German ambassador to India sees 1 million students by 2017

This article is painfully short and lacking in detail, and alludes to a plan by the German government (I assume) to expand some program to teach German from 300 schools to 1000 schools, resulting in a million Indian students with basic German knowledge.

The language of "poets and thinkers" (Dichter und Denker) will be heavily promoted on the Indian subcontinent in the coming years. In more than 1000 Indian schools children will soon learn German. "By 2017 a million Indian students will have at least a basic knowledge of German", said the German ambassador in India, Michael Steiner, in New Delhi. "This is an ambitious goal", he admitted. The program has already been in place at 300 schools, with success. Steiner said that he saw open-minded, talented students everywhere who had a passion for learning German: "Now we need ways to train the teachers more efficiently." The German classes were overrun, he said, there not being enough German teachers in the country.

Assuming this is cumulative (not one million per year), about two hundred students learning German per school could do it. Let's assume this program started in 2011 with 100 schools:

2011: 100 schools, 20,000 students
2012: 300 schools, 80,000 students
2013: 500 schools, 180,000 students
2014: 700 schools, 320,000 students
2015: 900 schools, 500,000 students
2016: 1000 schools, 700,000 students
2017: 1000 schools, 900,000 students

That's probably the kind of assumption the number a million is based on.



A search also turns up this article from late 2012 on the same subject. Yes, it's the Goethe-Institut which is carrying out this ambitious program.

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Gujarat to begin teaching Chinese in universities

Just a tiny bit of information here in French:

Gujarat, the state in India which is a model for its economic vitality, intends to open a Mandarin school and teach Chinese in its universities. The objective: to strengthen ties with China and attract investors.

It mentions the governor a bit too but there was nothing worth mentioning. I don't see any further information in English on Gujarat and Chinese either. I'll have to keep an eye out for articles with more detail than the two sentences found here.

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Norwegian student council wants students to get degrees in BRIC countries for free

From here in Norwegian:

Norwegian student council wants to give degrees for free if they are done in emerging countries, but faces opposition from the Ministry of Education, NSO, and NTNU. The proposal was adopted by the Student Council in a discussion meeting on 6 October. "By growing economies we mean all economies that are experiencing great growth. At the present time we are talking about BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) but in the long term it can include other countries with high growth", said director Per Martin Sandtrøen. According to ANSA (Association of Norwegian Students Abroad) there are 300 Norwegian students studying in China. Of these only 25 are getting an entire bachelor or master's degree, a number that Sandtrøen believes to be too low. "All the risk is on the students the way things work now. Taking an entire degree in these countries means that a person must support oneself for the entire first year, without any financial support...To work in the future in Norway we must educate students that know the language and conditions in these countries. The economic benefits would be far greater than what it would cost to educate them." he said.

Opposition to the idea seems to have more to do with implementation than anything else: the Ministry of Education and others don't believe it's an easy task to educate Norwegian students in countries that don't offer much education in English and don't think students would be prepared to learn in other languages by the time they get there either, and there is also difficulty in finding places that meet Norwegian education requirements.

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Newspapers booming in India thanks to rising literacy

Here's an article on the booming of the newspaper industry in India, a pretty different picture from that seen in other parts of the world where newspapers are struggling overall. The reason for the boom is quite simple:

Each increase of just one percent equals 11 million extra people, a phenomenal number. It would also be interesting to see this graph represented as a total number of literate people as not only the literacy rate but also the population itself continues to increase. I won't draw up a full graph but here are a few numbers:

1951 - literacy 19%, population about 400 million = 80 million or so literate
1971 - literacy 35%, population 570 million = 200 million literate
1991 - literacy 52%, population 870 million = 450 million literate
2001 - literacy 65%, population 1.05 billion = 680 million literate

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The Indian rupee now has its own snazzy sign

It looks like this:

That resembles both a Devanagari र and an English R with the left side removed and two horizontal lines added.

For more on the symbol, see here and here. The man who designed it will be paid just 250,000 rupees ($5,363), but is also receiving worldwide fame and will have a name in the history books.

My first encounter with the rupee, of course, was back in the early 1980s:




Edit: here's a video on the new symbol too.

