New surrogacy norms will hit ‘genuine couples’

MUMBAI: The home ministry's guidelines tightening visa norms for foreigners seeking children through an Indian surrogate have created confusion in various quarters. Foreigners who are midway in surrogacy procedures are worried that their future hangs in balance, even as doctors question the rationale behind some new provisions. There is, however, no denying the need for regulation given that the passage of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Regulation Bill 2010 has been long overdue.

TOI (January 18) highlighted that the home ministry has introduced new visa norms for foreigners seeking to rent-a-womb in India with stringent eligibility criteria. Only couples married for two years and those whose countries recognize surrogacy, among other clauses, could apply for a medical visa for surrogacy. They thus disqualify gay couples and single individuals.

"The new provisions have brought in a dilemma for several gay foreigners and singles, who are undergoing ART procedures in India before the norms came in," points out Hari G Ramasubramanian, partner of Indian Surrogacy Law Centre, Chennai. He said one of his clients was due to have a child in June-July as per the old norms but there is no clarity if the new norms would be applicable to him too. "The ministry has not given any date of commencement for the guidelines," he said.

Sources at the foreign regional registration office here said they had written to the ministry last week seeking a clarification about the cut-off date for implementation of the new norms.

In a letter to the deputy commissioner of police, Dr Gautam Allahbadia, medical director of the Rotunda centre for human reproduction, Bandra, questions the provision requiring foreigners seeking surrogacy in India to be married for at least two years. "The statement is not in accordance with certain clauses of the draft ART Regulation Bill 2010 issued by the ministry of health & family welfare," he states, pointing out that the bill in many clauses clearly mentions that unmarried couples, as well as single persons, can commission surrogacy.

Doctors question the rationale behind the "two years" clause, as a couple married in their forties, for instance, may want to bear a child through surrogacy within the first year itself.

Advocate Amit Karkhanis, on behalf of an apex body of IVF clinics, plans to petition the home ministry. "We are okay with the government coming out with guidelines, but there has to be some logic," he says. Doctors, for instance, explain that the registration of ART clinics is nascent and under way. In that backdrop, the ministry condition requiring foreigners to undergo the procedure only in registered clinics may be ahead of its time.

Dr Nayana Patel, who runs a clinic in Anand, Gujarat, which is considered the surrogacy hub of India, said the new guidelines would hit genuine couples hard. "While we need regulation, creating bureaucratic hurdles through such regulations contradicts India's claims of promoting medical tourism," she said, adding that the health ministry and home ministry must come up with unified norms quickly. Illustrating the red-tapism introduced, she said an American couple who arranged for all requisite documentation and was due to come to India on January 24 is uncertain about their trip as their documents are with the Indian embassy.

Home ministry officials were not available for comment despite repeated attempts.

Guidelines
The home ministry has issued new guidelines in July 2012 regulating visas of foreigners coming to India seeking surrogacy"

* They must be on a 'medical visa'

* Only a heterosexual couple married for two years is eligible for the visa

* The home country's foreign ministry or embassy must certify they recognize surrogacy

* There should be an official assurance that the child/children will be allowed to enter the home country as a biological child of the couple

* The procedure must be done at an assisted reproductive technology clinic recognized by the Indian Council of Medical Research

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First Human Contact With Large Emperor Penguin Colony

One of the largest emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica was discovered last month by a team from the International Polar Foundation's Princess Elisabeth station.

The penguin colony had previously been identified through satellite imagery by researchers from the British Antarctic Survey. The penguins themselves didn't show up very clearly, but their excrement stains on the ice did.

Expedition leader Alain Hubert, who has spent seven seasons in Antarctica, long suspected a colony existed somewhere along the vast coast near Princess Elisabeth station. "When you go on the coast," explained the Belgian explorer, "after ten minutes, penguins come out of the water to look at who you are and what you are doing."

