What do drones and GPS owe to a 1744 shipwreck?

Summary: On 5 October 1744, a storm was brewing in the English Channel. With sails set for home after chasing a French fleet off the coast of Portugal, a squadron of British warships was in trouble.

By Tim HarfordBBC World Service, 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy The lead ship HMS Victory sank 100m to the seabed 50 miles (80km) south of Plymouth, taking with it 1,100 men and - so rumour had it - lots of Portuguese gold. The wreckage lay undisturbed until it was located by a marine salvage company in 2009. Beyond the rumoured gold, there was something else on board which was arguably much more economically significant. Also lost that day was the first known attempt to develop an idea that is now used to guide everything from submarines to satellites, from rovers on Mars to the phone in your pocket. When the Victory went down, it took with it John Serson's "whirling speculum", forerunner to the gyroscope. Find out more: 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world. It is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen to all the episodes online or subscribe to the programme podcast. Serson was a sea captain, and barely literate. But he was also an "ingenious mechanick", as The Gentleman's Magazine later put it. He was trying to solve a serious problem. Sailors worked out a ship's position by using a quadrant to take an angle from the sun to the horizon, but you could not always see the horizon, because of haze or mist. Inspired by a child's spinning top toy, Serson wondered if he could create an artificial horizon - something that would stay level, even as a ship lurched and swayed around it. As The Gentleman's Magazine recounts, he "got a kind of top made, whose upper surface perpendicular to the axe was a circular plane of polish'd metal; and found, as he had expected, that when this top was briskly set in motion, its plane surface would soon become horizontal. If the whirling plane were disturbed from its horizontal position, it would soon recover it again". After impressing two high-ranking naval officers and an eminent mathematician, Serson was asked to make further observations… aboard the HMS Victory: "and so perish'd poor Mr Serson". His widow, Sarah Serson, was left penniless and asked the Navy for copies of his documents so she could try to make money from the speculum, although there seems to be no evidence that she succeeded. However, a century later, French physicist Leon Foucault would produce a successful prototype based on the same principle which had fascinated Serson. Foucault called his device a "gyroscope", from the Greek words for "turn" and "observe", because he used it to study the Earth's rotation. It was a spinning disc mounted in gimbals, a set of pivoted supports that allow the disc to maintain its orientation regardless of how the base might be tilting around. Then electric motors came along, meaning the disc could spin indefinitely. And practical applications came thick and fast. Ships got workable artificial horizons and so did aeroplanes. In the early 1900s, two inventors figured out how to align the spin to the Earth's north-south axis, giving us the gyrocompass. Combine these instruments with others - accelerometers, magnetometers - and you get a good idea of which way up you are and in which direction you are heading. Feed these outputs into systems that can course-correct, and you have an aeroplane's autopilot, a ship's gyro-stabilizer, and navigation systems on spacecraft or missiles. Add in GPS, and you know where you are. There is a limit to how small you can make spinning discs in gimbals, but other technological developments have miniaturised the gyroscope. Vibrating micro-electro-mechanical gyroscopes measure only a few cubic millimetres. Researchers are making a laser-based gyroscope thinner than a human hair. As these and other sensors have got smaller and cheaper - and computers faster, and batteries lighter - they have found uses from smartphones to robots, gaming consoles and virtual reality headsets. And another technology around which there is a particular buzz: the drone. The first pilotless flight is often traced to 1849 - only three years before Foucault's gyroscope. Austria tried to attack Venice by fixing bombs to balloons and waiting for the wind to blow in the right direction. It was not a triumph: some bombs landed in Austrian territory. But military uses continued to drive drone technology. If you searched for "drones" in a news archive, until about four or five years ago, you would find that the top stories were about war. Then suddenly they started being about "what do airspace regulations mean for hobbyists?", and "how long before drones are delivering our groceries?". More things that made the modern economy: That is a big question. Drones are now commonplace from surveying to moviemaking; they get urgent medical supplies to hard-to-reach places. But it is the routine, everyday uses that promise to be truly transformative: flying our online shopping to us, or even flying us - the Chinese company Ehang is pioneering drones that can carry human passengers. In rural China, delivery drones are starting to look like a leapfrog technology: one that catches on most quickly where there is not a competing established infrastructure - in this case, of big-box retail stores and roads for van deliveries. Zhangwei, for example, is a village in Jiangsu province where few people own cars, and only half have fridges, but everyone has a phone - and they use those mobiles to place orders at online retailer JD.com for everything from disposable nappies to fresh crabs. As Jiayang Fan describes in the New Yorker, about four times a day, warehouse workers dispatch the village's orders on a drone that carries up to 30lb at 45 miles per hour. Everyone is happy - except for Big Auntie, the woman who runs the village shop. If drones are to take off more widely, we will need better solutions to the so-called "last mile" problem. In Zhangwei, JD.com employs a human to distribute the crabs and the nappies to the villagers who ordered them - but in countries where labour is pricier, the last miles are where delivery costs are concentrated; automate it, and some believe bricks-and-mortar stores could cease to exist altogether. But nobody is sure precisely how that might work. Do we want our online purchases parachuted into our back gardens, or plunked on the roofs of our apartment buildings? How about smart windows that can open to let in drones when we are not at home? Are more stringent no-fly zones needed to avoid the kind of disruption recently caused at Gatwick and Heathrow when drone sightings delayed hundreds of flights? Then there is another problem - the one that did for poor John Serson: the weather. If we are going to rely on airborne deliveries, they will have to work in all conditions. Will drones ever navigate storms that could sink a battleship? Perhaps then the promise of the gyroscope will have truly been fulfilled. The author writes the Financial Times's Undercover Economist column. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen to all the episodes online or subscribe to the programme podcast.

5 अक्टूबर 1744 को, इंग्लिश चैनल में एक तूफान आ रहा था। पुर्तगाल के तट पर एक फ्रांसीसी बेड़े का पीछा करने के बाद घर के लिए पाल तैयार होने के साथ, ब्रिटिश युद्धपोतों का एक स्क्वाड्रन मुसीबत में था।


Mangalyaan: India's race for space success

Summary: India's maiden mission to Mars, the Mangalyaan, has arrived in orbit after a 300-day marathon covering over 670 million kilometres (420 million miles). Science writer Pallava Bagla traced its journey as it neared the Red Planet.

On the morning of 24 September, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) slowed down the spacecraft sufficiently so it could be caught in the orbit of Mars. "India will become the first Asian country to have achieved this and if it happens in the maiden attempt itself, India could become the first country in the world to have reached distant Mars on its own steam in the first attempt," said Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan as it approached. Both Russia and the US failed in their maiden attempts. The first Chinese mission to Mars, called Yinghuo-1, failed in 2011 alongside the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission with which it was launched. Earlier in 1998, the Japanese mission to Mars ran out of fuel and was lost. Undoubtedly, India - a late starter - is way ahead of its Asian rivals in trying to get to the Red Planet. "We are really not racing with anyone, but with ourselves to reach the next level of excellence," said Mr Radhakrishnan. 'Pink of health' India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) - an indigenously made unmanned robotic mission weighing 1,350kg (2,976lb) - was launched from the rocket port at Sriharikota on the coast of the Bay of Bengal on a balmy afternoon on 5 November last year. Since then, the mission "has been in the pink of health", says Isro, and has been cruising at breakneck speed to reach close to Mars, half-way around the Sun. The 4.5bn rupee ($74m; £45m) mission is, as Mr Radhakrishnan says, "the cheapest inter-planetary mission ever to be undertaken by the world". On his visit to India's rocket port on 30 June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: "The [making of the] Hollywood movie Gravity cost more than our Mars mission - this is a great achievement." India's low-cost and quick turnaround satellite mission has been attracting a lot of global attention from the scientific community that seeks to better understand the mysterious Mars. On the morning of 24 September Indian time, Isro re-oriented Mangalyaan and fired its on-board rocket motor for about 24 minutes to slow the spacecraft. It was a very tricky operation - if it did not slow down sufficiently, it would have missed being caught by the gravity of Mars and the mission could have be lost in outer space; but if the rocket engine had fired more than required it could have slowed the Mangalyaan so much that it risked crashing down on to the red soil of Mars. Since 1960, there have been 51 global missions to Mars and the overall success rate stands at 42% so the odds were loaded against the Indian Martian entry. M Annadurai, head of the Indian Mars mission, said he was "confident that the laws of physics will favour India and the country could have its first robotic Martian baby soon". 'Delusional dream?' Isro dubs the mission a "technology demonstrator", essentially showcasing to the world that India is no longer a country of snake charmers but a high-tech hub that has developed its technology against the odds and stringent sanctions. The mission also makes a big global geo-political statement ahead of Mr Modi's imminent visit to the US. In its six-month life, the mission will study the atmosphere of Mars and search for methane gas while asking that eternal question that has dogged humanity: "Are we alone in the universe?" Within hours of its arrival in the orbit, the spacecraft is expected to relay the first images taken by an Indian eye of the Red Planet and help decipher why and how Mars lost its liquid water. These are important questions essential for the long-term survival of human beings on Earth. In the sprint for the Martian marathon, India has shown its technological capability and resilience to undertake arduous inter-planetary journeys. Many, however, say this bid to reach Mars is a "delusional dream" of India seeking super-power status since 400 million Indians still live without electricity and 600 million people still do not have access to toilets. However, in real terms, the Mangalyaan has cost India just about four rupees (seven cents; four pence) per person - which is chicken feed for a country of 1.2 billion people. India sees the Mars mission as an opportunity to beat its regional rival China in reaching the planet, and with destination Mars within touching distance, it may after all meet that target. Pallava Bagla is a correspondent for Science and science editor for New Delhi Television. He is the co-author with Subhadra Menon of Reaching for the Stars: India's Journey to Mars and Beyond

मंगल ग्रह के लिए भारत का पहला मिशन, मंगलयान, 67 करोड़ किलोमीटर (42 करोड़ मील) से अधिक की दूरी तय करते हुए 300 दिनों की मैराथन के बाद कक्षा में आ गया है। विज्ञान लेखक पल्लव बागला ने लाल ग्रह के करीब आते ही अपनी यात्रा का पता लगाया।


Can Obama pass US immigration reform?

