India cuts growth rate forecast

NEW DELHI: India on Monday cut its growth forecast for the current fiscal year to just below six percent, putting Asia's third-largest economy on track for its worst annual performance in a decade.

The finance ministry said "supportive" moves from the central bank would be needed even for the economy to expand at the revised level of 5.7-to-5.9 percent, down from 7.85 percent estimated at the start of the year.

The forecast came a day before the bank was expected to keep the benchmark interest rate on hold as it waits for stubborn inflation to ease, despite mounting pressure for a cut to boost the sluggish economy.

"It should be possible for the economy to improve the overall growth rate of GDP (for the year) to around 5.7 percent to 5.9 percent" from 5.4 percent in the first half, said the Mid-Year Economic Analysis tabled in parliament.

The full-year rate would be far below the near double-digit pace India set before the onset of the global financial crisis.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has been urging the central bank to reduce high interest rates to bolster the economy.

But the bank has kept rates steady since April -- when it cut them for the first time in three years -- unlike other developing countries which have lowered borrowing costs to shield their economies from the eurozone crisis.

India's bank has insisted inflation must recede and the government needs to curb its ballooning fiscal deficit -- the widest of all emerging market economies -- before more rate cuts.

Growth in 2011-12 fell to a nine-year low of 6.5 percent hit by high interest rates, struggling overseas economies and sluggish investment caused by concerns about policymaking and corruption.

India's economy has not expanded by less than 6.5 percent since the 2002-2003 financial year.

Economists had already cut their year growth forecasts to mid-five percent or lower.

- AFP/ir

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NFL Week 15: The best photos

The Jacksonville Jaguars observe a moment of silence to honor the victims of the Connecticut school shooting before their game against the Miami Dolphins at Sun Life Stadium on Sunday, December 16. Check out the action from Week 15 of the NFL and then look back at the best photos from Week 14.

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First funerals set for Conn. shooting victims

Nov. 13, 2012 photo provided by the family via The Washington Post shows Noah Pozner, 6 / AP/Family Photo

NEWTOWN, Conn. The Connecticut Funeral Directors Association has announced that funerals have been scheduled for seven of the Connecticut school shooting victims.

Services for 6-year-olds Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto are being planned for Monday.

The funeral for 6-year-old Jessica Rekos is Tuesday.

On Wednesday, there will be funerals for 7-year-old Daniel Barden and 27-year-old teacher Victoria Soto.

23 Photos

Victims of Conn. school shooting

Services will be held on Thursday for 6-year-old Catherine Hubbard.

A private service has been planned for 6-year-old Dylan Hockley. No date was announced.

A spokesman for the local diocese, Brian Wallace, said it had not been asked yet to provide funerals for gunman Adam Lanza or his mother. Police say he shot her to death before heading to the Sandy Hook Elementary School and going on his rampage.

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'We Can't Tolerate This Anymore,' Obama Says

President Barack Obama said at an interfaith prayer service in this mourning community this evening that the country is "left with some hard questions" if it is to curb a rising trend in gun violence, such as the shooting spree Friday at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School.

After consoling victims' families in classrooms at Newtown High School, the president said he would do everything in his power to "engage" a dialogue with Americans, including law enforcement and mental health professionals, because "we can't tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them we must change."

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

President Obama: 'Newtown You Are Not Alone' Watch Video

Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting: Remembering the Victims Watch Video

The president was not specific about what he thought would be necessary and did not even use the word "gun" in his remarks, but his speech was widely perceived as prelude to a call for more regulations and restrictions on the availability of firearms.

The grieving small town hosted the memorial service this evening as the the nation pieces together the circumstances that led to a gunman taking 26 lives Friday at the community's Sandy Hook Elementary School, most first graders.

"Someone once described the joy and anxiety of parenthood as the equivalent of having your heart outside your body all of the time, walking around," he said, speaking of the joys and fears of raising children.

"So it comes as a shock at a certain point when you realize no matter how much you love these kids you can't do it by yourself," he continued. "That this job of protecting kids and teaching them well is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, with the help of a community, and the help of a nation."

CLICK HERE for Full Coverage of the Tragedy at Sandy Hook

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.

Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.

Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.

One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).

"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

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EC supply rate can afford to slow: housing experts

SINGAPORE: Housing experts say the supply rate of executive condominiums (EC) into the housing market can afford to slow down, as some 20 per cent of units launched as part of seven EC projects this year remain unsold.

