24 APRIL 2014

Ø  The U.S. on Wednesday approached India for the arrest of Congress Rajya Sabha member K.V. P. Ramachandra Rao, who has been indicted by a U.S. Federal Jury on charges of receiving bribes of $18.5 million from an American firm which was allowed to mine titanium in Andhra Pradesh. In a letter sent by the American National Crime Bureau through Interpol to the CBI, the US authorities have said Mr. Rao should be put under provisional arrest till all the documents were handed over to India through diplomatic channels for his possible extradition to stand trial in Chicago, official sources said. The sources said the CBI sent the letter to the Andhra Pradesh Police asking them to take action against Mr. Rao, who was a close aide of the late Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.

Ø  U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel got a first-hand look at a life-size robot that resembles Hollywood’s “Terminator”, the latest experiment by the Pentagon’s hi-tech researchers. But unlike the cinematic version, the hulking Atlas robot is designed not as a warrior but as a humanitarian machine that would rescue victims in the rubble of a natural disaster. The 6-foot-2-inch Atlas is one of the entrants in a contest designed to produce a man-like life-saver machine, the brainchild of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The competition, which will require the bots to navigate rough terrain and enter buildings, was created in the aftermath of Japan's Fukushima quake and tsunami disasters.

ATLAS humonoid robot