When Ankit Sarwahi gazed at the sky to view the eclipse, he was speechless. “It was so strange to see the sun disappear into complete darkness,” he said. “Awesome”, “fantastic”, “magical,” were some words he used to describe the experience.
The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century was witnessed at the crack of dawn by millions of Indians. People gathered on rooftops, planetariums, riverbanks and open grounds to watch this celestial spectacle. A total eclipse occurs every 123 years, when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, completely covering the entire face of the sun. The eclipse was expected to be clearly visible in many places including Surat, Bhopal, Varanasi, Taregna near Patna, and Dibrugarh in Assam. However, in the end, it could only clearly be seen in Varanasi and Dibrugarh.
“It’s a rare moment; I never thought I would see this in my life,” said Apoorv Prakash, a college student who traveled to Varanasi all the way from Delhi to view the total solar eclipse.
“Vehicles in the city had to use headlights as darkness fell suddenly for three minutes and 48 seconds (the duration of the eclipse),” Prakash said. “People were mesmerized. They were so shocked that they hugged each other and cheered when the eclipse began.”
Anubhav Kumar, a resident of Mumbai who had booked his air ticket a month in advance to travel to Varanasi to view this wonder of science said, “It was a life time opportunity. I am incredibly lucky to have seen the sight of the century.”
But people like Nishant Sinha and Pratima Kulkarni who traveled all the way from Bangalore to Taregana village near Patna, were disappointed as cloudy skies prevented them from witnessing the rare phenomenon.
Incidentally, it was at Taregna where the ancient astronomer Aryabhatta (or Aryabhatha, 476-550 AD) made detailed and accurate projections about solar and lunar eclipses.
But while thick clouds and heavy rains in various parts of India prevented people from viewing the eclipse in its entirety, residents of Kolkata witnessed a near total eclipse. “The experience was indescribable. As suddenly as it had begun, my first total solar eclipse was over,” Sunny Basu said.
The total phase of the eclipse lasted for about 6 minutes and 44 seconds, making it the longest eclipse of the century.
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This post was written by admin on July 23, 2009
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BEIJING - Two more Web sites dedicated to social networking went offline in China yesterday amid tightening controls that have blocked Facebook, Twitter, and other popular sites that offered many Chinese a rare taste of free expression.
China’s crackdown on social-networking sites began in March when Web users in the country found they could no longer visit YouTube, shortly after video appeared on the site purporting to show Chinese security officials mistreating Tibetans.
The blockages continued through the 20th anniversary on June 4 of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the recent ethnic riots in Xinjiang, with homegrown and overseas microblogging and photo-sharing sites among those targeted.
Although cutting off access to sites can often be traced to a specific trigger - such as the Tiananmen anniversary - experts say the fact that the sites are not coming back online shows that the harsh measures are part of a long-term strategy to pare back the power of the Internet and silence some voices finding expression here.
“I am especially pessimistic about this fall and next spring,” said Wen Yunchao, a well-known blogger based in Guangzhou in southern China. “I expect they will be more and more restrictive, because they have yet to come up with a good way to manage the Internet. They are aware that it has this great power and they are afraid of it.”
Digu and Zuosa, two Chinese Web sites that offer microblogging services similar to Twitter, were shut down for maintenance yesterday, notices on their home pages said. A Digu spokeswoman who would give only her surname, Zhang, said Digu was offline and would be down at least a week so it could be moved to a new server.
“It’s a sensitive period, so we are not in a rush to reopen it,” Zhang said.
Some Digu users had recently tried to post politically sensitive material to the site, she said, and the company was having to censor such content. She would not give any specific examples.
Zuosa employees did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment about the site’s closure.
Having two sites close the same day indicates pressure from authorities for them to shut down, said Wen, the blogger from Guangzhou. He said the timing was probably related to today’s 10-year anniversary of the banning of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.
“Maybe the Chinese government is concerned that the Falun Gong will use the occasion to spread some rumors or organize some kind of event via the Internet,” he said.
Also yesterday, the technology channels of the popular Sina and Netease Web portals were shut for about six hours, apparently because they had posted news about a corruption probe without clearance from state censors.
China has the world’s largest population of Internet users, more than 298 million, and the world’s most extensive system of Web monitoring and censorship. Despite those controls, the Internet’s role as a platform for sharing unofficial news and opinions has expanded rapidly.
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China,
InterNet
This post was written by admin on July 23, 2009
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July 13 (Reuters) - A Japanese election is expected at the end of next month and the opposition Democratic Party is leading the polls, yet it is not clear who it might appoint as finance minister to tackle the country’s worst recession in six decades.
The Democrats have their best ever chance of ousting Prime Minister Taro Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party, ending a half-century of nearly unbroken rule by the conservative pro-business party.
Following are some Democratic Party names seen by political analysts as possible candidates for finance minister and other leading minds behind its economic policy:
MASAHARU NAKAGAWA, 59:
Nakagawa is the party’s current finance spokesman but sources at the party say the current “shadow cabinet” is largely symbolic and title holders, including Nakagawa, may not be in the cabinet in a Democrat-led government.
Nakagawa has said Japan should avoid buying U.S. government bonds denominated in dollars because of currency risk, and a Democratic Party government would continue to buy U.S. government bonds only if they were denominated in yen. [ID:nT239417]
EISUKE SAKAKIBARA, 68:
Known as “Mr Yen” for spearheading intervention in currency markets as a top finance ministry official in the 1990s, Sakakibara has recently called for a change in government.
He says drastic reforms would require breaking away with vested interests which he says have come to thrive after five decades of almost unbroken rule by the ruling LDP.
The Democrats tapped him as their candidate for finance minister in the 2003 election, when he was a professor at Keio University. Some media reports said Sakakibara was involved in drafting policy proposals for former party leader Ichiro Ozawa last year.
KATSUYA OKADA, 55 (turns 56 on July 14):
Some party officials say the post of finance minister may go to a veteran lawmaker Katsuya Okada, a policy expert with a “Mr Clean” image and the secretary general of the party.
Okada, a former trade ministry official, has said he wants the party to discuss how to tackle fiscal reform, including an increase in consumption tax, unlike Hatoyama, who has said the party should abandon such debate for now.
NAOTO KAN, 62:
Naoto Kan is another party veteran who, together with Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama, founded the party a decade ago.
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Finance,
Japan
This post was written by admin on July 13, 2009
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