Summary: Barack Obama's announcement that he will unveil his plan for US immigration reform before the end of the year has angered Republicans who accuse him of "poisoning the well" by acting alone. So how bold will the president be now that he faces a Republican-controlled Congress?

By Thomas SparrowBBC Mundo At the Latin American Youth Center in Washington DC, many voters went to the polls on Tuesday frustrated at the politicians' failure to reach a deal on immigration reform. "I am a Latina and I would like to see some help for those who are somehow like me," said Danubia, an immigrant from El Salvador. "I hope we will have a noticeable change on immigration, because many people are left without their parents when they are deported," she told the BBC at the polling station decorated with the colourful flags of Latin America countries. Danubia is not alone in her worries. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center, two-thirds of Hispanic registered voters in the US say new immigration legislation is either extremely important or very important. Many members of the community, which overwhelmingly supported Mr Obama in 2008 and 2012, are disillusioned because the president has failed to deliver the comprehensive immigration reform he promised. They are also unhappy because deportations have increased under the Obama administration, earning him the nickname "deporter-in-chief". "I am very disappointed because I voted for him twice and nothing has been done," said Leticia, a voter of Mexican descent. Immigration has been a cornerstone of Mr Obama's domestic agenda ever since he became president, but proposals pushed by the Democratic party have been thwarted by Republicans in the House of Representatives. He has since vowed to change policy unilaterally using executive powers. Mr Obama was supposed to announce his plans by the end of the summer. But as political pressure grew over Central American migrant children illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the US, he decided to postpone action until after the mid-terms. Now, with Republicans controlling both the Senate and the House of Representatives for the first time since 2006, there are questions about how exactly Mr Obama may try to circumvent Congress - and how Republicans may react. At a White House press conference on Wednesday, the president confirmed he will announce his executive plan before the next session of Congress begins in January. But he stopped short of giving any details. House Speaker John Boehner reacted with anger on Thursday, accusing the president of "poisoning the well". Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the US immigration policy programme at the Migration Policy Institute, believes the Republican gains in the mid-term elections could limit what executive action is taken. One of the options being discussed is a plan to relieve undocumented immigrants from deportation, he says. That project would be along the lines of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme, the administration's 2012 decision to suspend deportations of children who arrived in the US at a young age. Such a decision would probably be met by strong opposition in Congress. Republicans have said DACA is an example of executive overreach, and the House of Representatives has already tried to both block it and prevent President Obama from expanding it. "Republicans will make efforts to weaken, to undermine, to defund the executive action programme," says Angela Maria Kelley, vice president of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington. But Ms Kelley admits that there could be another approach, one where Republicans present an immigration bill that would not convince Democrats. It would put the Democrats in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether they reject it. "That could erode the negative image Republicans currently have with Latino voters and it would turn the heat on Democrats," she says. Ultimately, both parties will also consider the possible effects of any immigration decision on the 2016 presidential election, in which Hispanics are expected to play a much more important role. For the mid-term elections, the Pew Research Center calculated that Latinos made up only a small share of eligible voters in many battleground states. But their presence is growing at a national level and presidential hopefuls will want to count on Latinos. "In 2016 there will be a very different election dynamic compared to what we have just seen in 2014," says Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), a non-governmental organisation in Los Angeles. But for voters like Danubia or Leticia at the Columbia Heights community centre, 2016 is still far away.

बराक ओबामा की घोषणा कि वह वर्ष के अंत से पहले अमेरिकी आप्रवासन सुधार के लिए अपनी योजना का खुलासा करेंगे, रिपब्लिकन को नाराज कर दिया है जो उन पर अकेले काम करके "कुएं में जहर डालने" का आरोप लगाते हैं। तो अब राष्ट्रपति कितना साहसी होगा जब वह रिपब्लिकन-नियंत्रित कांग्रेस का सामना करेगा?


Are we being fair to the NHS?

Summary: Negative headlines about the NHS abound at the moment.

Nick TriggleHealth correspondent This week alone there has been stories about ambulances queuing, failing GP surgeries and over-stretched maternity units. Then on Friday it emerged the A&E waiting time target had been missed for the first time this winter. But is the health service getting a raw deal? The truth is the NHS in England is probably the most transparent health system in the world. Data is available on hundreds of different metrics covering everything from the mortality rates for individual surgeons to how much each hospital spends on food - and they are all just a few clicks of the mouse away. What is more, this is just the start. Ministers and the senior leadership in the NHS want even more openness. From next April, patients will be able to log on to a website to look up what the staffing levels are for each and every hospital ward in England. This transparency is a godsend for journalists, allowing them to mine data for stories. One needs to look no further than on the BBC News website to see that. This week saw the launch of our A&E tracker, which is based on the blizzard of weekly statistics pumped out by NHS England. National concern But the greater transparency is not the only factor. There has also been a change in mindset to poor care following the Stafford Hospital scandal. No longer is it acceptable to argue that exceptions to the rule do not matter. As one senior NHS manager put it to me: "There used to be the attitude if 95% or so of care was good, it was not necessarily a matter of national concern what happened in the remaining 5%. That is not the case now." The result has been that there is now a laser-like focus on any sign of poor care. Take, Thursday's story about GPs. The CQC was on the look out for problems. Of the 910 practices inspected, 80% were targeted because concerns had already been flagged up. Problems were found in about 300, but this is not the same as saying a third of GPs are failing - as was reported by some. Another factor is the need for two of the key organisations keeping an eye on the health service to make some waves. The Care Quality Commission - with its three new chief inspectors - is striving to show it can be a watchdog with bite after being criticised in the past for being too timid. Meanwhile, NHS England, created in the shake-up in April, is doing much to push the transparency agenda. But the changing landscape is not necessarily a bad thing, as Dr Johnny Marshall, of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS trusts, explains. "By increasing transparency, we are increasing the chances of improving care," he says. "These problems we are seeing reported have probably been there for years, its just that we are now shining a light on them. "It makes it pretty painful at the moment, but we are giving ourselves the best chance of success. If that happens everyone benefits."

एनएचएस के बारे में नकारात्मक सुर्खियां इस समय बहुत हैं।


Oxfordshire councillors encourage car-free day

Summary: Councillors are encouraging residents across Oxfordshire to leave their cars at home later this week.

Car Free Day will be held on Wednesday and has been backed by Oxfordshire County Council. Councillor Rodney Rose, cabinet member for transport, said its 20,000 workers have been urged to take part to help the environment. Local schools have been asked to join the campaign, which is also being supported by Oxford City Council.

पार्षद ऑक्सफोर्डशायर के निवासियों को इस सप्ताह के अंत में अपनी कारों को घर पर छोड़ने के लिए प्रोत्साहित कर रहे हैं।


Asia Bibi: Pakistan Supreme Court's 'historic' ruling

Summary: This could have been an open and shut case.

By M Ilyas KhanBBC News, Islamabad The complainants had quarrelled with Asia Bibi, and could be reasonably suspected of having dragged her to the court out of malice. The fact that a formal police complaint was lodged at least five days after the incident created further suspicions that evidence could have been fabricated. And if that were not enough, some glaring disparities emerged in the depositions of different witnesses about the specifics of what happened when, where, and in whose presence. As in many countries, Pakistan's criminal justice system puts the burden of proof on the prosecution. It applies strict rules of evidence to ensure the case is proved beyond all reasonable doubt. The slightest deficiency anywhere along the process translates into a benefit for the defendant. But, for eight years, this was not what happened in Asia Bibi's case. As is clear from Wednesday's Supreme Court judgement, the case ought not to have travelled beyond the trial court stage in Sheikhupura district back in 2010. But it did, because it was no ordinary case. And because it was no ordinary case, the ruling is likely to go down in the annals of Pakistani law as an historic judgement. Observers of Pakistan's legal scene point out that the blasphemy charges against Asia Bibi, a member of the country's Christian minority, were not unique. There have been cases in which men have been charged, convicted, or acquitted under a controversial blasphemy law that dates from 1986. But Asia Bibi's case was different. For a start, she was the first female non-Muslim charged. And it sparked two successive assassinations of top government officials as well as a hanging. Significantly, it all happened at a time when Pakistan was entering a new democratic phase at the end of an eight-year-long military rule. The powerful security establishment was struggling to maintain control over political decision-making. Extremist Islamism had already encroached on Pakistan's official state narrative in the 1980s - apparently to back the then-military regime's internationally supported anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. The military used it as a powerful tool against the democratic governments that followed in the 1990s. After the 9/11 attacks in the US, an era of Talibanisation of wider society ensued, bringing the war home to Pakistani citizens. So, after the increasingly unpopular military regime of General Pervez Musharraf gave way to the elected government of the left-wing, secular Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in 2008, the religious lobby was distrustful. It was in this climate that a PPP leader and governor of its most powerful province - Punjab - Salman Taseer, was gunned down by one of his religiously inclined bodyguards in January 2011. Why? Because he had visited Asia Bibi in jail, sympathised with her and expressed a desire to reform the blasphemy law. A couple of months later, Pakistan's minister for minority affairs, a Christian called Shahbaz Bhatti, was shot dead for making similar remarks. These incidents put Asia Bibi's case on the anvil of the religious lobby, with the anti-blasphemy vigilante groups vowing to draw her blood or that of the judges who would dare let her go. But while lower court judges are less protected and more exposed to threats from vigilante groups - which is why most blasphemy cases end in convictions at the trial stage - a majority of the cases reaching the high court level are quashed, due to the absence of strong evidence. So while Asia Bibi's conviction by the trial court may be understandable, it could only be due to its high profile that the Lahore High Court in 2014 desisted from overturning her conviction despite obvious gaps in evidence. And this is why today's Supreme Court judgment is being termed "historic". The three-judge bench which acquitted Asia Bibi comprised the sitting chief justice, Justice Saqib Nisar, and his designated successor, Justice Asif Khosa. Justice Nisar is due to retire in January, and there was speculation he could have delayed the announcement of the verdict until after his retirement. Instead, he went ahead and took the deliberate risk of becoming a target of the vigilante groups. The first 11 pages of the main 34-page judgment, penned by Chief Justice Nisar, read like a tutorial: what constitutes blasphemy; why it ought to be punished with death; why Pakistan incorporated laws to punish blasphemy; and how Pakistan inspired the 2009 United Nations resolution that declared defamation of religion as a violation of human rights. It quotes copiously from the Koran and the Prophet's tradition to establish sanctity. But it then goes on to discuss "another aspect of the matter", which is that "sometimes, to fulfil nefarious designs, the law is misused by individuals levelling false allegations of blasphemy". It says 62 people have been killed for blasphemy since 1990 "even before their trial could be conducted in accordance with the law", and mentions the lynching of Mashal Khan at Mardan University as the latest example. The order also underlines the Prophet's attitude towards other religions. In a separate 21-page note penned by Justice Khosa, he quotes from what is known as St Katherine's Covenant to establish how the Prophet guaranteed protection to Christians in the Islamic state. Justice Khosa runs a greater risk than Chief Justice Nisar. He headed the bench which in 2015 upheld the death sentence of Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed killer of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer. Qadri was hanged in February 2016. After killing Taseer, Qadri became a hero of the anti-blasphemy lobby. After his death, he was given the burial of a saint in his village near Islamabad. A mausoleum has since been built over his grave where devotees flock to pray and make offerings. For anti-blasphemy leaders, Asia Bibi's case offered the court a chance to make up for his hanging by letting her hang too. Apart from offering a quid pro quo, this would have turned Asia Bibi into a legally sanctioned example of what would happen when someone is accused of blasphemy the next time. But Justice Khosa has chosen not to set a questionable precedent.

