Webinfosys's Local News :Indian-American jailed for export of technology to India

WASHINGTON: An Indian-American businessman was on Monday sentenced to 35 months in prison by a US court for illegally exporting electronic components to government entities in India, involved in ballistic missile production.

Parthasarathy Sudarshan, who owns an international electronics business, was convicted of supplying the materials to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and the Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL).

The 47-year-old had acquired electrical components with applications in missile guidance and firing systems in the US and supplied to the entities between 2002 and 2006, according to court documents.

Sudarshan and others at his company, the Cirrus with offices in Simpsonville, South Carolina, Singapore and in Bangalore, provided US companies with fraudulent certificates that claimed the end-users of the electrical components were non-restricted entities in India, when, in fact, the items were for VSSC, it said.

There were no export licenses for any of the shipments to VSSC and BDL, which are on the Department of Commerce's Entity List. Both the Indian entities are involved in development of ballistic missiles, space launch vehicles, and fighter jets.

Exports of US-origin commodities to these entities are restricted and require prior authorisation in the form of a license from the Department of Commerce.

To further conceal from the US government that goods were going to entities in India on the Department of Commerce Entity List, Sudarshan would route the products through its Singapore office and then send the packages on to India, the documents said.

It has been pointed out by the Justice Department that Sudarshan also acquired microprocessors for the Tejas, a fighter jet under development in India. The microprocessors were necessary for the navigation and weapons systems of the Tejas. Because the microprocessors are on the US Munitions List, the State Department must license any export of the products.

On two occasions in 2004 and 2006, Cirrus caused the shipment of a total of 500 microprocessors to the Aeronautical Development Establishment, an enterprise within the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India responsible for the development of the Tejas. There were no licenses for these shipments.

To know More About Share Market Technical Analysis Click Here For Share Gurukul

Back To Index Page

Webinfosys's Local News :7% in maths can get you through IIT-JEE

NEW DELHI: If you score 7% in your Class XII mathematics paper, you fail. But if you score 7% in your IIT-JEE mathematics paper, you can still make it. That's exactly what happened in the 2007 entrance exam, an RTI query has revealed.

The top 7,202 general category candidates who qualified in the 2007 joint entrance examination, with an aggregate cutoff of 206 marks, included those whose score in one of the subjects was as low as 12 (mathematics), 22 (physics) and 18 (chemistry).

Given that the maximum marks in each subject were 162, the scores of some of the qualified candidates in JEE 2007 work out to 7%, 14% and 11% in the three subjects.

These details have come to light from the fresh data supplied last month under RTI by IIT-Bombay on JEE 2007, which had been organized by it. If such poor performance in individual subjects could not stop candidates from making it to the all-India rank (AIR) list, it was thanks to a radical change in the 2007 examination in the procedure for calculating subject-wise cutoffs.

As TOI first reported on March 17, the change resulted in single-digit cutoffs: 1 in mathematics, 4 in physics and 3 in chemistry, making a mockery of the purpose of ensuring that the selected candidates displayed a certain minimum level of knowledge in every subject.

Under the procedure introduced in 2007, the cutoffs are pegged to the best marks obtained by the bottom 20% of the candidates in each subject.

The change was prompted by the embarrassment IIT-Kharagpur faced over its inability to explain before the Central Information Commission how it had arrived at the much higher cutoffs in the previous examination organized by it in 2006.

The latest disclosure made by IIT-Bombay belies the general expectation that, because of sheer competition, the relaxation in subject-wise cutoffs, which constitute the first screening of the candidates, would not compromise the quality of the intake.

Consider the case of the candidate who scored just 12 in mathematics, a subject crucial to all engineering branches, and yet managed to get rank 3,989 on the strength of his aggregate of 239 marks.

Another candidate who got merely 12 more in mathematics and 6 more in the aggregate, however, jumped 590 rungs higher in the AIR list: his rank 3,399 was, according to the latest counselling browser published by IITs, good enough to secure admission in 2007 in IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Kharagpur.

