New Delhi, July 20: Petroleum secretary R.S. Pandey today defended the petition filed by the government.
New Delhi, July 20: The Supreme Court today asked Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries and Anil Ambani-led Reliance Natural Resources to explain why the family pact between the two brothers should not be declared “null and void” as had been sought by the government.
A set of interconnected puzzles to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
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By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
The number of animals used in UK laboratories for scientific experiments has risen again.
Home Office figures show that in 2008, all procedures in England, Wales and Scotland used 3.7 million animals - an increase of approximately 14% on 2007.
This represents a spike in the year-on-year trend, although numbers have been increasing for several years.
More than three-quarters of procedures were carried out on rodents. Most of the remainder involved birds and fish.
Dogs, cats, horses and non-human primates receive special protection under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. These were used in less than 1% of all procedures.
Most experiments were for research and drug development; safety testing accounts for much of the rest.
Animal welfare groups have strongly criticised the increase, but Lord Drayson, Science and Innovation Minister, said it was "critical to the development of new medicines and increasing the level of understanding of diseases". </p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Ben Bernanke, head of the US Federal Reserve, has defended the central bank’s policy in addressing the recession, including its stimulus plan.
Testifying before the House Financial Committee in his twice-yearly report on monetary policy, he said the focus was to foster "economic recovery".
He sought to reassure markets that government intervention could be withdrawn in a "smooth and timely" way.
Interest rates were likely to remain low for some time, he added.
He said economic conditions meant rates would be kept at exceptionally low levels for "an extended period", between 0% and 0.25%.
‘Persuaded’
Congress approved a $787bn economic stimulus plan in February, aimed at saving or creating 3.5 million jobs and encouraging consumer spending and rebuilding infrastructure.
The plan included tax breaks and money for social programmes.
"Although the recession in the rest of the world led to a steep drop in the demand for US exports, this drag on our economy appears to be waning"
Ben Bernanke, chairman, US Federal Reserve
"It is important to assure the markets that the extraordinary policy measures we have taken in response to the financial crisis and the recession can be withdrawn in a smooth and timely manner as possible," said Mr Bernanke.
Barney Frank, the head of the committee highlighted concerns over inflation. "If people think there’s going to be inflation, then that’s inflationary."
He said Mr Bernanke had addressed such concerns, adding that he was "persuaded by the chairman and others that we are able, in an orderly way, to undo what we had to do so that there will not be that inflationary impact".
Analyst Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer at Johnson Illington Advisors, said Mr Bernanke’s remarks showed that if the job market improved, the Fed would not hesitate in changing its policy.
The Fed is saying it has "the tools for preserving price stability, which effectively means that they have the tools to reduce the levels of liquidity in the financial system before inflation takes hold", said Mr Johnson.
Recovery
Mr Bernanke cited signs that the financial markets had improved, and so had the US economy.
"Although the recession in the rest of the world led to a steep drop in the demand for US exports, this drag on our economy appears to be waning," he said.
However, he cautioned that the unemployment rate remained high and job insecurity, coupled with a fall in home values and limited credit, meant gains in consumer spending would be restricted.
Looking ahead, Mr Bernanke said the central bank expected output to improve in slightly in the rest 2009, with 2010 seeing a gradual recovery.
Rudy Narvas, an analyst at 4Cast in New York, said: "[Mr Bernanke] is still pretty dovish on the economy. He still believes that slack is going to remain at least through 2011."
But he added: "He is saying that they can raise rates even though the unwinding of the balance sheet hasn’t finished yet, which is kind of important, because it suggests to us that they could begin raising rates by as early as 2011."</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
To improve its dramatic offerings, the organisers need to have a much stronger idea of their audience and environment
Latitude bills itself as the festival that is about much more than music, so literature, comedy and theatre are all generously represented. But the theatre tent – which had expanded massively this year – needs a serious rethink, partly because architecture and space play a far more important role in shaping theatrical performance than they do for literature or comedy.
There were some lovely things at the festival this year, including the return of the Dialogue Project, SharpWire’s In the Woods and the participatory installations at the Magic Faraway Tree and in Pandora’s Playground. In the latter, Every Brilliant Thing, inspired by Duncan Macmillan’s short story about a child who tries to save his suicidal mother by listing things that make life worth living, was a deeply touching mix of storytelling and installation. And despite sound wafting over from Pandora’s Playground, Uninvited Guests’ Love Letters Straight from the Heart, a ticketed event with songs in the cabaret tent, was largely successful.
But the theatre tent is a problem that needs to be addressed if Latitude wants to draw an audience who really want to see the work, rather than just shelter from the rain. The success of the Bush’s 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover last year was an example of how word of mouth works even at a festival. Sadly, this year’s Bush offering, Suddenlossofdignity.com, which followed a similar format and had some great writers onboard (including Joel Horwood and James Graham), didn’t have the same lightness of touch.
Of course, not all the work at a festival will be great – just as theatres have good and bad productions throughout any season. But at Latitude the problems are magnified and arise from three factors: space (utterly uncompromising and unforgiving), programming and execution. In the early days, the difficulty for the festival’s arts programmer, Tania Harrison, was enticing theatre to come at all, but now I would suggest that either the wrong people are coming or that she is looking in the wrong places. Work shown here needs to survive the rigours of the space and audiences who come and go as they please. It’s a great test and one that many companies failed miserably this year. I was not alone in feeling talked to death.
In some cases, it wasn’t that the work was bad but that it wasn’t geared to the audience. If the Bush’s offering underestimated its audience then the National’s The Eternal Not seemed not to care who its audience was at all. Lucinda Coxon’s response to All’s Well That Ends Well was intelligent, but its presence at Latitude seemed entirely as if the National thought that any half-hour play would do. Unless these big institutions take Latitude seriously and see it in terms of artistic rather than audience development, they should stay away. From Harrison’s point of few, it was good to have the big guns there, but in fact it was the smaller companies such as Hoipolloi and Nabokov who got the measure of the festival.
Theatre is in the throes of a revolution in which text is combining with superb visual, physical, devised, participatory and installation work to considerable effect. But this year it felt as if the model of the Latitude tent was more like a slice of West End theatre than BAC or the Arches or Forest Fringe. The wonderful thing about Latitude is its potential to programme a cross-section of work, from new writing to devised shows, and become a microcosm of all that’s most inspiring and exciting in British theatre. Currently it’s in danger of making both British theatre and the festival look like a dinosaur.