यह एक खुला और बंद मामला हो सकता था।


Man, 61, dies after Boncath tractor accident on farm

Summary: A man has died following an accident involving an agricultural tractor and trailer on a farm in Pembrokeshire.

Police are investigating after emergency services were called to Lancych in Boncath at 10:20 GMT on Tuesday. A 61-year-old man was injured and taken to hospital where he later died. The Health and Safety Executive has been informed and the man's family is being supported by a police officer.

पेम्ब्रोकेशायर में एक खेत में एक कृषि ट्रैक्टर और ट्रेलर की दुर्घटना में एक व्यक्ति की मौत हो गई है।


How Celtic boys abuser was convicted for a second time

Summary: The conviction of Jim Torbett for child sex abuse for the second time marks the end of another chapter in the story of how a paedophile used football as a cover for his crimes.

By Mark Daly and Calum McKayBBC Disclosure Torbett founded Celtic Boys Club in 1966 as a club closely aligned with Celtic FC. He was no footballing tactician, nor was he especially liked by his peers, but he was on good terms with the Celtic board. Indeed it was Celtic's legendary manager Jock Stein and former chairman Sir Robert Kelly who gave the young man permission to start the boys club, using Celtic's name and colours. It would provide the perfect cover for a man whose offending spanned four decades. Torbett, who is now 71, would act as a father figure to some of the boys he coached. He would buy them tracksuits, charm their parents and engender their trust. He would take the boys to Celtic Park to watch their heroes, sometimes even sitting in the executive box, or behind the dugouts. They would be mesmerised with his promises, and a chance to make their way through the ranks and on to the Celtic senior team's books. But some boys under Torbett would pay a heavy price for this opportunity. Kenny Campbell is one of them. Kenny, now 46, joined Celtic Boys Club in 1985 as a 13-year-old. A year later, he joined the U-14s, which was managed by Torbett. Kenny was subjected to four years of sexual abuse at the hands of Torbett, which carried on after he signed professionally for Celtic FC. Kenny made about 20 appearances for Celtic reserves. He broke his silence in a BBC documentary last year Football Abuse: The Ugly Side of the Beautiful Game. Immediately after the programme he went to the police and became one of the key witnesses in the prosecution case against Torbett. Ahead of the trial, Kenny told the BBC: "It's just something that I need to do. "The thing I'm looking forward to most, is looking him in the eye, or pointing him out [from the witness box] and saying 'there he is, there', because he knows. I know he knows. "That's what gets me through some days. He knows that what happened was wrong." The BBC documentary also featured the testimony of Andrew Gray, though we disguised his identity. He signed for Torbett's team in around 1989 as a 13-year-old. His abuse lasted nearly three years. Torbett's methods in grooming and abusing Andrew bore an eerie similarity to those he deployed with Kenny Campbell - "trumped up" awards for playing, currying favour and trust with his family, and attacks in Torbett's car, flat and workplace. A month after the documentary was broadcast, the BBC tracked Torbett down to California and put Andrew and Kenny's claims to him in a dramatic confrontation, in which another former Celtic Boys Club player, William Gilbert, attempted to stop us from filming. Mr Gilbert accompanied Torbett every day during the trial. It is not clear whether Torbett lied about his previous conviction in order to obtain entry to the US, but within hours of the confrontation being broadcast, US Homeland Security visited Torbett and escorted him to the airport. He was picked up on arrival in the UK by Scottish police and was arrested and charged with abusing several boys, including Kenny and Andrew. The Background: Free to Abuse Again Torbett had two stints at the Boys Club, the first from 1966 to 1974. He returned to the Boys Club in about 1978 and stayed until a series of Daily Record stories revealed abuse claims against him in 1996. He was jailed for two years in 1998 for abusing three former Celtic Boys Club players, including former Scotland international Alan Brazil, between 1967 and 1974. Former Boys Club chairman Hugh Birt told the trial Torbett's first spell had ended in 1974 because he was kicked out by its then honorary president Jock Stein, after allegations of child abuse emerged. The police were never called. The BBC has spoken to three additional sources close to the events in 1974 who support Birt's version of events. But the "official" version of Torbett's departure can be found in the archives of the Celtic View, the sanctioned, in-house magazine for Celtic FC. Dated November 1974, the report is headlined: "Jim bows out…after another season of glory." It states that Torbett was leaving for his own personal and business reasons and is a glowing tribute to his time at the Boys Club. The then editor Jack McGinn told the BBC last year that all stories published in the magazine were done so in good faith, and denies allowing a false article to be published. In 1998, Torbett was jailed for his crimes leading up to 1974. No allegations had been made about his second stint, until last year. But if Torbett was kicked out in 1974 for abuse claims, why was he allowed to return to the club, free to abuse again? Hugh Birt, who died five years ago, told the court in 1998 that he attempted to prevent Torbett returning to the Boys Club and raised the issue with Celtic board members, including Kevin Kelly, the son of former chairman Robert Kelly. Two other sources told the BBC that when Torbett was allowed to return to the Boys Club in the late 1970s, Kevin Kelly would have been aware of the previous claims of abuse against Torbett. Mr Kelly and Jack McGinn, a Celtic FC director from 1981, worked with Mr Torbett at his Trophy Centre business from 1986 and 1998 respectively. Their associations with the company continued long after Torbett was jailed in 1998 for abuse. Mr Kelly strongly denies being aware of allegations concerning Torbett when he returned to the Boys Club, and told the BBC that he was not aware of any previous allegations against Torbett until his court case in the 1990s. Jack McGinn also denies any previous knowledge of Mr Torbett's offending prior to his second spell at the Boys Club. Both Mr Kelly and Mr McGinn said that if they had been aware of Mr Torbett's prior offending, they would have done all they could to prevent him returning to Celtic Boys Club. But it seems clear that had Jim Torbett been prevented from returning to the Boys Club, Kenny Campbell and Andrew Gray would not have been subjected to the grooming and sexual abuse which formed the biggest part of this trial. The Trial The trial lasted more than two weeks and featured evidence from four men who said they were abused by Torbett, although the Crown withdrew the charges relating to one of those men. Kenny Campbell was the first witness to take the stand. Because of his previous association with the BBC, Torbett's defence sought to have the two BBC journalists involved in the programme banned from the courtroom for his evidence. The motion was repelled by Judge Beckett. In two days of emotionally fraught evidence, Kenny described how Torbett had first groomed then abused him. When asked if he could see his abuser in the courtroom, he pointed towards the man in the dock - his former mentor, Jim Torbett. Kenny got his wish and faced his abuser in court, but Andrew Gray did not get that opportunity. Andrew, who would have been 43, had suffered from mental health problems since he was a teenager. Ahead of the trial he had gone to visit his best friend in Australia for a few weeks to alleviate the pressure, but broke his neck in a freak swimming pool accident. His sister Michelle Gray travelled to his bedside while he was on life support. She recalled: "He had said, please get me out of here and get me back to Scotland as soon as you possibly can, words to this effect, so that I can make sure Torbett gets put away for the rest of his life. "And there was a communication made between [us] where we basically [said] if he didn't make it, that I would come back to Scotland and make sure people heard his story and do all I possibly can to make sure that Jim Torbett was convicted of the crimes that he committed and make sure this never happens again to any other football-mad child." Andrew died 16 days later after his family took the decision to switch off his life support machine. Michelle was at his side. She added: "It's really important that we go… and we get justice for him because he's not here. "We'll never hear his voice again. We'll never be able to embrace him. We'll never be able to tell him how much he's loved but we can do this for him. "I would like [Tobett] to know the pain and suffering that he caused Andrew. "I would like him to also know that he destroyed his life and he is indirectly responsible for his death, that the course of actions that took place over the last 25/30 years and more so the last 18 months would never have happened if he had not done what he done to my brother." During the trial Kenny and Andrew were described as liars and fantasists by Torbett, who produced as a defence witness William Gilbert, the man who tried to shield him during our confrontation in California. Mr Gilbert had accompanied Torbett every day during this trial. When it was his turn to give evidence, his answers, according to the advocate depute, seemed "rehearsed". This jury, rightly, did not get to hear about Torbett's previous conviction. But when they were sent to consider their verdict on Monday, they had to decide whether Andrew, Kenny and another man had told the truth about what they said their football manager - a man who had been entrusted with their care - had done to them as children. The jury decided that they had. 'Separate and distinct' Celtic FC told the BBC last year the Boys Club was a "separate and distinct" organisation. The two clubs are separate legal entities, but decades of Celtic View magazines, and never before seen footage obtained by BBC Scotland, shows how the two clubs were intertwined. Celtic legends Jock Stein and Billy McNeil are filmed handing out awards at a Celtic Boys Club prize-giving in about 1973, while Torbett looks on. The distinction, though correct legally, rings hollow to the survivors of Torbett's abuse. Kenny Campbell said he felt hurt and angry at Celtic's statement last year. He said: "It made me really, really angry to be honest with you. They're just pleading the fifth at the end of the day." Since going public with his claims Kenny Campbell says he has still to hear from anyone at Celtic FC. He said: "Why not just write a letter of apology, or somebody come personally and deliver a letter of apology. "That's all it takes. It would take nothing else. "It wouldn't take money or motors or houses or things like that. "Just someone to tell me 'I'm sorry' for what I've went through and sorry for what I've suffered for the past 20 or 25 years." Jim Torbett has been jailed for six years. His victims and their families, who were so badly let down by football, can perhaps now look for some closure.