"I think EC units would have probably hit the ceiling in terms of amount, so I probably think this year we will hit close to about 4,000 being supplied to the market," said Donald Han, special advisor at HSR Property Group.

"We think we can go steady, to a little bit slower in terms of the EC component."

There have been about 10 EC projects this year, with three more to be launched by the end of December.

As of October this year, with the launch of the seven projects, almost 3,000 EC units have been sold. About 800 units are still unsold.

By year's end, with the launch of three more EC projects, more than 2,400 units will be available.

The government also launched six EC land sites in the second half of this year, which would see over 3,000 units being built.

In addition, five land sites slated for launch in the first half of 2013 will bring another 3,100 units on stream.

Experts add with land costs increasing, the prices of EC units have also gone up.

However, they are still cheaper than private condominiums, by about 20 to 30 per cent.

- CNA/xq

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Pearlman: I think Bobby Petrino is slime

Bobby Petrino was named head coach at Western Kentucky, months after being embroiled in scandal at University of Arkansas

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Bobby Petrino was named the new football coach at Western Kentucky this week


• Hiring came just months after he was fired from Arkansas amid scandal


• Jeff Pearlman says, sadly, this is no surprise in big-time college sports


• He says the vast majority of players are ultimately hurt by the behavior of coaches and administrators

Editor's note: Jeff Pearlman is the author of 'Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton.' He blogs at jeffpearlman.com. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) -- I have a dog named Norma.

She is a small beige cockapoo who barks at the mailman.

I would not trust Bobby Petrino to watch her.

Jeff Pearlman

I also would not trust Bobby Petrino to take my car in for a tire change. I would not trust Bobby Petrino to deposit my Aunt Ruth's Social Security check. I wouldn't trust him to clean my bowling ball, shop for a Christmas ham, change a twenty for two tens, tell me the time or recite the proper lyrics to Blind Melon's "No Rain."

This is not because I am a particularly untrusting person.

No, it's because I think Bobby Petrino is slime.

In case you missed the news, two days ago Western Kentucky University held a press conference to announce that Petrino, undeniably one of the nation's elite football minds, had agreed to a four-year, $850,000 per year deal to take over the Hilltoppers.

With nearly 400 giddy sports fanatics in attendance, Petrino, standing alongside Todd Stewart, the school's athletic director, spoke of honor and loyalty and love and redemption. The ensuing press release, issued by Western Kentucky's sports information department, was straight out of Disney: 101. It made Petrino sound like a cross between Vince Lombardi, Martin Luther King and Gandhi; God's gift to young men seeking to better themselves.

Petrino fired as Arkansas head football coach

What it failed to mention—and what the school desperately wants everyone to fail to mention—is that Petrino may well be the least ethically whole man in the, ahem, ethically whole-deprived world of Division I collegiate sports.

Why, it was only seven months ago that Petrino, at the time the University of Arkansas' head coach, was riding his motorcycle when he crashed along Highway 16 near Crosses, Arkansas.

When asked by school officials to explain what had happened, he failed to mention that, eh, also on the bike was Jessica Dorrell, a 26-year-old former Razorbacks volleyball player who worked as the student-athlete development coordinator for the football program. It turned out that Petrino, a married father of four, was not only having an affair with Dorrell (who was engaged at the time), but was a key voice on the board that hired her for the position when she wasn't even remotely qualified.

During an ensuing university investigation, it was determined that Petrino made a previously undisclosed $20,000 cash gift to Dorrell as a Christmas present.

Ho, ho, ho.

To his credit, Jeff Long, the school's athletic director, defied the wishes of every pigskin-blinded Razorback fan and fired Petrino. In a statement, he rightly wrote that, "all of these facts, individually and collectively, are clearly contrary to character and responsibilities of the person occupying the position of the Head Football Coach—an individual who should serve as a role model and a leader for our student-athlete."

Now, ethics and morals and character be damned, Bobby Petrino has returned, spewing off nonsense about second chances (Ever notice how garbage men and bus drivers rarely get the second chances we are all—according to fallen athletic figures—rightly afforded as Americans?) and learning from mistakes and making things right.

Western Kentucky, a school with mediocre athletics and apparently, sub-mediocre standards, has turned to a person who lied to his last employer about the nature of an accident involving the mistress he allegedly hired to a university position she was unqualified to hold. Please, if you must, take a second to read that again. And again. And again.

