Centre has no will to tackle terrorism, Naxalism: Modi

Rajkot: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday lashed out at the Central government saying that it had failed to curb terrorism and Naxalism and lacked the will to do it.

"The government at the Centre has no will to tackle terrorism," said Modi after unfurling the tricolour at the Rajkot Municipal Corporation cricket ground here.

"It's a demand of time to take strict action against terrorism which the United States did after 9/11 and since then terrorists didn't dare to target the country," he said adding that it was unfortunate that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed terrorism and Naxalism "as a mere serious issue".

Quoting a UN report, Modi said India did not have strict laws to prevent terror acts and added that he would stand by the government and extend all possible support if it has a will and concrete plan to curb terrorism.

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The Chief Minister said that while Singh, in his speech on Sunday, urged farmers to enhance agricultural production he did not utter a single word about rotting food grains.

The PM's silence on the issue is like rubbing salt on wounds, he added.

On Kashmir, Modi said "I want to warn the Central government that the Kashmir issue is very sensitive and they will have to take people of the nation into confidence before reaching to any conclusion."

Modi also remembered leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and other freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for India's independence.

"Gujarat has always shown a new path to the country. Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel led the country for freedom and now Gujarat is leading the country in many fields like agriculture, education and petrochemicals," he said.

World's lakes getting hotter, more than the air: NASA

Washington: A first-of-its-kind NASA study is finding nice cool lakes are heating up - even faster than air.

Two NASA scientists used satellite data to look at 104 large inland lakes around the world and found that on average they have warmed 2 degrees (1.1 degree Celsius) since 1985. That's about two-and-a-half times the increase in global temperatures in the same time period.

Russia's Lake Ladoga and America's Lake Tahoe are warming significantly and the most, said study co-author Simon Hook, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif. Tahoe has heated up by 3 degrees (1.7 degrees Celsius) since 1985, while Ladoga has been even hotter, going up by 4 degrees (2.2 degrees Celsius).

The study was published Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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Hook and his colleague used several satellites and looked at thermal infrared images of the lakes in winter and summer. They also confirmed the numbers by comparing them to buoy data.

"It fits with what we see with air temperature measurements," Hook said. "We were surprised that in some places the lakes appear to be warming more than the air temperature."

The next question to look at is why the lakes seem to be warming faster than the air or land, Hook said. One reason could be the way lakes warm -- in a more gradual manner than land but also slower to cool.

NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, who was not part of the study, said the research made sense and adds another independent measuring system to show that the world is warming up. Eleven different indicators -- including air temperature, humidity, snow cover, ocean heat content -- show statistically significant man-made global warming, while no environmental measurements show otherwise, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Warming lakes is No. 12 and "another brick in the wall," said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver.

Overall, 41 lakes increased temperatures in a statistically significant way, with another 59 individually warming but not enough to be considered significant. Only four showed temperature drops, but not significantly, Hook said.

When author Narendra Modi spoke in English

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Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is now an author. His book - 'Convenient Action - Gujarat's Response To Challenges of Climate Change' was released in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. The 250 page book essentially talks about the steps taken by the Gujarat government for environment protection.

The release function was attended by former President APJ Abdul Kalam and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Chief RK Pachauri. But more than the book, what caught everybody's attention was Modi's address to gathering in English, something that he rarely does.

"We can have conferences after conferences, but I think one simple action is better than a million good intentions. My book documents such simple actions," Modi said adding the book is a humble attempt to document steps taken by his government to meet the challenges of climate change.

The book, however, has few figures on emission levels in Gujarat. It merely showcases his pet projects like the river basin links, water treatment plants and the lone experimental BRTS corridor in Ahmedabad.

"I am neither an expert on climate change nor a professional writer, but I have written from the core of my heart," he said.

After former US Vice-President and Nobel laureate Al-Gore, Modi became the second political leader to write a book on climate change, said an official of Macmillan Publishers India Ltd, which published the book.

Nobel award winner Pachauri praised Modi for his efforts in dealing with the issue. "Political will is required to take unpopular decisions to save our climate," he said adding that the Gujarat Chief Minister has shown the way.

Pachauri recalled that Modi, along with his team of IAS officers, had come to him to understand the issue of climate change and spent an entire day with him.

Kalam also praised Modi's initiative and asked the Chief Minister to take steps to make Gujarat the carbon neutral state of India.

Interestingly, Modi was silent on Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh's performance at the climate change summit in Cancun - on India warming up to emission benchmarks. His party has been protesting against this in Delhi, but Modi hinted that he was launching his book, not controversies. (With PTI Inputs)