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Caves on the Moon, Apollo 16 landing site imaged, more Moon Zoo photos, poverty in India

The Moon has received some attention over the past few days due to a number of interesting discoveries on its surface. One is here, the discovery of another cave. Since Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter began orbiting the Moon we have been a lot of these caves there, and the possibilities of exploration there are quite intriguing. From a practical standpoint as well the idea of setting up shop in a cave is somewhat appealing considering the benefits one would provide in protection from radiation and a steady temperature, though simply constructing a habitat using the lunar soil would still certainly be a better idea as it allows one to construct it anywhere, and so places near the south pole (Malapert for example) where solar energy is plentiful could be chosen.

The Apollo 16 landing site was recently imaged again by the same craft, and you can see it here.

Moon Zoo photos: the ones I have added to my favourites can be seen at the feed here, and some of the most interesting ones over the past few days are:





Finally, poverty in India: a new study using an index called the multidimensional poverty index shows India to have some 420 million living in poverty, more than the number in sub-Saharan Africa, which is what has caused a few headlines. At the same time, the ratio of those living under the official poverty line continues to fall, and the same would be true for this new index if it had been conducted over years and decades. To have such a large number of the world's poor concentrated in a single country is actually a stroke of luck, since the actions of a but a single government is what can alleviate this, whereas in sub-Saharan Africa this is often complicated by other issues that cannot be solved by domestic policy alone. In other words, though India is at the point where it is able to build probes to help explore the Moon, there is also a lot of untapped potential there as well.

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Reviving Sanskrit in the state of Uttarakhand

Here's a fairly rare treat: a long (4-page) article on the revival / strengthening of Sankskrit in the northern state of Uttarakhand, and another one here on a Sanskrit newspaper called Vaak. Uttarakhand is where Sanskrit was recently made an official language too, and it seems that revival efforts are progressing nicely. The articles themselves are long enough so no real need for more commentary here, except that:

1) One wonders if Latin would have had such an easy time being made the official language of more than just the Vatican if it had been able to retain a body of native speakers as Sanskrit has, and

2) Look, some Sambahsa cognates from the article: "Sanskrit-dwitiyarajbhashayuktam deshashya prathamrajyam Uttarakhandam". Olivier can tell us if there are others besides these two in the article.

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영토분쟁해결 - 인도와 방글라데쉬의 독도는 이젠 없다

오늘 이 기사를 영어로 봤는데 한국어로 검색해보니까 한국어버전이 없어 여기서 알려주기로 했다.

약 30년 동안 인도와 방글라데쉬도 한국과 일본의 독도/타케시마 문제가 있었지만, 기후변화에 따라 이젠 그 섬이 사라지게됐다. 방글라데쉬에서 South Talpatti라고 불렀고 인도에서는 New Moore Island였다. 길이 3.5키로나 되는 그 섬이 몇년전부터 사라진 것 같다. 영토분쟁의 원인이던 이 섬이 사라지고 나서 인도와 방글라데쉬는 이젠 누구것인지 논쟁할 수도 없게 됐다.

하지만, 이 섬이 원래 썰물 때만 잘 보였고 밀물이 되면 바닷속에 들어갔으니까 바다가 조금만 올라오면 언제든지 사라질 수 있는 섬이었다. 대신에 독도는 작고 가파른 섬이기 때문에 이렇게 사라질 가능성이 없다.

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India ups its space budget by 38% for 2010

Thank you India. India announced today that the budget for the Indian Space Research Organization would be increased by 38%, reaching the equivalent of about $1.25 billion. Just last year as well it received a similar raise (40%), and the success of Chandrayaan last year (thanks to which we now know about the process in which water is created on the soil on the Moon) is a nice example to point to of what happens when a country like India makes the decision to be a serious player in space.

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23 September 2009: India just launched seven satellites at one time

Seven at one time! Nice to see India taking such an assertive (and successful) role in space over the past few years. You can see a short video of the launch at the link there, but this one on YouTube is longer so don't bother:



The main satellite was a satellite called Oceansat-2 which is just a satellite for predicting weather and identifying potential fishing zones, and the other six satellites are small nano-satellites, with four from Germany, one from Switzerland and one from Turkey.

According to BBC Turkish, this is the first satellite produced in Turkey, and it goes by the name İTÜpSAT1, and it cost a mere $150,000 to make. It will have a mission six months in length when it will take pictures of the Earth "on a continental scale".

