3-million-year-old canyon discovered under the Brahmaputra in Tibet

A huge 3-million-year-old canyon, thousands of feet deep in some places, has been discovered buried under a major river in Tibet. The canyon buried along the Yarlung Tsangpo (called the Brahmaputra in India) in south Tibet was discovered by a team of researchers from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the China Earthquake Administration. The geologists say that the ancient canyon — thousands of feet deep in places — effectively rules out a popular model used to explain how the massive and picturesque gorges of the Himalayas became so steep, so fast.

“When I first saw the data, I said, ‘Wow!’ It was amazing to see that the river once cut quite deeply into the Tibetan Plateau because it does not today. That was a big discovery, in my opinion,” said Prof. Jean-Philippe Avouac of Geology at Caltech. “We used a paleocanyon that was carved by a river. It’s a nice example where by recovering the geometry of the bottom of the canyon, we were able to say how much the range has moved up and when it started moving,” Prof. Avouac added.

Last year, civil engineers from the China Earthquake Administration collected cores by drilling into the valley floor at five locations along the Yarlung Tsangpo.

Swedish court rejects Assange appeal

 

On Thursday a Swedish appeals court rejected an appeal by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to revoke a detention order issued by prosecutors in 2010 over allegations of sexual assault. "In the view of the Court of Appeal there is no reason to set aside the detention solely because Julian Assange is in an Embassy and the detention order cannot be enforced at present for that reason," said the Court of Appeal. Mr. Assange has been stuck inside Ecuador's London Embassy since June 2012 to avoid a British extradition to Sweden. Sweden wants to question him on allegations of sexual assault and rape, which he denies. The Australian says  that he fears if Britain extradited him to Sweden he would then be extradited to the United States where he could be tried for one of the largest information leaks in U.S. history.

Modi urges naxals to join mainstream

On friday Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked Naxalites to drop their guns and participate in nation-building, stressing that violence has no place in the country of Gautam Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi.“There is no place for violence, which does no good to anyone. I appeal to those who have picked up the gun to shun it and pick up the plough. This is your country and work shoulder to shoulder in developing it,” he said addressing a poll meeting at Chandua in Naxalite—hit Latehar. He urged the people to preserve democracy without letting anything to stain it. The Centre, he said, was determined to take Jharkhand to new heights if the BJP was voted to power in the assembly elections.AJSU president and former deputy Chief Minister Sudesh Mahto, whose party is contesting the elections in alliance with the BJP, was also present on the dais along with Modi.

The first phase of polling in Jharkhand is scheduled on November 25 and the rest of the four phases will be held till December 20.Counting will take place on December 23.

Akash missiles tested again

 Two Akash Surface-to-Air supersonic missiles were fired in quick succession by Indian Air Force personnel to destroy two fast moving Banshee unmanned aerial vehicles at the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, Odisha, on Friday.

While one missile hit and destroyed the target in a low altitude near boundary mission, the other missile too scored a direct hit and wrecked another fast moving Banshee in a far boundary high altitude exercise.

Friday’s flight trials were preceded by simultaneous launch of two Akash missiles against flying targets on Thursday. The current series of tests, which culminated on Friday, were conducted for acceptance of new production lot of the missiles. In all, nine missiles were tested since November 17 as part of the training exercise for IAF personnel.