15 Indian-origin men, women in British Queen's New Year's Honours list

File photo of British actress Penelope Keith - AP

London: Fifteen Indian-origin men and women, including prominent educationist Asha Khemka, have been named in Queen Elizabeth's New Year's Honours List for 2014.

India-born educationist Khemka has been named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her service to the deprived areas of the West Midlands as principal of West Nottinghamshire College for the last eight years.

"Under her leadership, it has become one of the most eminent further education colleges in the UK. She has embraced the apprenticeship agenda, leading the college to become the largest 16-18 provider in the UK and finding jobs for 700 young people in the first year," read a special citation accompanying the higher awards in this year's list.

"Her charitable trust, the Inspire and Achieve Foundation, is especially focused on those not in education, employment or training. She is in the process of opening a skills centre in India," it added.

Khemka has also been active in skills development in her country of origin and is the founding chair of the Association of Colleges in India – a group 33 UK colleges that have joined forces to work with Indian partners.

"I believe passionately in the power of Further Education to transform lives. India is a land of opportunity where there is no dearth of talent. But there is a gap between vision and implementation," she said.

"The solution is a triangular approach which brings together academia, industry and education funders at every level. West Nottinghamshire College is also on the lookout for an investor to set up its own base in India as well," she said.

A total of 1,195 candidates have been selected for honours this year, with 610 successful women candidates representing 51 per cent of the total.

Actresses Angela Lansbury and Penelope Keith become dames in a list which features more women than men for the first time in history. However, Wimbledon champion Andy Murray and former England soccer captain and global celebrity David Beckham were two surprising omissions from the list.

The duo, who both have Order of the British Empire (OBE), were tipped to be knighted. Murray, 26, became the first Briton in 77 years to win the Wimbledon men's singles title in the summer, while Beckham, 38, retired from football in May after a 20-year career.

The honours system recognises people who have made achievements in public life and committed themselves to serving and helping Britain. The list, founded in 1917, is decided by an honours committee, which goes to the Prime Minister who then recommends the names to the Queen for the official award.

The Queen releases two honours lists every year – her Birthday Honours in June and News Year's Honours in December. 

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No proposal to increase number of subsidised LPG cylinders, says Moily

Kochi: Union Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily on Saturday said there was no proposal before the government to increase the number of subsidised LPG cylinders from the present nine a year to 12.

"We don't have such a proposal before us", Moily, who arrived here in connection with the formal commissioning of the Petronet LNG terminal at nearby Puthyvype by Prime Minister Manmohan, told reporters here.

"Nine subsidised cylinders a year covers 90 per cent of the consumers. Only 10 per cent are left without subsidy", he said.

People will appreciate the government stand, he said. On Thursday, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had said in New Delhi that the government will 'take a look' at the demand to raise the quota of subsidised LPG cylinders to 12 per household in a year from the current limit of nine.

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Ramesh Chennithala joins Oommen Chandy cabinet

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Ramesh Chennithala today joined the UDF ministry headed by Oommen Chandy as part of a move to boost prospects of the coalition in the coming Lok Sabha polls by setting factional and equations correct.

In a limited cabinet expansion, Governor Nikhil Kumar administered oath of office and secrecy to 57-year-old Chennithala. He is tipped to get the Home portfolio in the ministry, replacing his party colleague Thiruvanchur Radhakrishnan, who has been retained in the cabinet.

Chief Minister Chandy, his cabinet colleagues, senior party functionaries, leaders of the UDF partners and deputy leader of opposition in the assembly Kodiyeri Balakrishnan were present at the function. A thinking has been strong in Congress in Kerala that induction of Chennithala will help Congress firm up its support base among the majority community in general and the Nair community in particular to which he belongs to.

Influential Nair outfit NSS had in the past had come down heavily on UDF alleging that the coalition leadership breached its poll-eve promise of giving Chennithala a "key position" in the cabinet, in which nominees from Christian and Muslim communities outnumber those from various Hindu sections.

The idea to rope in Chennithala, mooted by the party high command, was endorsed by the state unit yesterday after senior leader and Defence Minister A K Antony conveyed it at a leadership meeting attended by Chandy, Chennithala and others. Chennithala will continue as the KPCC chief till the organisational and a ministerial shuffle after the budget session of the state assembly, beginning on January 3, is concluded.

One of the longest serving KPCC Presidents reputed for organisational skills, Chennithala is becoming a Minister after a gap of nearly 27 years.

His first brief ministerial stint was in 1986 when his one-time mentor K Karunakaran made him Rural Development Minister bypassing many a senior, which became a turning point in his career. Since then, he rose to become national president of the Youth Congress being handpicked by late Rajiv Gandhi, which helped him to strike strong bonds with the high command on account of his unflinching loyalty to the Gandhi-Nehru family.

In 1989, Chennithala resigned from the assembly to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Mavelikkara, which he won with a comfortable margin. After that he has a victory spree getting re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1991, 1996 and 1999 and also served as AICC Secretary. He returned to the home state to head the party nine years ago and steered the UDF to victory. 