Bobby Petrino, holder of a Ph.D. in the Deceptive Arts (he also ditched the University of Louisville shortly after signing a long-term extension in 2007, and quit as coach of the Atlanta Falcons 13 game into his first season later that year. He informed his players via a note atop their lockers), will be the one charged with teaching the 17- and 18-year-old boys who decide to come to Bowling Green about not merely football, but life. He will be their guide. Their compass. Their role model.

Bobby Petrino and social media prove a bad mix

Sadly, in the world of Division I sports, such is far from surprising. This has been a year unlike any other; one where the virtues of greed and the color of green don't merely cloak big-time college athletics, but control them. In case you haven't noticed, we are in the midst of a dizzying, nauseating game of Conference Jump, where colleges and universities—once determined to maintain geographic rivals in order to limit student travel—have lost their collective minds.

The University of Maryland, a charter member of the ACC, is headed for the Big Ten. The Big East—formerly a power conference featuring the likes of Syracuse, Georgetown, St. John's and Connecticut—has added Boise State, San Diego State, Memphis, Houston, Southern Methodist and Navy. Idaho moved from the WAC to the Big Sky, Middle Tennessee State and Florida Atlantic went to Conference USA, the University of Denver—a member of the WAC for approximately 27 minutes—joined the Summit League. Which, to be honest, I didn't even know existed.

Rest assured, none of these moves (literally, nary a one) were conducted with the best interests of so-called student-athletes in mind. New conferences tend to offer increased payouts, increased merchandising opportunities, increased exposure and increased opportunities to build a new stadium—one with 80,000 seats, 100 luxury boxes, $20 million naming rights, $9 hot dogs and the perfect spot for ESPN to broadcast its Home Depot pregame show.

Why, within 24 hours of quarterback Johnny Manziel winning the Heisman Trophy, Texas A&M was hawking Heisman T-shirts for $24 on its website (Or, for a mere $54.98, one can purchase his No. 2 jersey).

Percentage of the dough that winds up in Manziel's pocket? Zero.

After another spectacular exit, Petrino eyes football return

That, really, is the rub of it all; of Petrino's crabgrass-like revival; of coaches bounding from one job for another (even as players can only do so after sitting out a year); of Rutgers moving west and San Diego State moving east and athletic department officials moving on up (to a penthouse apartment in the sky); of $54.98 jerseys.

It's the athletes ultimately getting screwed.

Sure, for the 0.5% of Division I football players who wind up in the NFL, the deal is a sweet one. The other 99.5%, however, are mere pawns, sold a dizzying narrative of glory and fame and lifelong achievement, but, more often than not, left uneducated, unfulfilled and physically battered.

They are told a coach will be with them for four years—then watch as said figure takes a $2 million gig elsewhere but, hey, only because it was right for him and his family.

They are told they will receive a great education, then find themselves stuck on a six-hour flight from California to Newark, New Jersey. They are told that these will be the greatest years of their life, that the college experience is a special one, that only the highest of standards exist.

Then they meet their new coach: Bobby Petrino.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jeff Pearlman.

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Egypt Islamists claim majority in referendum

CAIRO A narrow majority of Egyptians who voted in the first round of a referendum on a proposed Islamist-backed constitution have approved the document, according to unofficial tallies compiled by the Muslim Brotherhood and released early Sunday.

An official tweet by the Brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful political group, said its tallies showed nearly 57 percent of voters said "yes" to the disputed charter, while about 43 percent voted "no." The vote was held on Saturday in 10 of the country's 27 provinces, including Cairo and the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city.

Voting in the remaining provinces will be held Dec. 22.

The Brotherhood, from which President Mohammed Morsi hails, has in the past accurately predicted election results. It said some 32 percent of over 26 million registered voters participated in Saturday's poll. Egypt's remaining 25 million voters, mostly from conservative rural regions, cast ballots next week.

If the constitution is approved by a simple majority of voters, the Islamists empowered after the overthrow of longtime authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak would likely gain more clout. The upper house of parliament, dominated by Islamists, would be given the authority to legislate until a new lower house is elected.

If the draft proposal is rejected, elections would be held within three months for a new panel to write a new constitution. In the meantime, legislative powers would remain with Morsi, who won the presidency with a narrow election victory in June.

The official website of Egypt's state television showed that 68 and 72 percent of voters cast "no" ballots in Cairo and Alexandria respectively. The only other two provinces where the "no" vote was the majority were Gharbiyah and Daqahliya in the Nile Delta, north of Cairo.

