Medical seat aspirants keeping their fingers crossed

The Indian Languages Festival launches its first documentation project to create a direct social connect with people

Jayakumar Gopinath talks about Pulluvanpattu, the ritualistic art form of Kerala that sings songs for the snake gods, and how his community is trying to preserve it

Give Peace Another Chance, artist Adarsh Baji’s series on view at Kalakriti art gallery in Hyderabad, doffs its hat to the life, times and ideology of Mahatma Gandhi ahead of his 154th birth anniversary

Since the senior leader had joined the BJP, according to the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, ‘any member of a House who voluntarily gives up their membership of a political party is liable to be disqualified,’ the Congress said

BJP-JDU government cites “irregularities in the process of awarding contracts” by the Public Health Engineering Department, initiates probe. RJD says NDA “scared of Tejashwi Yadav’s popularity”

The election for the 288-member State Assembly is scheduled for later this year

After the incidents on August 9 and 11, a war of words broke out between the party leaders

The BJP Government in Rajasthan is yet to take a decision on Disaster Relief Minister Kirodi Lal Meena’s resignation

In November, the State will launch the Yuva Shakti Mission for youth, the Nari Sashaktikaran Mission for women, the Kisan Kalyan Mission for farmers, and the Gareeb Kalyan Mission for the poor, the Chief Minister said in his Independence Day speech

Shishupal Patle’s entry ahead of the Assembly election is being seen as a way to strengthen Congress’s influence in the constituency, which falls under the Vidharbha region of Maharashtra

Dara Singh, the main accused in the triple murder, was convicted and sentenced to death by a CBI court in 2003

Aircraft with two persons onboard belongs to Alchemist Aviation flying school in Jamshedpur

People present at Rafeek Khan’s house overpowered the attacker, thrashed him and handed him over to police. The accused is a former CRPF assistant commandant and a Shaurya Chakra awardee

2008 USAIN (United States Agricultural Information Network) Conference

Tradition in Transition: Information Fueling the Future of Agbiosciences

April 27 – 30, 2008 Wooster, OH

University of Florida is an institutional member of USAIN, an organization whose primary purposes are to promote discussion of agricultural issues and trends, to develop and influence national agricultural information policy, to make recommendations to the National Agricultural Library (NAL) and to increase collaborations between member partners (http://www.usain.org/). USAIN does an excellent job communicating legislative changes to its members, and then working with members to get involved with state and national government.

The conference was hosted by Ohio State University and held at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, closely situated next to a beautiful arboretum and rose garden.

Here are a few of the most important highlights from the conference:

1. The AgNIC Born Digital Steering Committee, of which UF is a participant, met for the first time to begin phase I of the born digital initiative. Here at UF it used to be we would receive a copy of IFAS Extension resources, which we would catalog and make available in our print collection. Many Extension resources (documents, websites, etc) are now published only in digital format and while this format increases access to the current resources, many of these older resources are at risk of being permanently lost due to a lack of consistent preservation processes. This is a problem not just at UF, but at almost every land-grant throughout the nation. The goal of this steering committee is to identify digitization standards (selection, metadata, format, etc.) and to develop an infrastructure to assist the land-grants in developing their own processes at the local level. The other institutions participating are Univ. of Arizona, Ohio State, Colorado State, Texas A&M, Cornell, Univ. of Minnesota, Purdue, and potentially Michigan State and Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

2. Mary Ochs (Cornell) Peter Ballantyne and Barbara Hutchinson (IAALD) spoke about Agbioscience information for the worldwide community. There is a strong need to "make research information easy to access for current and future generations" through common international standards, open applications, user friendly information & data, andlocal and global action . A large amount of agricultural information is created within the U.S., and we should do more to share that information with the international community. The result of this discussion was the creation of an International Agricultural Information Interest Group which will focus on the first steps of bringing in librarians from other countries to future USAIN conferences, as well as providing more Ag information on the USAIN website. Here is Peter Young - the Director of the National Ag Library - speaking about global collaborations: http://iaald.blip.tv/file/864317/

3. Peter gave the NAL update, mentioning the new Blueprint for Success: The National Agricultural Library 2008-2012. Many of you may have seen in the Washington Post the article, A Precious Resource at Risk, about the drastic budget cuts facing NAL in the upcoming year. I believe it was at the last USAIN that I learned that the NAL has had a flat budget for the last twenty years. Somehow I didn't write down the percentage they will have to cut, but I believe it was either 40% or 60% - both staggering cuts. This will prevent the NAL from preserving their special collections, from buying print materials, from participating in Interlibrary Loan, and more. For more information, see the USAIN website for Lobbying Congress for Support.