Despite the negative marking that is done for wrong answers, how can IITs justify the presence of such poor performers in the coveted AIR list?

N Venkataramani of IIT-Bombay, who was the vice-chairman of JEE 2007, told TOI: "Don't let these aberrations make you lose sight of the fact that an overwhelming majority of the selected candidates are the best in the country. Having changed the cutoff procedure on account of the problems that arose with the 2006 examination, we are closely reviewing the new system and will refine it as we go along."

To know More About Share Market Technical Analysis Click Here For Share Gurukul

Back To Index Page

Webinfosys's Local News :India to join group against nuke terror

Close on the heels of Manmohan Singh focussing on nuclear terrorism as a source of concern and days after it became clear that Pakistan's A Q Khan network was peddling sophisticated and compact nuclear bomb designs to possible buyers in Thailand, Malaysia and even Switzerland, India has decided to join a group led by the US and Russia to combat this new menace.

India's Ambassador to Spain, Sujata Mehta, will represent the country at the next meeting of the group in Madrid on Tuesday.

Born out of a George Bush-Vladimir Putin agreement in July 2006 to fight nuclear terrorism, the group now has 70-odd members.

Ironically, while India believes the threat of nuclear terrorism emanates from Pakistan and its lethal mix of proliferation and jihad, it has been laggard in signing up to such a group. Pakistan signed up some time ago.

According to official statements, Saudi Arabia, Malta, Ireland and the UAE are formally signing up this time. India is currently in the process of signing on to the statement of principles of the group.

One of the most compelling reasons for India to join is that increasingly, private sector and industry would be under terrorist threat, prompting closer cooperation with local and federal authorities.

Further, there are increasing convergences between proliferation and terrorism. For instance, if A Q Khan distributed his bomb designs to other countries, could these designs not make it to the unsecured and ideological hands of terrorists?

Also, if a country is hanging out for a bomb design because it wants to use the weapon on an enemy, should that also qualify as an act of terror? The question now increasingly in the limelight is at which point does proliferation amount to an act of terror?

The Madrid meeting is expected to focus on availability of nuclear materials, building of weapons, targets and attack scenarios. Pakistan and its nuclear network is easily on top of the list of global concerns — Iran comes a close second. The Pakistan nuclear network — which India believes is much more than a one-man show — has not been wound up, and there have been recent reports testifying to that fact.

That the US is more and more concerned about the nuclear terror prospects emanating from Pakistan is clear from testimonies that the US congress has been hearing last week.

Stephen Cohen, an expert on the Pakistani army, told the US congress: "There is a hard-to-quantify risk of nuclear theft. Pakistan has a homegrown personnel reliability programme, but even this could be circumvented in a determined conspiracy. There is some small chance that should Pakistan unravel, its nuclear assets will be seized by remnant elements of the army for political, strategic or personal purposes."

The group is really a "coalition of the willing" and despite India being one of the major voices against nuclear terrorism, it has taken two years for the normally cautious South Block to sign up.

India was one of the first countries to sign up to the Russia-sponsored convention against nuclear terrorism in the UN — and apart from Russia the only other nuclear power to ratify the convention. But the convention is yet to be ratified by all the other nuclear powers even after its entry into force. Ironically, where the UN has not succeeded, the "initiative" appears to have. China, Russia, US, UK and France are all members.

According to US official statements, the Madrid meeting will "emphasize the value of further integrating the counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation communities with a special emphasis on deterrence, nuclear detection and denial of terrorist safe haven. Partners of the Global Initiative will be joined by officials from the European Union, the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as industry representatives".

The initiative was launched in 2006 by George Bush and Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg, Russia. The first three meetings were held in Morocco, Turkey and Kazakhstan.

To know More About Share Market Technical Analysis Click Here For Share Gurukul

Back To Index Page