दूसरी बार बाल यौन शोषण के लिए जिम टॉरबेट की सजा इस कहानी के एक और अध्याय के अंत का प्रतीक है कि कैसे एक बाल अपराधी ने अपने अपराधों के लिए फुटबॉल का इस्तेमाल किया।


The Library of Mistakes

Summary: A group of Edinburgh financiers has set up a gem of a library, dedicated to learning from financial fiascos and failures. It was opened five years after Royal Bank of Scotland published the record £24.1bn loss for 2008. Now aged five and small-scale, it has a big ambition - to become the biggest financial and business reference library in the world. It already has an outpost in India.

Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune, observed Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. To lose both looks like carelessness. It's with that lesson in life that some Edinburgh financiers and business academics have set about limiting the recent decade of frightful unpleasantness for Scottish banking to a mere misfortune. One wouldn't wish to look careless. So while mainstream libraries face sharp budget cuts and possible closure, they opened the Library of Mistakes five years ago this month. Its mission: to learn how things went wrong in the past and, in particular, how things went badly wrong with money. Its founders were willing to invest some time and effort in ensuring that the catastrophe that overwhelmed Scotland's two giant banks 10 years ago is not repeated. The motto is Mundum mutatu errore singillatim - changing the world one mistake at a time. The notion is that the generation that invented the iPad must be capable of thinking up some new mistakes, but wouldn't it be nice to avoid repetition of previous ones? It assumes that finance is full of bright people, some of whom do stupid things. One is to depend too much on one's plan. Von Moltke is quoted as saying: "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." Similarly, the boxer Mike Tyson is recalled for having sagely observed: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." So, Einstein's wisdom is offered on a sign resting on an elegant mantelpiece: "The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library." Hyperinflation I paid my first visit on the 10th anniversary of Royal Bank of Scotland publishing its 2008 full-year results, with a record £24.1bn loss. It seemed an appropriate pilgrimage. The safe house for this "errorist cell" is located in two rooms up a narrow stair and through a theatrically squeaky door in a New Town mews terrace close to the heart of the capital's financial district. Should politicians feel the urge to learn from it, they can find it a couple of minutes' walk from Bute House. The establishment has the feel of a gentlemen's club, with plush leather armchairs - though when I visited, it wasn't that clubby. The door was opened from an unspoken remote location and no-one else was in. On the way up the stair, it's worth a look at the decorative approach to the cludgie. Members have contributed bank notes from around the world - notably including those that suffered from very high inflation. The Turkish lira plays a prominent role. Crash Bang Wallop I'd expected something academic and dry. Far from it. This venture is at risk of celebrating failure rather than examining it, and the more spectacular the better. Book titles sizzle with the excitement of it all; The Alchemists, Crash of the Titans, The Crunch, the Big Fix, the Perfect Prey, the Pride of Lucifer. I could go on. No, hang on. I will. There's: Maxed Out, Boombustology, Debt Shock, Too Big to Fail, Crash Bang Wallop, Shredded, the Manipulators, Extreme Money, Bull by the Horns, and dot.bomb There's also, inevitably, advice on how to cash in on others' financial misfortune: "Panics and Crashes: how to make money out of them" is authored by Harry D Shultz and published by the Dollar Growth Library. As soon as you're through the door, the shelf of books about the Royal Bank of Scotland confronts you. It seems that this has been a healthy decade for publishing about finance. There's the BCCI fiasco, which cost the Western Isles Council very dear back in the 1980s, when it sank its surplus reserves into the fraudulent Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Council chiefs in Stornoway had failed to remember the age-old advice: If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Tulipmania With all the books (that I saw) in English, it's natural that the USA plays a prominent role in the generation of scams, frauds and snake-oil sales. A display shelf has been specially set aside for books about Donald Trump - including his own bestseller about The Art of the Deal, and less generous takes on the road to his business empire's collapse in the early 1990s. Going back precisely a century, there's a special place for Charles Ponzi, an early exploiter of crowdfunding. His name is still used for investment scams where the gullible were recruited with the promise of impossibly high returns, and their funds used to pay the previous investors rather than for anything productive. There's a copy of the royal declaration in pursuit of the cashier of the South Sea Company, and an etching of a ship's company embarked for Darien, now in Panama, on Scotland's most notorious and ruinous colonial exploit. Other certificates bear the names and subscription details of long bust mining and railroad scams in the New World. A magnificent display of tulips celebrates the granddaddy of all idiotic asset bubbles, from the late 17th century in Amsterdam, when the price of tulip bulbs went stratospheric, and then wilted. A lot. And there's a selection of board games. One ("not for those aged 13 or under") is a battle of Ponzi Schemes. Bulls and Bears was a less successful cousin of Monopoly. One game - appropriately large - is dedicated to re-working the excesses of the late Robert Maxwell. Charm offensive As you can read from its website, www.libraryofmistakes.com, the intention is not to be exclusive, but to be a beacon of learning from past mistakes, visible around the world, and with free access to anyone with an interest. Edinburgh financiers are showing that such a learning process is not only one they take seriously, but that it can be a fascinating and enjoyable one. It's also one with ambition - to become the world's biggest financial and business reference library. It already includes an outpost in the Indian city of Pune, at Flame University. Meeting its target may require a lot more Edinburgh mews adaptations. But at its current scale, it has a lot of charm.

एडिनबर्ग के वित्तपोषकों के एक समूह ने एक पुस्तकालय की स्थापना की है, जो वित्तीय खामियों और विफलताओं से सीखने के लिए समर्पित है। इसे रॉयल बैंक ऑफ स्कॉटलैंड द्वारा 2008 के लिए रिकॉर्ड £ 24.1bn के नुकसान को प्रकाशित करने के पांच साल बाद खोला गया था। अब पांच साल और छोटे पैमाने पर, इसकी एक बड़ी महत्वाकांक्षा है-दुनिया का सबसे बड़ा वित्तीय और व्यावसायिक संदर्भ पुस्तकालय बनना। भारत में इसकी पहले से ही एक चौकी है।


Shrien Dewani murder trial: How prosecution fell apart

Summary: The prosecution case against Shrien Dewani - who has been cleared of arranging the murder of his wife Anni during their honeymoon in South Africa - floundered from day one of the trial.