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Saina Nehwal off the court in 2013

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Tradition of New Year's resolutions borrowed from Romans

London: The tradition of New Year's resolutions - making promises on the first day of the year - is a custom started by our Roman ancestors, scientists say. "Rome's highest officials made a resolution to remain loyal to the republic and swore oaths to the Emperor on 1st January," said Professor Richard Alston, from the Department of Classics at Royal Holloway University.

"A grand ceremony marked the occasion, where the Roman legions would parade and sacrifices were made on the Capitoline Hill. This annual event renewed the bonds between citizens, the state and the gods," Alston said.

New Year's Day offered all Roman citizens an opportunity to reflect on the past and look to the year ahead. People would exchange sweet fruits and honey, greet each other with blessings for the coming year and the courts only worked in the mornings, so they had a half day holiday.

"On 1 January, our Roman ancestors celebrated Janus, the god of new beginnings who had two faces - one looking into the past and another looking to the future," Alston added.

"Janus represented doors and thresholds and the Romans named the month of January in his honour. "Janus also symbolised the values of home, family, friendship and civilisation, and the doors of his temple were closed when Rome was at peace and thrown open in times of war, as if the god was no longer present.

"Just like we do today, we also know that the Romans celebrated a mid-winter festival in which they met with friends, exchanges gifts and had a good time before the start of the year ahead," Alston said. 

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Sub-zero storm lashes US

A train passes along the coast at Saltcoats in Scotland on Friday as Britain too braced for bad weather. A combination of high tides, heavy rains and strong winds are expected to bring yet more severe flooding to many parts of the country. — AP

Washington: Snow, high winds and a glacial chill hit the northeastern United States on Friday as a blast of brutal wintry weather bore down on many states and major cities, snarling air traffic.

Temperatures in New York were expected to drop to -3 degree ºC, according to forecasts.Tracking system Flight-Aware said that some 2,200 flights within, into or out of the United States had been canceled so far.

The national weather service issued winter storm warnings and advisories for a huge area spanning states from Chicago trough New York, New England and even the US capital, Washington.

Severe weather was also hitting the country's Midwest, dropping a blanket of snow and cancelling flights at Chicago’s bustling O’Hare Intern-ational Airport.

The northeastern winter warning was in effect in New York from Thursday evening through midday Friday, with forecasters predicting four to eight inches of snow and winds that co-uld reach up to 56 kmph.

The storm is predicted to dump 6 to 12 inches of snow over a large area beginning in northern Pennsylvania and upstate New York to a large part of New Jersey and New England.

In Boston,  the storm claimed at least nine lives. Slick roads have caused traffic deaths in Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois.

A massive pile of salt fell on a worker at a Philadelphia storage facility, killing him. And authorities say a woman with Alzheimer’s disease froze to death after she wandered away from her rural New York home. New York City residents were urged to stay off the streets so the Sanitation Department could work.

Officials said that 450 salt spreaders had been out since early Thursday morning and 1,700 sanitation trucks had been outfitted with plows.

In neighboring New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie declared a state of emergency in anticipation of what was to come.
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, meanwhile, ordered state employees to leave work early on Thursday to alleviate the evening commute.

Workers were not expected back at their desks until mid-morning. Shops and other businesses were also asked to do the same. 

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Saturn's rings revealed to be 4.4 billion years old

Washington: Saturn's iconic rings likely formed about 4.4 billion years ago, shortly after the planet itself took shape, researchers say.

The origin of Saturn's ring system has long been the subject of debate, with some researchers arguing that it's a relatively young structure and others holding that it coalesced long ago, at roughly the same time as the gas giant's many satellites.

At the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, researchers said that the new study, which was conducted using data gathered by NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft, strongly supports the latter scenario.

Cassini's measurements imply that "the main rings would be [extremely] old, rather than hundreds of millions of years old," Fox News quoted Sascha Kempf, of the University of Colorado in Boulder, as saying.

Saturn's main ring system is huge but razor-thin, measuring about 175,000 miles across but just 33 feet or so in the vertical direction. The rings are composed primarily of water ice, but they contain small amounts of rocky material contributed by micrometeoroid bombardment.

Kempf and his colleagues used Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyzer instrument to measure just how frequently such tiny particles cruise through the Saturn system.

They found that a surprisingly small amount of dusty material comes into contact with the rings. On an average, just 10-19 g of dust per square centimeter zooms through space every second at a distance of five to 50 Saturn radii from the planet.

Having measured this low rate of dust recruitment, the team then calculated that the rings have likely existed for about 4.4 billion years.

Kempf and his colleagues were also able to reconstruct the orbits of many of these particles, finding that the lion's share likely come from the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy bodies beyond Neptune's orbit.

However, some of the dust probably hails from the even more distant Oort Cloud and some from interstellar space, Kempf said.

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