The satellite images gave Hubert and his team a rough idea of where to start looking. When ice research brought them within 37 miles (60 kilometers) of the probable location, they hopped on their snowmobiles for a side trip. The team traversed steep crevasses from the continent's cliffs down to the ice shelf, which has been shifting 650 feet (200 meters) toward the sea each year. "We were lucky to find it," said Hubert.

They finally came upon the colony at 11 p.m. on December 3, when the sun was still shining during the Antarctic summer. Spread out on the ice were 9,000 emperor penguins, about three-quarters of them chicks. Despite his polar experience, Hubert had never seen a full colony before. "You can approach them," he said. "When you talk to them, it's like they are listening to you."

Researchers hope penguins will tell them—through population numbers and colony locations—how they are faring with climate change. Emperor penguins breed on the sea ice. If the ice breaks up early, before the chicks can fend for themselves, the chicks die and the future of the colony is imperiled.

Hubert has high hopes for his newly met neighbors because they located their nursery on top of an underwater rift, where the sea ice is less likely to melt. "They are quite clever, these animals."

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Manti Te'o Hoax Incredibly Detailed and Complex

Fresh details have emerged about how complex and layered was the hoax involving Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o and his fake girlfriend, "Lennay Kekua."

According to ABC News interviews and published reports, Te'o received phone calls, text messages and letters before every football game from his "girlfriend." He was in contact with her family, including a twin brother, a second brother, sister and parents. He called often to check in with them, just as he did with his own family. And "Kekua" kept in contact with Te'o's friends and family, and teammates spoke to her on the phone.

"There are a remarkable number of characters involved. We don't know how many people they represent," Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said at a news conference this week. "There are male and female characters, brothers, cousins, mother, and we don't know if it's two people playing multiple characters or multiple people."

"It goes to the sophistication of this, that there are all these sort of independent pieces that reinforce elements of the story all the way through," he said.

Click here for a who's who in the Manti Te'o case

One of Te'o's teammates who asked not to be identified told ABC News that it was normal for Te'o to pass his phone around to teammates when he was on the line with "Lennay" so they could say hello to her.

"I talked to her," this teammate said. "I wasn't suspicious."

When Te'o got the call telling him that Lennay had died last fall, he was in the locker room, the teammate said.

"He got real emotional, crying," the teammate said. "He's an emotional guy."

The teammate said he thinks Te'o genuinely got hoaxed. The fact that Te'o talked about meeting her and touching her hand - when really he only "met" her on the internet - makes this teammate think that he was not completely telling the truth about his relationship.

Manti Te'o Hoax: Was He Duped or Did He Know? Watch Video

Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed Watch Video

Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video

"I think he was just embarrassed about it, the whole internet thing," the teammate said. The player said he hasn't talked to Te'o since this story broke.

With so many questions swirling around the revelation that Te'o's fake girlfriend, a source in the Notre Dame athletic department said the school would like Te'o to speak out publicly, but noted that they are not currently in touch with him.

"At some point the ball ends up in his court," the source said. "We're not involved right now."

A newly released transcript of "Sports Illustrated" writer Pete Thamel's Sept. 23 interview with Te'o gives a hint at the staggering depth of the deception.

Te'o told Thamel that Lennay Kekua's real name was Melelengei, but since no one could pronounce it properly it was shortened to Lennay. But her family nicknamed her Lala, he said.

Te'o's knowledge about the details of his girlfriend's life was often murky, including her majors in school, occupation and extent of her injuries after an alleged April 28 car accident with a drunk driver.

What he was absolutely clear about was how much time he spent in contact with her, especially while she was in the hospital recovering from the car accident, which led to the discovery of her leukemia.

"I talked to my girlfriend every single day," Te'o told Themel. "I slept on the phone with her every single day. When she was going through chemo, she would have all these pains and the doctors were saying they were trying to give her medicine to make her sleep. She still couldn't sleep. She would say, 'Just call my boyfriend and have him on the phone with me, and I can sleep.' I slept on the phone with her every single night."

He would spend eight hours a night with someone, somewhere, breathing on the other end, he told Thamel.