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Good news, bad news for German as a school subject in India and the United States

First the good news. The Goethe Institute has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Sattva Vikas School in Mumbai to begin teaching German there.

The bad news: German studies programs in a few American universities are being eliminated. The language is actually being studied by a bit more people than it was in 2002, but the rate of increase is not the same as that with other up-and-coming languages.

Always keep in mind though that less people studying language x does not necessarily equate to language x is not worth learning. The CIA pays up to $35,000 in signing bonuses for certain languages, because they are less studied than most. German is different from these languages in that it's spoken in industrialized European nations where English is widely spoken, but at the same time with students flocking to other languages there is a lot less competition for those that want to seriously study German. That is, there may be more positions available for fluent Spanish speakers but then again there is also a large pool of Spanish speakers to choose from already, but finding a fluent German speaker just isn't as easy.

Because these two often tend to balance themselves out (language A offers more employment but incentives are low; language B offers less employment but incentives are higher), once again it always makes sense to learn languages out of a love for the language itself.

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Number of dead in terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India reaches 143 / Hindistan'da Ölü Sayısı 143'e Çıktı

Lobby of the the Oberoi Trident in Mumbai from above, in 2007.

This translation is more for my own benefit to understand the situation (it's easy to skim over an article when just reading but translation requires full attention) than that the Turkish article would have any information that an English article wouldn't.

Source: trt.net.tr (Turkish)

28.11.2008 12:50:51

Hindistan'nın Mumbai kentinde eş zamanlı terör saldırılarının üzerinden bir buçuk gün geçmesine rağmen, operasyonlar hala sürüyor. Teröristler tarafından basılan oteldeki son türk rehine de kurtarıldı.

Operations are still going on in India's city of Mumbai even though it has been one and a half days since the simultaneous terrorist attacks. The last Turkish hostages in the hotel raided by the terrorists have also been rescued.

Ölü sayısı 143'e çıkarken, teröristlerin saldırdığı 10 yerden sekizinde güvenlik kuvvetleri denetimi sağladı.

The number of dead has reached 143, while eight of the ten locations attacked by the terrorists have been brought under control by security forces.

Yahudi Merkezi ve Tac Mahal Palace (PALAS) otellerinde ise operasyonların sonuna yaklaşıldı.

The operations around the Jewish Centre and the Taj Mahal Palace (PALAS) are nearing their end.

Hint komandolar, Oberoi otelinde onlarca yeni ceset bulunduğunu bildirdi.

Indian commandos said that tens of corpses have been found in the Oberoi Hotel.

Oda oda aramalar yapan Hint komandolar, otelde denetiminin tamamen kendilerine olduğunu kaydetti.

The Indian commandos have searched every room, and said that the hotel is completely under their control.

Oberoi otelde rehineler arasındaki 3 Türkten ikisi kurtarılmıştı.

Of the hostages in the Oberoi Hotel, two of the three Turkish hostages were saved.

Halen Oberoi otelde kendisini odasına kilitlemiş halde bekleyen üçüncü Türkün de kurtarılması bekleniyor.

At present the third Turkish hostage in the Oberoi Hotel is locked in the room and is waiting to be rescued.

Tac Mahal otelindeki operasyon ise bir iki saat içinde sona erebilir.

The operation in the Taj Mahal Hotel could be over in one or two hours.

Otele giren komandolar, sadece bir odada 50 ceset bulduklarını bildirdi.

Commandos that entered the hotel said they found 50 corpses inside a single room.

Yetkililer, içeride hala bir teröristin 2 kişiyi rehin tuttuğunu, bulunduğu katta elektrikleri kestiğini belirtti.

Authorities say that a terrorist still has two people as hostages, and that electricity on the floor where they are located has been cut.

Yahudi Yardım Merkezi'nde de çatıya helikopterlerle komandolar indirildi, çevre binalarda keskin nişancılar konuşlandırıldı.

Commandos entered the attic of the Jewish Aid Centre by helicopter, and sharpshooters have been positioned in neighbouring buildings.

Operasyonun başladığı yönünde haberler alınıyor.

News was obtained as the operation started.

Daha önce iki çalışanla 2 yaşında bir çocuğun kurtarıldığı merkezde rehine bulunduğu tahmin ediliyor.

It's guessed that there is a hostage in the centre where two employees and a 2-year-old child were rescued previously.