By Rhiannon BeachamBBC News A shock statement from Mr Dewani, disclosing details of his sexuality and relationship with his wife Anni, was given to the court before the prosecution had even begun its case. Prosecuting lawyers had hoped to use that evidence against him by accusing him of arranging the murder of his new wife in order to escape a marriage he had felt pressured into. In the days that followed, the trial judge rejected evidence from a male prostitute, which lawyers had claimed would illustrate Mr Dewani's motive for murder. And in the ensuing weeks the credibility of evidence from both the police and Mr Dewani's alleged co-conspirators was called into question. Judge Jeanette Traverso repeatedly expressed her exasperation at the late preparation of prosecution evidence, stating: "You have had four years to prepare." At one point, she took prosecution lawyer Adrian Mopp to task, saying: "This is day 20 of the trial and the State is still scurrying around." Here is an overview of how the prosecution case became unstuck, leading to the collapse of the Shrien Dewani trial. Shrien Dewani's sexuality admission At the beginning of the trial, Mr Dewani admitted he considered himself bisexual and his relationship with Anni had been volatile. He said she had wanted to call off their wedding. The BBC's Africa correspondent Karen Allen commented at the time these revelations "may serve to neutralise" some of the press speculation about the case and police statements given by a gay escort, Leopold Leisser, who claimed to have spent time with Mr Dewani. In the statement, Mr Dewani denied the charges against him, but revealed: "My sexual interactions with males were mostly physical experiences or email chats with people I met online or in clubs; including prostitutes such as Leopold Leisser." Mr Leisser was a key prosecution witness. This admission was unexpected as Mr Dewani's lawyers had previously written to The Sun newspaper, which paid Mr Leisser for an interview, saying he had never been in contact with him. Male prostitute's evidence cut short It had been the prosecution's intention to argue Mr Dewani was leading a secret double-life and wanted out of his marriage, so arranged a staged hijacking in which his wife was killed. But email evidence from Mr Dewani's laptop, in which the prosecution said admissions were made about whether he should get married or "come out", was ruled inadmissible by the judge. She said Mr Dewani's sexuality had been disclosed in his plea explanation and the emails from 2009 had no relevance to the murder in 2010. Prosecutor Adrian Mopp argued Mr Leisser's evidence should be allowed because Mr Dewani had told him he was either already or about to be engaged and could not find a way out of it without his family disowning him. But the judge rejected this view. William Booth, of the South African Law Society, said: "From a tactical perspective, it was important to deal with [Mr Dewani's] sexuality early on. "At the end of the day, evidence of his sexuality wouldn't have been particularly significant in that if he is gay it's not a reason to kill his wife. "The issue of motive isn't part of the elements of murder. It's usually used by the prosecution in an instance where the defence later argues no case or reason for someone to behave in a particular way." Framing allegation Taxi driver Zola Tongo had been billed as the prosecution's strongest witness, the only person to offer direct evidence that Shrien Dewani had offered to pay him to arrange Anni's murder. He claimed Mr Dewani asked him to arrange the murder after he first picked up the couple from the airport. But the court was told Tongo had admitted to a fellow convict in prison, Bernard Mitchell, the real plan had been to kidnap Mrs Dewani and hold her hostage and his accomplices had "jeopardised the whole plan". Mr Dewani's lawyer said to Tongo: "You explained to him... the whole plan went off the rails when... one of them wanted to rape her. A quarrel ensued and she was shot." The lawyer said Tongo had then told Mitchell he thought about blackmailing Mr Dewani but had been advised it would be better to frame him by telling police he had asked him to kill his wife. Tongo denied he knew Mitchell and said his account was "all lies" but admitted initially denying involvement in the hijacking before changing his evidence to admit involvement and testify against Mr Dewani. He said he did this "because what I did was wrong". He was jailed for 18 years, instead of 25, as a result of agreeing to testify. His version of events also differed from established facts in the case - in phone records and on CCTV. Tongo said the hijackers did not show up at the agreed time and he had received a text from Mr Dewani asking what was happening. Phone records showed there was no text, however. He also testified he and Mr Dewani discussed the plan to murder Mrs Dewani while they sitting in his taxi at the hotel. CCTV shows Mr Dewani got out of the car immediately. Phone call claims Hotel receptionist Monde Mbolombo had admitted putting Tongo in touch with the hitmen and was granted immunity when he agreed to give evidence at the trial of Xoloie Mngeni, who was convicted of firing the shot that killed Mrs Dewani and jailed for life. He died in prison 12 days into Mr Dewani's trial. However, Mbolombo admitted he had lied during Mngeni's trial when he claimed he did not know those involved in the murder were to receive 15,000 rand. His testimony also conflicted with phone records and Tongo's evidence. He said Tongo had received a call from Mr Dewani and kept telling the defendant: "I'm coming." But there was no mobile phone record for any call to Tongo from Mr Dewani at that time. He also said it had been agreed the hijack would happen after the Dewanis had eaten at a restaurant, but Tongo insisted it was supposed to happen earlier in the evening and the Dewanis only went to the restaurant because the hijackers did not turn up at the agreed time. Mziwamadoda Qwabe told the court he drove the taxi after he hijacked the vehicle with Mngeni. He said there was never any discussion over how or where Mrs Dewani would be killed. The court was also told about about discrepancies in his affidavit and his evidence in court over when the "hit" money was retrieved from the car. Mr Booth said: "Tongo, Mbolombo and Qwabe were the people this case rested on, in particular Tongo as he was the person who set it all up. "His evidence is crucial, without him nothing links Dewani to the whole thing. "But they can't remember things, they contradicted statements they've made to the police and two negotiated plea agreements [for shorter sentences if they testified against Dewani]. "There's been a lot of criticism of the State prosecution, how they dealt with the case. The three most important witnesses let the State down. "My concern is why, in the witness box, were there contradictions and poor evidence? It should have been checked out long before." The wrong car Evidence on where the fatal shot was fired from was important because Mr Dewani's lawyers argued Qwabe was the actual shooter and that, if this was true, this meant he lied during Mngeni's trial. However, Warrant Officer Pieter Engelbrecht revealed the tests had been conducted in a different model vehicle in September 2014 and then in the original vehicle, but with different seats, during the month of the trial. Mr Engelbrecht had testified in Mngeni's trial that the shooter had sat in the left front seat but in Mr Dewani's trial he agreed he did not have the necessary evidence to say that. He said he still did not know which hand the shooter had used or where he was positioned and the original car seats had been unavailable as they were already court exhibits. Defence lawyer Pieter Botha said Mr Engelbrecht's testimony was "a very clear indication that you are miles away from giving objective evidence". Mr Botha said the front seat in the "similar" vehicle was tilted back and the back seat tilted forward and suggested this arrangement was made to suit what he wanted to prove. Mr Engelbrecht said this was not his intention. The prosecution had also introduced Mr Engelbrecht as a primer residue expert, but he said he was not and the judge did not allow him to give evidence on that matter. Detective's Facebook comments The impartiality and credibility of investigating officer Captain Paul Hendrikse was called into question by defence lawyer Francois van Zyl. Mr van Zyl read to the court an entry Cpt Hendrikse had written on Facebook after Mr Dewani's extradition was initially denied in the UK. He said: "Human rights?? Mental Health act? Fair trial? Are these just escape routes to avoid justice and have the learned people of our society been so misled by it that they make decisions hurting the victims of horrendous crimes even further. What has our world become?? I'm lost and slowly loosing [sic] faith." Mr van Zyl also noted the officer was "friends" with Sneha and Mishma Hindocha [Mrs Dewani's cousins] on Facebook but Cpt Hendrikse insisted he remained impartial. The police had originally stated the weapon used was a Rossi revolver but later said it was a Norinco pistol. This was changed without a correction affidavit and Cpt Hendrikse agreed "this should not have been done in this way". The results of gun residue tests were also not made available to prosecutors in August 2014, despite having been carried out years earlier. Cpt Hendrikse said this was an oversight but the judge was critical, saying: "This happened four years ago, police have had four years to investigate. After they have gone to all the trouble to get Shrien Dewani extradited, this should have been done." Mr Booth said: "I think there were problems with the police investigation. "Evidence with regard to where they were seated in the car and what happened with the firing of the firearm, that evidence came in very late."

श्रीन देवानी के खिलाफ अभियोजन पक्ष का मामला-जिसे दक्षिण अफ्रीका में उनके हनीमून के दौरान अपनी पत्नी एनी की हत्या की व्यवस्था करने से मुक्त कर दिया गया है-मुकदमे के पहले दिन से ही लड़खड़ा गया।


£20m fund for artists to work with disadvantaged pupils

Summary: Artists, musicians and actors are to head into schools to work directly with disadvantaged pupils as part of a £20m arts strategy.

The five-year plan led by the Arts Council of Wales (ACW) was launched at the Senedd on Tuesday. A report by ACW chairman Prof Dai Smith said the arts can be used to drive up school standards across all subjects. Education Minister Huw Lewis said the plan "shows our belief in the importance of the arts and creativity".

कलाकारों, संगीतकारों और अभिनेताओं को 20 मिलियन पाउंड की कला रणनीति के हिस्से के रूप में वंचित छात्रों के साथ सीधे काम करने के लिए स्कूलों में जाना है।


Is there trouble ahead for Freedom of Information?

Summary: The government has confirmed today that it is "considering" amending the Freedom of Information Act to make it easier for officials to withhold information from the public - a consequence of the Supreme Court judgment in March that led to this afternoon's release of the Prince Charles "black spider memos".

Chris CookPolicy editor, Newsnight The original transparency legislation, passed in 2000, contained a provision which gave the Cabinet the right to simply kill requests even if a court had ordered that the request be answered. It was used, for example, to block requests for documents relating to the decision to go to war in Iraq, the recent English NHS reforms and the proposed High Speed 2 rail link. The judges, however, concluded that the veto was an unlawful provision: they did not like the notion that the executive could simply overrule a court without any constraint. So, for now, the Act is operating without a backstop by which ministers can zap requests. So if members of the public go back for those vetoed releases now, they might well be able to get them. That ministers want to bring in fresh law to reintroduce the veto is not an enormous surprise. David Cameron responded to the court ruling at the time by stating: "If the legislation does not make Parliament's intentions for the veto clear enough, then we will need to make it clearer". There are some things to be aware of. The civil service proposals First, whatever happens, there will be no further royal letters. The law has already been amended to make this release into a one-off. Second, while some form of veto may return for the FoI Act, it is not quite clear what it will cover. To conform with the judges' wishes, it would need to be reconfigured and constrained in some way. Third, there are parts of the old veto that are not coming back. The little-known Europe-wide Environmental Information Regulations cover information releases about physical spaces or the environment. It is a tough little law, which is hard to avoid. And its roots in European law mean that it is harder to change than the conventional Freedom of Information Act. So that is now probably veto-free forever. Fourth, I would not be surprised if they used the opportunity to cut back transparency requirements. As I wrote in March, a senior legal official told me they might "sort out a few other things while the patient is on the table". Requesters should be nervous. So what exactly might they do? The civil service has proposed previously that time officials spent "considering" requests and redacting them should be capped. These proposals could be lethal to the act in Whitehall. At the moment, officials are asked to estimate how much time it would take to find documents. If the estimate is that it could cost more than a certain limit, they go no further. A common complaint about the lowest transparency departments is that they often lie to inflate these costs so they can refuse releases. Now imagine how much worse that would be if they were also asked to add in how much time they expect to spend "thinking" about a request and the amount of time they might need to spend blacking out contentious information. It would be an invitation for the worst parts of Whitehall to refuse requests at will. You might think that sounds conspiratorial. It is. But remember how much some parts of the civil service hate transparency. It is already quite common for officials to mark documents as "policy" and "sensitive" because they (incorrectly) think it will make it easier to refuse requests. The Department for Education installed an instant messenger system that is set up to destroy data immediately so conversations are never recorded and so can never be requested. The enforcement problem Indeed, at the moment, officials know that in some departments, finding innovative ways to refuse requests is a way to win kudos from senior mandarins. Requests signed off by Roger Smethurst in the Cabinet Office and Nicholas Howard in Downing Street both stand out for their determination to avoid disclosure. That dark corner of Whitehall is particularly secretive. Indeed, Sue Gray (job title: "Director General, Propriety and Ethics Team") at the Cabinet Office has given advice to special advisers on how to destroy data in their email accounts specifically in order to avoid needing to make disclosure. She has also pressed officials in other departments to resist releases, even ones they were relatively relaxed about making. Why does this keep happening? Well, the Information Commissioner's Office, which is responsible for enforcing the act, is routinely quizzed about this (often by me). But nothing ever happens. Indeed, the continued refusal to act against the worst offender has spawned its own website, simply entitled: "Has The ICO Issued An Enforcement Notice Against the Cabinet Office Yet?" Even before one considers what officials might now try to do to our most important transparency law, it is important to note how weak the act is already. There is a serious compliance problem in Whitehall, and the ICO has decided not to do anything about it.