Te'o recounted how his girlfriend who was "on a machine" after being in a coma.

"We lost her, actually, twice. She flatlined twice. They revived her twice," he said. "It was just a trippy situation."

For a while Kekua was unable to talk and he described the nurse-deemed "miracle" of how Kekua's breathing would pick up when she heard his voice on the phone.

"There were lengthy, long telephone conversations. There was sleeping with the phone on connected to each other," Swarbrick said. "The issue of who it is, who's playing what role, what's real and what's not here is a more complex question than I can get into."

Perhaps one of the most touching displays of love from Kekua to Te'o, he told the writer, was the one-page letter she would write him on her iPad before each game. One of her siblings, often her twin brother Noa, would then read him the letter over the phone before sending it to him.

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Decree shows Chavez still rules Venezuela: minister

CARACAS: Venezuela's newly appointed foreign minister said Thursday the decree that installed him in office is proof that ailing President Hugo Chavez is still in control of the oil-rich country.

Elias Jaua was named in Venezuela's official government gazette in a decree signed by Chavez, who remains gravely ill in a Havana hospital some five weeks after complications arose during his fourth round of cancer surgery.

"If I am the foreign minister, it is because President Chavez is governing and making decisions," Jaua told a Colombian radio station.

The decree has been heavily criticised by Venezuela's opposition, who have cited its publication as a further reason to demand that the absent president clarify how sick he is and what he can and cannot do.

The decree -- number 9,351 -- was marked "Caracas" and carries the signature of Chavez, who underwent surgery in Cuba on December 11 and has not been seen in public for more than a month.

Opposition lawmaker Carlos Berrizbeitia weighed in on the dispute Thursday, stating there was "reasonable doubt" about whether the signature on the decree was genuine and demanding the government release the original document.

"It is not possible that the president has signed the decree... in Caracas, because everyone knows he is in Havana," Berrizbeitia told local media.

The Venezuelan government has been releasing only minimal information on the condition of Chavez, a 58-year-old former paratrooper who first came to power in 1999 and won a third term in October elections.

He could not attend his scheduled inauguration on January 10 because of his poor health and the swearing-in has been postponed indefinitely.

Many in Venezuela find it hard to believe that Chavez -- a flamboyant and near constant fixture on television and radio -- would not address the nation in some way if he were able to do so.

Despite winning last year's election, Chavez urged his armed forces before leaving Caracas to look out for any attempt, "from outside or from within," to destabilise the country, which has the world's largest proven oil reserves.

The leader's absence, combined with his decision to be treated in secrecy in strictly-controlled Cuba, has fuelled speculation and concern not only about his health but the future of his leftist "Bolivarian Revolution."

- AFP/jc

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Anti-India broadcasts of Iran-Bangladesh radio service worries govt

NEW DELHI: Iran is a strategic partner for India. India and Iran are cooperating in Afghanistan and India has taken considerable flak from the US about maintaining ties with Iran. So is Bangladesh, which is now one of India's most important partners in the neighbourhood.

But for some time now, India's security establishment has been tracking radio broadcasts by IranBangla Radio, a Bengali-language radio service which is part of an Iran-Bangladesh goodwill initiative, broadcasting radio programmes inside Bangladesh. India would normally not have bothered with this except for the fact that the radio service has been consistently putting out anti-India polemic and messaging, which is now a matter of growing concern to the government.

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid is scheduled to visit Dhaka in the coming weeks. Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde is also expected to be in Dhaka to sign a visa and extradition agreement.

India and Bangladesh have worked hard to improve relations with each other in the past couple of years. In fact, this bilateral relationship has seen the greatest degree of investment by the UPA government. Despite the inability of the Indian government to seal a deal on sharing Teesta river waters, the relationship has moved to a different plane.

But there remains a strong constituency that hews to the anti-India line. India is concerned that broadcasts like this could undo all the good work being put into the relationship. "Bangladesh has made no move to stop anti-India programming," said officials tracking this development.