Denizden bir balıkçı teknesi ile geldikleri tahmin edilen 25 civarında teröristten yedisinin öldürüldüğü, dokuz şüphelinin gözaltına alındığı bildiriliyor.

Of the approximately 25 terrorists that are guessed to have come from the sea using fishing boats, seven have been killed and nine suspects are being detained.

Çatışmalarda ölenler arasında 12 polis ile 7 yabancı da bulunuyor.

12 police and 7 foreign nationals are also among those that died in the conflicts.

Saldırıları El Kaide ile bağlantılı olduğu tahmin edilen Deccan Mücahitleri adlı çok az bilinen örgüt üstlendi.

The attacks have been carried out by a nearly unknown group called the Deccan Mujahideen, guessed to have ties to Al-Qaeda.

Hindistan basını ise, teröristlerin Pakistan'da üslenen Laşkar-i Taiba grubuna mensup olduklarını ileri sürdü.

The Indian press has put forward that the terrorists belong to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (لشكرِ طيبه) group with a base in Pakistan.

Hindistan Başbakanı Manmohan Singh de, teröristlerin dış bağlantılı olduğunu ileri sürerek Pakistan'ı işaret etti. Hindistan Dışişleri Bakanlığı, Pakistan'dan terör yuvalarını temizlemesini istedi.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (ਮਨਮੋਹਨ ਸਿੰਘ/मनमोहन सिंह) has also blamed Pakistan, saying that the terrorists have foreign connections. India's Foreign Minister called for a cleaning out of terrorist cells in Pakistan.

Saldırıları kınayan Pakistan ise, Hindistan'ı teröre siyaset karıştırmakla suçladı.

Pakistan, which has condemned the attacks, accused India of mixing politics into the terrorist attacks.

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Images from the Moon from India's Chandrayaan-1 mission released

What fun, we have some images to look at. Here's one:

This is the picture of moon's surface taken from lunar orbit by Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft's Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on November 15, 2008. Taken over the polar region of the moon, the picture shows many large and numerous small craters. The bright terrain on the lower left is the rim of 117 km wide Moretus crater.

Another article here at space.com goes over the psychological impact of the Moon mission on the people of the country. Missions like this are important for a country like India that has a certain amount of economic power, but has not had the opportunity to see as many tangible examples of what it is capable of. You'll notice for example a country like Mexico has a GDP pretty much the size as India's, but only passed the final approval for a space agency this month, one of many examples of a country perfectly capable of contributing to space development with the rest of the world but is only now beginning to take the initiative in doing so. Seeing these missions carried out is good not only for a country like India, but other countries with mid-sized economies that look at these missions and know that they could probably be doing the same thing if they wished.

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India's moon probe Chandrayaan-1 doing well, sending back images

Not of the Moon yet because it's not there yet, but of the Earth:

It may be recalled that the 1380 kg Chandrayaan-1 was successfully launched into an initial elliptical orbit around the Earth by PSLV-C11 on October 22, 2008. This was followed by four orbit raising manoeuvres, which together raised Chandrayaan-1's orbit to a much higher altitude. The spacecraft is now circling the Earth in an orbit whose apogee (farthest point to Earth) lies at 267,000 km (Two lakh sixty seven thousand km) and perigee (nearest point to Earth) at 465 km. In this orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about six days to go round the Earth once. The spacecraft performance is being continuously monitored and is normal.

Wikipedia also has the following on the arrival time at the Moon and the mission so far:

Once in GTO, Chandrayaan's on-board motor will be fired to increase its orbit around the earth. The orbit will be raised five times till it reaches 1,019 km perigee and 386,194 km apogee from the Earth on 8 November. This orbit will take the spacecraft to the vicinity of the moon. The spacecraft will rotate for about five-and-a-half days before firing the engine to slow its velocity for moon's gravity to capture it. As the spacecraft approaches the moon, its speed will be reduced to enable the gravity of the moon to capture it into an elliptical orbit. A series of engine burns will then lower its orbit to its intended 100 km circular polar orbit. Following this, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) will be ejected from Chandrayaan-1 and all the scientific instruments/payloads are commissioned.

Chandrayaan-1 completed four orbits around the Earth, on 23 October: "The health of the spacecraft is normal and (it is) doing fine. Spinning in elliptical orbit once in every 6 hours and 30 minutes, it has completed four orbits and is in the fifth orbit."

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