The Brotherhood and other Islamists enjoy wide support in most of the 17 provinces voting on Dec. 22, something that could raise the overall "yes" vote percentage to higher levels. But the Islamists led by the Brotherhood are widely thought to have lost some of their popularity because of the perception that Morsi and the Islamist-backed government of Prime Minister Hesham Kandil have failed to resolve any of the country's problems, like unemployment, rising prices and security.

Worse still, Egyptians are bracing for a wide range of steep price hikes as part of the government's program to boost revenues and restructure the economy to secure a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Yesterday's vote capped a near two-year struggle over Egypt's identity since the ouster of longtime leader Mubarak, with the latest crisis over the charter evolving into a dispute over whether Egypt should move toward a religious state under Morsi's Brotherhood and their ultraconservative Salafi allies, or one that retains secular traditions and an Islamic character.

Underlining the tension, some 120,000 army troops were deployed to help the police protect polling stations and state institutions after clashes between Morsi's supporters and opponents over the past three weeks left at least 10 people dead and about 1,000 wounded.

There were no serious incidents of violence during Saturday's vote. Although there was no evidence of mass fraud, monitors from the opposition and rights groups said the boycott of the referendum by most judges was reflected in the chaos prevailing in some polling centers.

The violations reported by monitors included polling centers collecting votes without judges to oversee the process, civil employees illegally replacing the judges, ballot papers not officially stamped as per regulations, campaigning inside polling stations and Christian voters being turned away.

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School Safety Questioned After Conn. Shooting

Along with fire drills, schools have been conducting lockdown drills -- often known as active shooter drills -- since the Columbine massacre in 1999.

But safety officials do not agree yet on what teachers and students should do when a homicidal gunman invades their school.

At Sandy Hook Elementary School, teachers, staff and students had been drilled on how to handle such a situation.

"We practice it, and they knew what to do, and you just think about protecting the kids, and just doing the right thing," library clerk Mary Ann Jacob said.

She said had been drilled to send the kids in the library to a back closet between book shelves, a plan developed in advance.

"You have to have a certain amount of fire drills, and evacuation drills, and a certain amt of lockdown drills," she said. "Kids know the routine, and the teachers know the routine, and everyone has a spot in the room where they are supposed to go to."

Click here for more photos of the scene.

School safety expert Ken Trump told ABC News that he thinks the Sandy Hook teachers did what they could to protect their students.

"It does sound as though the teachers did everything humanly possible, down to risking their lives, to protect the children in this Connecticut school," Trump said.

Connecticut Shooting Tragedy: Two Brothers' Escape Watch Video

Connecticut Shooting Tragedy: The Investigation Watch Video

Connecticut Shooting Tragedy: Remembering the Victims Watch Video

The school's principal and five other adults died in the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

"Teaching kids to lock down, securing your rooms, and, in some cases, teachers stepping forth to protect the children at the risk of their own lives, is something that we see occurring more and more over the years in school safety," Trump said.

He and others particularly praised the actions of first grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, who locked her classroom door and barricaded herself and her 14 students in a locked bathroom.

But former SWAT officer Greg Crane told ABC News that he thinks existing lockdown procedures aren't sufficient.

"What she [Roig] did was a fantastic move," said Crane, who founded a school safety program called ALICE, which stands for alert, lock down, inform, counter, evacuate.

"Was she taught that move? Did every teacher know to lock the door and also barricade it? If that's the case, why weren't other teachers taught that?" Crane asked.

Most schools tell teachers to lock their doors and sit quietly until helps arrives, Crane said.

Typical are the procedures, obtained by ABCNews.com, outlined by a New Jersey school district that calls their drills "Lock Down Yellow."

Instructions to the students include:

"Go to the room nearest your location in the hallway.

"No one will be able to leave room for any reason.

"Silence must be maintained (Use of cell phones are not permitted).

"Make sure you are marked present.

"Do not leave the classroom until directed by PA System, telephone or by an administrator."

But Crane founded ALICE because he believed there was something wrong with the lock down-only policies in most schools.

"We've taught a generation of Americans to be passive and static and wait for police," said Crane, whose wife was an elementary school principal in Texas at the time of the Columbine attack.

"We don't recommend just locking a door because locked doors have been defeated before," Crane said. "Try to make yourself as hard a target as possible."

ALICE argues students and teachers should not be passive and that they should improvise. He even suggests they throw things are their attacker.

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.

Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.

Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.

One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).

"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

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