow to the Obama administration's game-changing healthcare reform of 2010 when he ruled that the section of the reform that made it mandatory for individuals to obtain commercial insurance militated against the United States' constitution.

What made the judgment an even harsher critique of President Barack Obama's policy than an earlier challenge it faced in Virginia was the fact that Judge Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola argued that the mandatory insurance clause was so “inextricably bound” to other provisions within the policy and “its unconstitutionality required the invalidation of the entire law”.

In a statement following the ruling, Judge Vinson said, “The act, like a defectively designed watch, needs to be redesigned and reconstructed by the watchmaker.” However by not suspending the law pending appeals the judge was said to have left some ambiguity surrounding the interpretation of his ruling in the 26 U.S. states that are petitioners in the case.

The latest ruling on the Affordable Care Act brings the score on judicial review of the policy to a tie. In December Judge Henry Hudson of Richmond, Virginia ruled that the mandatory insurance purchase law “exceeded the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause”. Earlier two judges, in Detroit, Michigan and Lynchburg, Virginia, had ruled in favour of the law.

The multiple challenges to the healthcare policy have also heightened the pitch of the debate on judicial activism.

Liberals in particular have charged conservatives with reneging on their constant battle cry of “judicial restraint,” arguing that such restraint ought to imply “deferring to... Congress on matters of policy preference,” — including on questions of whether it is “better to run a national health insurance system with a system of regulated private insurance... rather than via a single-payer, government-run plan.”

Yet, some observers argued, if these decisions carried the day then “they would effectively take that discretion away from the Congress”.

Labels: , ,


 

Multi-lender group warns of looming food crisis

From The Hindu

Another food crisis for developing countries looms on the horizon with food prices reaching a record high in December for sugar, grain and oilseeds, a network of independent evaluation groups across major multilateral development banks (MDB) warned this week.

The multi-lender Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG) on Monday released a synthesis study on MDB assistance to agriculture and agribusiness, in which it argued that “The overarching message in this context concerns the urgency to raise productivity all along the agricultural value chain,” a goal that had been served in India by public investment in agricultural research.

Lauding India for positive developments in this context the ECG said that public investment in agricultural research accounted for nearly 30 per cent of the sector’s growth, with international institutions playing an essential part in facilitating better outcomes from research and extension.

For such investments in research to be effective, the appropriate technology must reach farmers and be adopted for use within the different farming systems, it added.

In the macro context, the SCG report cautioned that growth in agricultural productivity had suffered a slowdown following a sharp drop in investments by developing countries and donors.

“Bilateral and multilateral assistance alone to the sector fell by some 40 per cent by early 2000s from its peak in the mid-1980s,” the ECG paper noted, adding that the recent increase in official development assistance, to over $8 billion in 2008 from around $3.5-$4.5 billion per year between 1998 and 2004, would not assure results on the ground unless “accompanied by polices that will result in improvements in productivity.”

Multi-faceted approach

Pressing for a multi-faceted approach to raising productivity, the ECG report identified six areas where the MDBs and developing countries could take action, including research and extension; access to water; access to credit: access to land and land rights; roads; and policies, markets and agribusiness.

The ECG report also had positive assessments of India relating, for example, to irrigation investments in Andhra Pradesh that had increased the demand for labour, particularly for women, and made it possible an additional one million hectares of farmland to be irrigated over four years.

Overall the ECG report said while “most development institutions had recognised the damage caused by this past neglect [of investment into agricultural]... and renewed attention to agriculture and agribusiness is emerging... this renewed interest will need to deliver results, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the MDBs have had the least success but where the needs and opportunities are enormous.”

Labels: , ,


 

Top U.S. official says Pakistan holding up FMCT negotiations

From The Hindu

A top Obama administration official has warned that though “a single country,” Pakistan, “has been standing in the way of launching negotiations” for the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), the United States' “patience won't last forever.”

Speaking to media after the opening session of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, Switzerland, Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance stopped short of naming Pakistan explicitly, but alluded to that country when she remarked, “Frankly, I'm a bit puzzled as to why the blockage.”

While Ms. Gottemoeller underscored the U.S.' renewed emphasis on nuclear non-proliferation following the passage of the New START Treaty in December in the Senate and the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference last May, she expressed disappointment with the lack of progress on FMCT saying, “A single country has been basically concerned about the start of negotiations.”

In the face of such resistance the work of the CD had stalled since its plenary session in June 2009, Ms. Gottemoeller argued, warning that if it did not get back to work the Conference itself would “wither on the vine.”

The Assistant Secretary described specifically the U.S.' efforts to engage with a number of delegations on how to move the negotiations forward, saying, “I for one hope that Pakistan will take these as serious efforts to bear in mind what their concerns are, but also to advance what was a consensus decision in 1864 of this entire organization.”

Laura Kennedy, U.S. Permanent Representative to the CD, added, “I would also again call attention to the fact that in terms of our dialogue with Pakistan, Secretary Clinton herself had inaugurated a wide-ranging strategic dialogue with Pakistan.”

Ms. Kennedy noted that the U.S. officials “certainly do discuss the full range of strategic issues with Pakistan on a very comprehensive, high-level basis,” touching upon the role of Ellen Tauscher, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, in particular.

Last year Ms. Tauscher had issued similarly strong statements pressing Pakistan to end its opposition to the FMCT. Speaking at the NPT Review Conference she had said, “I think everyone shares the disappointment that the U.S. shares that there is a country that is blocking the programme of work that was a very hard fought agreement... to move forward ... to begin negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty.”

Ms. Tauscher added that the U.S. joined with its friends and allies in “trying to persuade that country to step away and let the programme of work go forward because it would be a long negotiation.”

On this occasion Ms. Gottemoeller was however emphatic that the CD was the ideal forum for any country with concerns about the FMCT to work with others and arrive at a consensus view. Ms. Gottemoeller said, “Every country, of course, makes decisions about joining in an arms control treaty based upon calculations of its national interest.”

However, she added, because the CD was based on “consensus rule,” any country in negotiation of the FMCT that did not see its interests being supported had full opportunity within the context of the CD not to join up with the final consensus.

In this sense “We see negotiation of a FMCT best conducted in the CD... [and] all countries should feel confident that if we begin negotiations of a FMCT... they will have full opportunity to ensure that their interests are well represented.”

Explaining that a consensus was required in order to launch formal negotiations under the framework of the CD, M. Gottemoeller warned, “If we are not able to accomplish that, and I think many delegations feel this way, patience will run out and delegations will be looking for other options to pursue negotiation of a FMCT.”

Labels: , ,


This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]