Many of the invited speakers spoke on biofuels, bioenergy/bioproducts, and sustainable farming, including David Kline, an Amish farmer and author/editor of Farming Magazine. Without going into too much detail, here are a few of the interesting things I learned from all the speakers:

1. In the 1850’s ethanols were used for lighting, but in the 1860s-1906 an ethanol tax was enacted (making kerosene more competitive). The first ethanol fueled auto was the Ford Quadricycle (1896). The first flex-fuel car: Model-T (1908)!
2. In 2008 there were 11 billion gallons of ethanol produced from corn. Unfortunately there are a number of issues related to: water quality, soil erosion, water supply, biodiversity, loss of grasslands, increase in feed costs. Also, corn is displacing other crops -- leading to food riots.
3. The cellulosic biofuels (corn, switchgrass, MSW, forest residues, etc.) industry will grow rapidly in coming years. And will bring some very specific questions, such as how will supply chains develop (big issue), what are the implications for the food/feed/fiber markets, how will environmental issues be addressed, can we coproduce fuels and foods, and how can farmers and local communities benefit?
4. Lastly, has been shown to increase smog and cancerous benzene emissions. Also, all current biofuels increase carbon dioxide emission relative to gasoline.

There was quite a bit more information available from all the speakers. If you are interested in reading the speaker presentations, they are available for download: http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/usain/downloads.html

Chopra fell just 2cm short of Jakub Vadlejch’s effort, whose 88.38m in the opening round proved enough for the Czech to take first place

Chopra finished second at the Doha Diamond League as his big final effort of 88.36m fell short by just two centimeters of Jakub Vadlejch's winning effort on May 10

The national record holder Avinash Sable, who has already attained the Paris Olympic qualifying standard, clocked 8:31.75 to overwrite his own previous meet record of 8:33.19, set five years ago in Lucknow.

The 27-year-old gymnast, regarded as one of the best ever, booked her ticket to Paris with a resounding victory at the US trials. Having successfully made a comeback after a two-year break to safeguard her mental health, she has the opportunity to put the 2020 Olympics firmly in her rearview mirror

The lineup features 314 women and 278 men, spanning ages from 16 to 59 and with 46 states represented.

Rumours have swirled around the Olympic and world champion being troubled by an adductor niggle as he sets sights on retaining the gold medal at the Paris Olympics a few days from now

Neeraj Chopra saved the best for the last as his sixth and final attempt measured 89.49m.

The Indian digs deep — he was in trouble after the fourth attempt to be placed fourth — to better his Olympic mark and finish behind Peters

The presumptive favourite to defend his Olympic title, the Norwegian flamed out in his favourite event. But he has bounced back in style. After claiming the Olympic 5,000m gold, he has extracted a measure of revenge in the 1,500m and shattered the 3,000m world record

The 27-year-old hurled the discus to the podium-clinching distance in his very first attempt to add to the silver he won in the Tokyo Paralympics three years ago.

Grenada’s Peters, a two-time world champion, produced his best of the day in his opening attempt

IMAGES from Day 2 of the 1st Test played between India and New Zealand in Bengaluru, on Thursday.

Washington Sundar justified his selection with a career-best 7/59 to bowl out New Zealand for 259 on Day 1 of the second Test in Pune.

It was a stunning defeat for India, who were dismantled by eight wickets in seamer-friendly conditions in the opening match at Bengaluru, as they suffered their first series loss on home soil since falling to England in 2012.

As many as four world-class match-winners are expected to bid adieu to the game one by one in the next couple of years and Gautam Gambhir is in an unenviable position as head coach.

IMAGES from the Day 1 of the third Test played between India and New Zealand at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Friday

How much of an impact does agriculture have on India’s GDP? What are the key requirements to improve agricultural sustainability? What hinders CSR’s potential with respect to agriculture?

The directive was issued keeping in mind food safety, as peak tourist season in the country is underway

An agency review of the available data determined that oral phenylephrine, a major component of popular products such as Benadryl, Advil and Tylenols was not effective against nasal congestion

Trump has promised to again remove the U.S., the world’s biggest historic greenhouse gas emitter, from international climate cooperation

Chetan Bhattacharji, who is at Baku for the first week of negotiations and The Hindu’s Jacob Koshy, will guide us through high-stakes conversations at COP29 at 5 p.m. on November 12