Daily News (In Short)-22-May-2015

22 May 2015

#* Jayalalithaa invited to form govt in Tamil Nadu ‘at the earliest’
Chennai: Tamil Nadu governor K. Rosaiah accepted the resignation of chief minister O. Panneerselvam on Friday and invited AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) supremo J. Jayalalithaa to form the government at the earliest.
In an early morning meeting that lasted all of 10 minutes, all 151 MLAs of the party unanimously re-elected Jayalalithaa as the legislature party leader, paving the way for her to become the state chief minister for the fifth time. She is expected to be sworn in to the chief minister’s post on 23 May, according to party sources. The governor has requested her to send a list of people to be appointed as ministers with their portfolio, according to a statement from the governor’s office on Friday.
Following her meeting with the governor, Jayalalithaa will make a public appearance and garland statues of MGR, Periyar and Annadurai in Chennai.


#* AAP-Jung war: Centre says L-G not bound to consult Delhi govt, Kejriwal tweets BJP has lost
The Centre said on Friday the lieutenant governor was not bound to consult Delhi's council of ministers, clarifying the  distribution of powers in the national capital after an ugly public row over the appointment and posting of key bureaucrats.The Centre stepped in after L-G Najeeb Jung and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal took their spat to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the ministry of home affairs issued a notification on the administrative structure of a Union Territory. "Subject to his control and further orders, L-G of the national capital of Delhi, shall in respect of matters connected with ‘Public Order’, ‘Police’, ‘Land’ and 'Services’ exercise the powers and discharge functions of the central government to the extent delegated to him from time to time by the President," the notification said. "Provided that L-G may, in his discretion, obtain views of CM of Delhi in regards matter of ‘Services’, wherever he deems it appropriate."The home ministry clarified that in matters like public order, including police and land, the L-G was competent to issues orders.

 

#* Destruction of Palymra by Islamic State would be "an enormous loss to humanity": UNESCO 
DAMASCUS: The Islamic State group seized Syria's Palmyra on Thursday, reportedly giving it control of half of the country as UNESCO warned the destruction of the ancient city would be "an enormous loss to humanity".Experts said the capture of the 2,000-year-old metropolis leaves IS strongly placed to wrest control of more territory from Syria's government and comes days after it expanded its grip in Iraq. US President Barack Obama played down the developments as a tactical setback and denied the Washington-led coalition was "losing" to IS, but French President Francois Hollande said the world must act to stop the extremists and save Palmyra.


#* Airlines under scanner, face probe for alleged arbitrary hike in fares
Airlines face a fresh probe for suspected cartelisation and for the alleged arbitrary hike in airfares, with the fair trade regulator CCI Thursday saying it needs to get to the bottom of the issue. As a group of MPs led by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya, Thursday lodged a fresh complaint with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against the air carriers, CCI chairman Ashok Chawla said the regulator needs to get to the bottom of the issue to ascertain whether there was a cartel at play. Chawla said CCI has looked into the matter in the past also but it could not take any action as there was no evidence, although there was no doubt that the market was getting concentrated among a few players. Somaiya, who also submitted a complaint against mobile companies alleging that they were indulging in unfair trade practices on issues like net neutrality, said he discussed both the issues in detail with the CCI.


#* The best Gmail hacks for getting work done
NEW YORK, May 21 — If your Gmail has the same features it did when you first signed up, you could be missing out. Installing a few tweaks can make you more productive, or at least make you look that way to your co-workers. Google’s e-mail program is one of the most flexible ever created and has given rise to a small ecosystem of add-ons. You can endow your e-mail with superpowers that go way beyond sending and receiving messages. Sure, some are the equivalent of adding racing stripes to a car, but others are downright “how did I live without this” tools. If you’ve ever encountered simple frustration with your e-mail, chances are pretty decent that somebody’s built a plug-in that solves it. Here are a few of the ways tricking out your inbox can change your work life.


#* GREAT READ ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BOT VS. THE POKER PROS
DOug Polk, one of the world's best poker players, shoveled egg whites into his mouth with a plastic fork and slurped unsweetened oatmeal from a paper cup, 13 days into the oddest tournament he has ever entered. His opponent, Claudico, did not struggle with fatigue, mental breakdown or hunger, despite having played 80,000 hands over a two-week period, a schedule that was four times more rigorous than Polk's. Nor did Claudico crack dumb jokes or worry about maintaining a poker face. Claudico has no face at all. It is a computer program, an artificial intelligence bot, and one of the savviest computer poker players in history. Claudico and its immediate predecessor have defeated all the best computer programs, as well as a pretty good professional player. But Claudico had never battled elite professional players until this April, when its developers staged a two-week showdown at a downtown casino.


#* Coal scam: Court grants bail to Naveen Jindal, Narayan Rao, Madhu Koda and others 
NEW DELHI: Congress leader and industrialist Naveen Jindal, ex-Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayan Rao, former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda and seven others were today granted bail by a special court in a coal block allocation scam case. Jindal, Rao, Koda, formed coal Secretary Harish Chandra Gupta and others appeared as accused before the special CBI Judge Bharat Parasar and moved separate pleas seeking bail.


#* ISRO To Develop Rubidium-Based Atomic Clocks For Use On Navigation Satellites
The  Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is developing rubidium-based and high precision atomic clocks which can be used in the navigation satellites.The timepieces use electronic transition frequency as their frequency standard, which translates into extremely accurate timekeeping. The chairman of ISRO, A.S. Kiran Kumar has said regarding the matter that the agency is crafting a seven-satellite regional navigation constellation in India. The four that are already up make use of European atomic clocks. Since the Indian satellites are aimed towards showing the exact position and time of persons and objects on earth for civil and military purposes, they need to possess atomic clocks in order to keep extremely accurate time as they send signals.

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