सरकार ने आज पुष्टि की है कि वह सूचना की स्वतंत्रता अधिनियम में संशोधन करने पर "विचार" कर रही है ताकि अधिकारियों के लिए जनता से जानकारी को रोकना आसान हो-मार्च में सुप्रीम कोर्ट के फैसले का एक परिणाम जिसके कारण आज दोपहर प्रिंस चार्ल्स को "ब्लैक स्पाइडर मेमो" जारी किया गया।


Downhill McAvalanche riders take part in Glencoe race

Summary: About 70 mountain bike riders have completed a downhill race after being taken by helicopter to the 1,108m (3,635ft) summit of a Scottish Munro.

Organisers selected the riders for the race down Meall a' Bhuiridh in Glencoe from a pool of 120. Called McAvalanche, the event is based on Mega Avalanche downhill cycle races that have been held in the Alps. Brother and sister Joe and Hannah Barnes took the male and female first prizes. The event, the first of its kind in the UK, was organised by No Fuss and Glencoe Mountain ski resort. The race crossed ski tows and pistes and passed over rocky trails before reaching downhill mountain bike tracks further down the mountain. The riders began their ascents by helicopter at 1300 BST and the race started at 1530 BST. Edinburgh-based stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill, who is originally from Skye, was among the riders selected to take part.

लगभग 70 माउंटेन बाइक सवारों ने स्कॉटिश मुनरो के 1,108 मीटर (3,635 फीट) शिखर पर हेलीकॉप्टर से ले जाने के बाद एक डाउनहिल रेस पूरी की है।


Osiris-Rex: Nasa asteroid mission confident of success

Summary: "We really did kind of make a mess."

By Jonathan AmosBBC Science Correspondent That was Dante Lauretta's take after reviewing the first pictures to come down from Nasa's Osiris-Rex probe following its bid to grab a sample from asteroid Bennu on Tuesday. Dust and grit flew in all directions but that was good news, enthused the University of Arizona professor. "Everything that we can see from these initial images indicates sampling success. So in case you can't tell, I'm pretty excited." The principal investigator's team now has to work out precisely how much material Osiris-Rex might have lifted from the surface of 500m-wide Bennu. If it's a kilo or more, it would represent the biggest extra-terrestrial sample cache since the Apollo astronauts gathered rocks from the Moon some 50 years ago. But even a smaller amount would still be a great prize. Bennu is a very primitive object, with chemistry preserved from the dawn of the Solar System more than 4.5 billion years ago. As such, it can tell us a great deal about how the Sun and the planets came into being. Osiris-Rex used what had been described as a "reverse vacuum cleaner" to acquire its clutch of "soil". More properly called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or Tag-Sam, this device comprised a long boom with a ring-shaped collection chamber on the end. The idea was to deliver a squirt of nitrogen when the Tag-Sam made contact with the asteroid. The hope was this gas would stir up Bennu's fragmented surface, leading to a considerable number of rocky pieces getting trapped inside the collection chamber. The downlinked pictures certainly suggested the strategy was the right one. Osiris-Rex may have been in contact with Bennu for only six seconds before retreating, but the sampling ring was flat and stable, and even pressing into the soil slightly. This should have maximised the chances of retaining material. Rich Burns, Nasa's project manager on the mission, lauded the way his team managed to put the probe in just the right place on Bennu - almost exactly at the centre of the targeted sampling zone. "We're over 320 million km away from Earth at this point, and we touched this asteroid within a metre of where we intended to. So that's extraordinary and a real credit to our team," he told reporters. On Thursday, engineers will command the spacecraft to take detailed pictures of the sampling ring to try to see what it contains. And then on Saturday, they'll make Osiris-Rex spin itself around with the Tag-Sam outstretched. Any extra mass on board will change the level of torque required to turn the probe, compared with the level that was needed to perform the same rotation exercise prior to sample acquisition. "We are expecting a final sample mass measurement report on Monday," explained Sandy Freund, the mission operations manager at Lockheed Martin, the company that manufactured Osiris-Rex. It seems highly likely that Osiris-Rex has achieved its objective of taking at least 60g off Bennu. But if it hasn't, there are two more nitrogen bottles still aboard the probe to facilitate further sampling bids. And there's plenty of time, too. The spacecraft is not scheduled to depart Bennu for Earth until April next year. A landing on Earth for any rock cache in this timeline would be late 2023. Prof Lauretta once again on Wednesday paid tribute to the British scientist who conceived Osiris-Rex. This was Bristol-born Michael Drake who held senior science positions at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He worked up the concept for the mission but sadly died in 2011, aged 65, just months after Nasa had green-lit the project. "I'm pleased to see that my dad's legacy is being honoured at this exciting time in Osiris-Rex's mission," Michael Drake's son, Matt Drake, told BBC News. "My father's idea to study near-Earth asteroids as a means of peering back in time to the birth of the Solar System finally came to fruition during [Tuesday's] Tag event. "As the principal investigator of this team from its inception until his passing almost 10 years later, he would have been incredibly proud of his team's accomplishments." Osiris-Rex carries a plaque of remembrance to Michael Drake. Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

"हमने वास्तव में एक तरह की गड़बड़ी की।"


Govt. committed to peace - Mangala

Summary: The Sri Lankan Foriegn Minister, Mangala Samaraweera, says his government is committed to peace despite the Japanese envoy's failure to persuade the Tamil Tigers to return to peace talks.

Mr Samaraweera said he was not surprised by the Tamil Tigers' refusal to return to the negotiating table. He was speaking to journalists in the Indian capital, Delhi, after holding talks with senior Indian officials, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a statement, the Indian external affairs ministry said Mr Samaraweera had informed them on the peace process and the Sri Lankan government's readiness to participate in the second round of talks with the rebels. Minister Samaraweera told reporters that he was in India to engage in high level of talks and negotiations and not to make any proposals to the Indian government. Asked why Japan's special envoy failed to persuade LTTE for talks, minister replied by saying that for the past thirty five years, though various envoys tried the same way those efforts took nowhere. Mr Samaraweera also held talks on trade and energy cooperation. He is due to leave India later on Tuesday.

श्रीलंका के विदेश मंत्री मंगला समरवीरा का कहना है कि जापानी राजदूत द्वारा तमिल टाइगर्स को शांति वार्ता में लौटने के लिए मनाने में विफलता के बावजूद उनकी सरकार शांति के लिए प्रतिबद्ध है।


India building collapse in Maharashtra kills 13 workers

Summary: At least 13 people have been killed after a part of a building collapsed in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, police say.

The incident happened at a four-storey college building which was under construction in the Wagholi area on Tuesday. One person trapped in the debris was pulled out by rescue workers. Poor construction material and practices are often blamed for many of the building collapses in India. The dead were all construction workers, mostly from outside the state. In September, at least six people were killed after a building collapsed in Pune city in Maharashtra.

पश्चिमी भारत के महाराष्ट्र राज्य में एक इमारत का एक हिस्सा गिरने से कम से कम 13 लोगों की मौत हो गई है।


River Don fish reach former spawning grounds

Summary: Fish could reach traditional spawning grounds in South Yorkshire for the first time in over a century through a "fish pass", experts have said.

Work has been completed on a £300,000 project on the River Don at Meadowhall allowing fish to swim over a previously impassable weir. Don Catchment Rivers Trust said fish have not been able to swim upstream since the weir was built 150 years ago. The new pass could lead to greater diversity in the fish population. Karen Eynon, from the trust, said: "Fish have been returning to the Don over the last 30 years thanks to huge improvements in water quality." Fish and eel passes act like watery staircases allowing fish and eels to swim or wriggle their way over a weir. Ms Eynon said the pass would help a range of fish species, including salmon, to swim further up the Don.

विशेषज्ञों ने कहा है कि मछली एक "फिश पास" के माध्यम से एक सदी से अधिक समय में पहली बार दक्षिण यॉर्कशायर में पारंपरिक अंडे देने वाले मैदानों तक पहुंच सकती है।


Review panel hears from Jersey's former bailiff

Summary: A panel reviewing the Crown Officers' roles in Jersey is due to hear evidence from former bailiff, Sir Philip Bailhache.

One of its remits is to look at the bailiff's dual role as head of the States and the Chief Judge in Jersey. It is also investigating whether the attorney general - chief prosecutor and legal advisor to the States - should give up some of his roles. The public hearings are taking place at Highlands College. The independent panel, which is led by Lord Carswell, a former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, is due to report back to the States within a year.

जर्सी में क्राउन ऑफिसर्स की भूमिकाओं की समीक्षा करने वाला एक पैनल पूर्व बेलिफ सर फिलिप बेलहाचे से सबूत सुनने वाला है।


General election 2019: Wedding ring found in ballot box

Summary: Election staff are hoping to reunite a wedding ring with its owner as someone cast more than their vote on Thursday.

