RESEARCH

The US claims that destroying one of its defunct satellites with a missile was necessary for the hazard its toxic fuel posed to life on Earth. It's an understatement that the world isn't convinced; neither are American experts. Here is an exposition of a six-week (perhaps more) long drama K eep aside the game of American and international politics surrounding the recent shooting down of a defunct spy satellite by the US; the logistics and science involved in the exercise was simply fascinating. Once, not giving two hoots to international concern, the US Administration gave the order to demolish with a missile the 'dead' National Reconnaissance Office satellite, the Department of Defence needed to re-programme the weapons -- outfit three Navy cruisers, the USS Lake Erie, USS Decatur and USS Russell, with remodelled Aegis anti-missile defence systems and a total of three SM-3 missiles -- within a few weeks. The confusion: Too many cooks spoil the broth, they say. Much bef

While our educationists’ endeavour to increase the content of reasoning in school curricula is welcome, an examination hall is the last place students would like to be taken by surprise. CBSE must wait for a year to let students develop Higher Order Thinking Skills before testing them A ll those who had been lamenting for decades that academic education in the country is all about devouring bookish matter and regurgitating it in the examination hall must welcome the new format for AISSE and AISSCE question papers, especially those of physics, chemistry and biology. But a basic doubt remains: Shouldn't such a scheme have been announced last year in April so that the students could practise analytical questions the whole year and, if announced now, shouldn't it be implemented not before the session 2008-09? It's good that 'reason' has finally prevailed, though only up to 20 per cent! Well, that's the weightage for questions of reasoning. What can be philosophicall