The precious band was found in a ballot box from a polling station in Cloverlea Primary School, Timperley, Greater Manchester. A Trafford Council spokesman said it was yet to be claimed after tweeting an appeal for the owner to come forward. Timperley forms part of the Altrincham & Sale West constituency, which was held by Conservative MP Graham Brady.

चुनाव कर्मचारी एक शादी की अंगूठी को उसके मालिक के साथ फिर से मिलाने की उम्मीद कर रहे हैं क्योंकि गुरुवार को किसी ने अपने वोट से अधिक डाला।


How Aboriginal Australians forged tools from early British ships

Summary: It's an archaeological detective story that began on a building site in Sydney and ended on the banks of the River Thames in London. The BBC's Phil Mercer reports on the unlikely origin of recently found Aboriginal artefacts.

For indigenous Australians, the arrival of British settlers in 1788 undoubtedly marked the start of dispossession, violence and policies that would cause generations of harm. But recent research has also given more insight into how Aboriginal groups used some colonial technology to their advantage, heritage experts say. Archaeologists believe that indigenous tribes crafted traditional tools from flint cobbles that had been used as ballast on British ships, following the arrival of the convict vessels during the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. Experts say the stone fragments were most likely discarded on arrival in Sydney. The materials were then taken by or given to coastal Aboriginal families, who lived in what is now the upmarket Sydney suburb of Randwick. It was there that workers in 2016 uncovered what was thought to be a trove of Aboriginal artefacts. More than 30,000 pieces of stone were recovered, initially by chance, amid work on a light rail line. However, after painstaking investigations, archaeologists now believe that only 100-200 are culturally significant items. Many of the stone fragments were made of flint, a type of rock not found in Sydney. Dr Tim Owen, an archaeologist from consultant group GML Heritage, said there was compelling evidence that the flint had been reworked for tools in accordance with customary Aboriginal practice. "This site doesn't just contain the flint material, it contains a variety of other artefacts that show Aboriginal people working there," he told the BBC. "It shows it is a traditional place that Aboriginal people have been using. When they manufacture Aboriginal objects they don't just hit rocks together, they use very, very specific techniques to actually work the rock down into shaped pieces. We have identified a number of pieces that have very defined points of percussion." Thames match To find the source of the flint, Dr Owen's investigation took him to the other side of the world - to the muddy edges of the Thames near a place where convict ships were once prepared and loaded with ballast for their long voyages to Sydney. "I went to the nearest [tidal mud flats] I could to the actual former shipyard at Deptford and collected material," he said. "I collected around 50 or so samples of all the different colours I could see, and all the different states of being weathered and bashed." You might also be interested in: The London pebbles were compared to those unearthed in Sydney, and after forensic analysis they all were found to be chemically identical. The initial discovery in Sydney also brought controversy, however. In 2016, a group of Aboriginal elders called for work on the light rail line to be halted, citing the Aboriginal Heritage Protection Act 1984. "I'd like to see it stopped and the area classed as an Aboriginal heritage area," Darug elder Uncle Des Dyer told the ABC at the time. But the federal government rejected the bid. It said the site was not at risk of being desecrated, and did not fall within the scope of the act. Earlier find The latest artefacts are not the only discovery of their kind in Sydney. In the 1980s and '90s, excavations on the site of the first Government House, where the Museum of Sydney currently sits close to the harbour, revealed more than 20 indigenous artefacts. They included stone implements, items fashioned from glass and - like the material unearthed in Randwick - tools made from imported flint. It, too, had the same chemical signature as the hard rock from London. For Beth Hise from Sydney Living Museums, which manages the site of old Government House, the research has helped to illuminate the ways that Aboriginal people engaged with the early colony. "They suffered enormously from the presence of Europeans and the disruption to their culture and the dispossession of their land, but nevertheless they adapted to their new circumstances," she said. "They understood where they needed to make alliances." She said the discovery helped inform a "new way of thinking about those early years of the colony". "There isn't a clear divide between the Aboriginal history and the European history," she said. "There is a great deal of inter-connection between the two. Aboriginal people were navigating a landscape which was a patchwork of violence and animosity on one hand, and friendship and connection on another, and, of course, always resisting the invasion." Aboriginal leaders complain that their ancestors were airbrushed from the history of the early colony in Sydney. "We were resilient and adaptive to new technology that came with the colonisers," said Chris Ingrey, from the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council. "It wasn't just stone materials. It was metal and a lot of our Aboriginal families in coastal Sydney that engaged in the economy between 1790 all the way up to the late 1800s would use European boats to run fishing enterprises. "Our old people would hunt with rifles instead of spears. They picked up the European technology quite quickly and used it to their own advantage." But those days would eventually fade when authoritarian legislation was passed that further smothered freedoms for Aboriginal Australians. "It wasn't until the Aboriginal Protection Board was introduced in New South Wales in 1883-84 that draconian laws and policies were introduced to control people's lives," Mr Ingrey said. "Prior to that Aboriginal people lived sustainably running their own businesses and were engaged in the local economy." Many more stories of Sydney's complex and rich colonial past remain hidden under its streets, offices and suburbs, but they are secrets that may never see the light of day.

यह एक पुरातात्विक जासूसी कहानी है जो सिडनी में एक निर्माण स्थल पर शुरू हुई और लंदन में थेम्स नदी के तट पर समाप्त हुई। बीबीसी के फिल मर्सर ने हाल ही में पाई गई आदिवासी कलाकृतियों की अप्रत्याशित उत्पत्ति पर रिपोर्ट दी है।


Isle of Man veteran awarded Tynwald honour

Summary: An Isle of Man WW2 veteran who was involved in the D-Day landings in 1944 is to receive the highest Manx honour at the Tynwald ceremony on 7 July.

Hector Duff, 94, from Onchan, is being recognised with the Tynwald Honour for "services in conflict and peacetime". Recipients are entitled to use the abbreviation "TH" after their name. Mr Duff was recently awarded the French Legion d'honneur from President of France at the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

आइल ऑफ मैन द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध के एक अनुभवी जो 1944 में डी-डे लैंडिंग में शामिल थे, उन्हें 7 जुलाई को टिनवाल्ड समारोह में सर्वोच्च मैनक्स सम्मान प्राप्त करना है।


Saleem Butt: Three arrested over Batley man's 'brutal' killing

Summary: Three people have been arrested in connection with the murder of a man who was tied up and "brutally" killed in his home.

Saleem Butt, 61, died from severe head and neck injuries at his house on Hyrstlands Road, Batley, between 22 and 23 April. A 42-year-old man from Birstall is being held on suspicion of murder. A 56-year-old man and a woman, aged 37, have also been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, police said. Police said Mr Butt was found "tied and severely beaten in what was clearly an horrific sustained attack", and died from head injuries. Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.

एक व्यक्ति की हत्या के मामले में तीन लोगों को गिरफ्तार किया गया है, जिसे उसके घर में बांधकर "बेरहमी से" मार दिया गया था।


Trump's health: Three big ethics questions

Summary: US President Donald Trump's personal doctor Dr Harold Bornstein has claimed Mr Trump wrote his own letter of health during the election and later sent aides to 'raid' the physician's office. Dr Bornstein now says he fell out of favour with the president after divulging some of Mr Trump's prescriptions to US media.

The BBC spoke to a US medical ethics expert to detail three of the ethical concerns brought up by these allegations around the president's healthcare. 1. Dr Bornstein divulged information about Mr Trump's prescriptions The New York Times, which first interviewed Dr Bornstein about Mr Trump's health last year, said the doctor willingly volunteered facts about Mr Trump's health. He told the Times that Mr Trump took Propecia as a treatment for male baldness, a common antibiotic for rosacea, a statin for his cholesterol levels, and a daily aspirin. In the US, medical records and related medical information are protected under a privacy law known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The law states that the only people who can see a patient's medical information without explicit permission are the medical staff involved with treatment and those processing the patient's bills. Dr Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at New York University, said that Dr Bornstein could have violated HIPAA, a federal law, by sharing details about Mr Trump's prescriptions. "It has big penalties," Dr Caplan added. "Five years in jail, a $50,000 fine. Trump's doctor said these drugs are trivial, [but] it's not on the doctor to decide that." 2. Dr Bornstein now claims Mr Trump wrote his own letter of health In a recent CNN interview, Dr Bornstein said a 2015 letter suggesting that Mr Trump would be the "healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency" was not his professional assessment. Dr Bornstein said that Mr Trump "dictated the letter" to him. "It raises the issues that, as with any celebrity, it's dangerous to ask their doctor to evaluate them," Dr Caplan told the BBC. He added that to him, the letter "doesn't look like anything a doctor would write". "Celebrities and powerful people tend to use people that will do what they want, so ethically, it's always a conflict of interest. You shouldn't expect an honest answer." In light of these allegations, Dr Caplan said he believes the US needs a new system for examining presidential candidates. Using an independent board of doctors rather than just the candidate's personal physician, he said, would help address these ethical issues. 3. Dr Bornstein alleges his medical office was 'raided' for the president's medical records The New York City-based physician told NBC News he was visited by one of Mr Trump's personal bodyguards, whom he identified as Keith Schiller, and two other men at his office on 3 February 2017. Dr Bornstein said the president's aides took the original and only copy of Mr Trump's medical records, including lab reports. While the White House has insisted the incident was not a raid, and was just "standard procedure," Dr Caplan told the BBC it is a doctor's right to keep a copy of patient medical records. "In the US, medical records are joint property," Dr Caplan said. "They do belong to the patient who can have a copy, but the doctor keeps one too because if an issue comes up about malpractice, they have to have the record. You can't just come in and take away everything." Dr Caplan noted that because Mr Trump's aides did not provide a letter from Mr Trump himself requesting the information, their taking possession would be illegal. "You can't have a president sending people out to pull records - it's an abuse of power," Dr Caplan said. "It hasn't gotten the backlash in the States that it should." "Trump's personal doctor acted very unprofessionally," Dr Caplan added. "And we still don't know if Trump is healthy or not."

अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति डोनाल्ड ट्रम्प के निजी चिकित्सक डॉ. हैरोल्ड बोर्नस्टीन ने दावा किया है कि श्री ट्रम्प ने चुनाव के दौरान अपने स्वास्थ्य का पत्र लिखा था और बाद में चिकित्सक के कार्यालय पर 'छापा मारने' के लिए सहायकों को भेजा था। डॉ. बोर्नस्टीन का कहना है कि अमेरिकी मीडिया को श्री ट्रम्प के कुछ निर्देशों का खुलासा करने के बाद वह राष्ट्रपति के पक्ष में नहीं थे।


Driver dies as Leicester crash car rolls down embankment

Summary: A man has died after his car collided with another vehicle on an exit slip road and then rolled down an embankment on to a major dual carriageway.

A Nissan and a Vauxhall collided on the exit slip road from Lubbesthorpe Way in Leicester at 20:16 GMT on Saturday, police said. The Nissan then rolled down the grass embankment and came to rest on the main road leading to the west of the city. Its driver, a 44-year-old from Leicester, died at the scene. The driver and passenger in the Vauxhall were not injured and no other vehicles were involved, Leicestershire Police said. Both cars had been travelling northbound towards the A47 and used the exit slip road for Meridian Leisure Park. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk. Related Internet Links Leicestershire Police

एक व्यक्ति की मौत हो गई है जब उसकी कार एक निकास पर्ची सड़क पर एक अन्य वाहन से टकरा गई और फिर एक तटबंध से नीचे गिरकर एक प्रमुख दोहरे कैरिजवे पर आ गई।


Q&A: Scottish independence referendum

Summary: Next autumn, the people of Scotland will vote on whether the nation should become an independent country. The deal to hold the referendum has been done and the date has been set - now it's up to the campaigners to put their case.

By Andrew BlackPolitical reporter, BBC Scotland When is the referendum happening? After much teasing - Scottish First Minister and Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond named the day as Thursday, 18 September, 2014. Why this date? Practical matters like October holidays, the UK party conference season and Scotland's famed wintry weather were all potential obstacles. Incidentally, 2014 also happens to be the year two prestigious sporting events - the Ryder Cup golf tournament and the Commonwealth Games - are being held in Scotland. And for the more romantically-minded, next year is also the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, which saw the English army defeated by the forces of King of Scots Robert the Bruce, during the wars of independence. Who gets to vote? Essentially, everyone over the age of 16 who lives in Scotland. The voter "franchise", as it's known, is largely the same as for a Scottish Parliament and council elections, with the addition of lowering the voting age from 18. That means the 800,000 Scots who live in other parts of the UK don't get a vote, while the 400,000 people from elsewhere in Britain who live in Scotland do. All the main players on both sides of the debate agree this is the fairest way to do things. Eligibility to take part in the referendum also includes members of the armed services serving overseas who are registered to vote in Scotland. What will be on the ballot paper? Voters will be asked the yes/no question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" The Scottish government's original version of the question, "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?", was dropped after the Electoral Commission raised concerns it could lead people into voting "yes". Past incarnations of the referendum question have proved far more wordy. The SNP previously said people could be asked to vote "Yes I agree" or "No I disagree" to the statement: "The Scottish Parliament should negotiate a new settlement with the British government, based on the proposals set out in the white paper, so that Scotland becomes a sovereign and independent state." Who is in charge of the referendum? MSPs have approved the terms of the vote in the SNP government's Scottish Independence Referendum Bill. This followed the signing of what became known as the Edinburgh Agreement, by Mr Salmond and UK Prime Minister David Cameron - a measure to ensure the referendum could be "made in Scotland" and held on a fully legal basis. There is no turnout requirement for this referendum - that means a "Yes" vote of "50% plus one" would be enough to gain independence. The Scottish government says the bill will make sure that: The UK government agreed to give temporary powers to the Scottish Parliament to hold a legal referendum, under Section 30 of the 1998 Scotland Act - the piece of legislation which set up the Scottish Parliament. This is because constitutional matters are reserved to Westminster. The Edinburgh Agreement also commits both governments to working together constructively in the best interests of the people of Scotland, whatever the outcome of the referendum - possibly easier said than done. The SNP's parliamentary majority at Holyrood will ensure the bill is passed. Who will be campaigning? Yes Scotland is the official campaign for independence, while Better Together is the group arguing to keep the Union. Various political parties have given their support to the two campaigns, depending on their constitutional persuasion, although they are also running their own campaigns, as are the Scottish and UK governments. The Scottish Greens also back independence, as does independent MSP Margo MacDonald, while Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are opposed. It's likely that other campaign groups will spring up as the campaign goes on. How far back does Scotland's modern independence movement go? The campaign for Scottish home rule began in earnest almost as soon as the unification with England took place, in 1707. At the time, the view was that Scotland was desperate for cash, but opponents of the move were outraged by claims that the Scots who put their names to the Act of Union were bribed. The episode moved Scotland's Bard, Robert Burns, to write: "We are bought and sold for English gold. Such a parcel of rogues in a nation." Fast forward many years to 1934, and the establishment of the Scottish National Party, created through the amalgamation of the Scottish Party and the National Party of Scotland. After decades of ups and downs, the nationalists won their first election in 2007, forming a minority government, before becoming the first party to win an overall majority at Holyrood in the 2011 poll - securing a mandate for an independence referendum. Has devolution helped the independence campaign? The creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 presented a significant opportunity for the SNP, which at the time had a handful of MPs who were struggling to make the case for independence at Westminster. The prime minister who delivered devolution, Tony Blair, was aware of the potential opportunity a Scottish Parliament could give the SNP. So, the Scottish Parliament's part first-past-the-post, part PR voting system was intended to prevent any one party (ie the SNP) gaining an overall majority. This was the case initially - up to the 2011 election there had been two terms of a Labour/Lib Dem coalition and one of an SNP minority government. The 2011 result blew out of the water the claim once made by Labour veteran Lord Robertson that devolution would "kill nationalism stone dead". Could the situation now be more akin to comments by another Labour stalwart, Tam Dalyell, who described devolution as "a motorway to independence with no U-turns and no exits?" Does Scotland want independence? Hard to say with any great certainty at the moment. There is no shortage of polling data on the issue of independence, putting support at various levels. Polling expert John Curtice says the British Social Attitudes survey is the only exercise of its kind which has asked the same question about constitutional preferences going back to the foundation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. He says support for independence has tended to oscillate between about a quarter and a third, with an instalment of the survey published in January, suggesting the figure was at its lowest level since the creation of the Holyrood parliament in 1999. A total of 23% of the 1,229 people questioned between July and November last year said they favoured the proposition that, "Scotland should become independent, separate from the rest of the UK". In response, the SNP say the period of time in which the field work was carried out has been overtaken by events. Prof Curtice, co-author of the survey, also warns: "In truth, there isn't any clear evidence that either one side or the other, over the whole period of devolution, has made significant progress either in reducing support for independence or succeeding in increasing it." Another factor is the number of people who vote SNP, but are not necessarily convinced that independence is the way to go. Prof Curtice adds: "The SNP undoubtedly has succeeded in providing Scotland with what people regard as effective government - but there isn't any clear evidence of any long-term increase in support for independence since 2007." In the Scottish Parliament elections of 1999 and 2003, Labour's plan to essentially scare people out of support for independence worked. Now it seems the public are much less afraid, and, whether or not it's the case that majority support for independence exists, seem much more willing to put it to the test in a referendum. There are many other factors which could affect support for independence - the state of the economy for one thing, and of course every politician's worst nightmare - unforeseen events, or "unknown unknowns", as former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld once put it. The SNP has an overall majority in Scotland - why does it not simply declare independence? The SNP has always taken the view that, on an issue of such significance, it would first need the backing of the Scottish people in a referendum. It also needs this mandate to negotiate an independence settlement with the UK government. What happens in the event of a 'Yes' Vote? Alex Salmond wants to declare "Independence Day" in March 2016, with the first elections to an independent parliament in May. Before that happens though, a constitutional settlement would need to be agreed with the UK government, involving weighty issues which may take a long time to resolve. Defence is one - especially since the SNP want rid of Britain's nuclear weapons, based at the Faslane naval base on the Clyde. (Although Scottish Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon recently said Trident would remain temporarily at Faslane while an independent Scotland's Naval HQ was being established there.) On the financial front, agreement in areas like Scotland's share of the national debt and its continued use of the pound - at least initially - would also be needed. Even after independence is achieved there are other hurdles to clear - European Union and Nato membership to name but two. What happens if there is a 'No' Vote? Would there be another referendum? Alex Salmond has described the independence referendum as a once-in-a-generation event. All the parties - unionist and pro-independence - are keen to avoid the situation which has unfolded in the Canadian province of Quebec, where debate over multiple independence referendums over the years has been dubbed the "neverendum". A "No" result in the referendum could spell the end for the SNP as a mainstream political force. It's also likely that focus would shift back to the debate over more powers for Holyrood - with full fiscal autonomy, as opposed to relying on the Treasury block grant, possibly becoming a more serious option. The opposition parties are already working on offers along those lines, ahead of the referendum. The Liberal Democrats are furthest down the road here with their dream of Scottish home rule and significant new financial and other powers devolved from Westminster. A commission set up by Scottish Labour has suggested there is a "strong case" for Holyrood gaining full income tax powers. The Conservatives - which previously opposed devolution itself - have had the most significant shift in thinking. Their leader Ruth Davidson - who once said she wished to draw "a line in the sand" over new powers for Holyrood - has now supported increased financial responsibility for the Edinburgh parliament.

अगली शरद ऋतु में, स्कॉटलैंड के लोग इस बात पर मतदान करेंगे कि क्या राष्ट्र को एक स्वतंत्र देश बनना चाहिए। जनमत संग्रह कराने का सौदा हो गया है और तारीख तय हो गई है-अब यह प्रचारकों पर निर्भर है कि वे अपना मामला रखें।