On the other hand, officials said, Iran's own motives are under the scanner. The radio station is publicly owned, which means the government would have to bear responsibility for running anti-India broadcasts in Bangladesh. No one is quite sure where the programming is done, but they say its unlikely this is done in Bangladesh. Therefore, Iran has a greater responsibility to oversee the tone and tenor of its radio programming.

The matter is likely to be discussed between India and Bangladesh in the forthcoming discussions.

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.uk

And so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course of your career?

"Yes," came the reply. "Whenever it was necessary."

"And how often was that?" came the follow-up question.

"Almost all the time!"

This is not a leak of a transcript from Oprah Winfrey's much anticipated tell-all with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, but instead was lifted from a decades-old interview with Fausto Coppi, the great Italian road cycling champion of the 1940s and 1950s.

To this day, though, Coppi is lauded as one of the gods of cycling, an icon of a distant and mythical golden age in the sport.

So is five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64) who famously remarked that it was impossible "to ride the Tour on mineral water."

"You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants," Anquetil said.

And then there's British cycling champion Tommy Simpson, who died of heart failure while trying to race up Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, a victim of heat, stress, and a heady cocktail of amphetamines.

All are heroes today. If their performance-enhancing peccadillos are not forgotten, they have at least been glossed over in the popular imagination.

As the latest chapter of the sorry Lance Armstrong saga unfolds, it is worth looking at the history of cheating in the Tour de France to get a sense of perspective. This is not an attempt at rationalisation or justification for what Lance did. Far from it.

But the simple, unpalatable fact is that cheating, drugs, and dirty tricks have been part and parcel of the Tour de France nearly from its inception in 1903.

Cheating was so rife in the 1904 event that Henri Desgrange, the founder and organiser of the Tour, declared he would never run the race again. Not only was the overall winner, Maurice Garin, disqualified for taking the train over significant stretches of the course, but so were next three cyclists who placed, along with the winner of every single stage of the course.

Of the 27 cyclists who actually finished the 1904 race, 12 were disqualified and given bans ranging from one year to life. The race's eventual official winner, 19-year-old Henri Cornet, was not determined until four months after the event.

And so it went. Desgrange relented on his threat to scrub the Tour de France and the great race survived and prospered-as did the antics. Trains were hopped, taxis taken, nails scattered along the roads, partisan supporters enlisted to beat up rivals on late-night lonely stretches of the course, signposts tampered with, bicycles sabotaged, itching powder sprinkled in competitors' jerseys and shorts, food doctored, and inkwells smashed so riders yet to arrive couldn't sign the control documents to prove they'd taken the correct route.

And then of course there were the stimulants-brandy, strychnine, ether, whatever-anything to get a rider through the nightmarishly tough days and nights of racing along stages that were often over 200 miles long. In a way the race was tailor-made to encourage this sort of thing. Desgrange once famously said that his idea of a perfect Tour de France would be one that was so tough that only one rider finished.

Add to this the big prizes at a time when money was hard to come by, a Tour largely comprising young riders from impoverished backgrounds for whom bicycle racing was their one big chance to get ahead, and the passionate following cycling enjoyed, and you had the perfect recipe for a desperate, high stakes, win-at-all-costs mentality, especially given the generally tolerant views on alcohol and drugs in those days.

After World War II came the amphetamines. Devised to keep soldiers awake and aggressive through long hours of battle they were equally handy for bicycle racers competing in the world's longest and toughest race.

So what makes the Lance Armstrong story any different, his road to redemption any rougher? For one thing, none of the aforementioned riders were ever the point man for what the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has described in a thousand-page report as the most sophisticated, cynical, and far-reaching doping program the world of sport has ever seen-one whose secrecy and efficiency was maintained by ruthlessness, bullying, fear, and intimidation.

Somewhere along the line, the casualness of cheating in the past evolved into an almost Frankenstein sort of science in which cyclists, aided by creepy doctors and trainers, were receiving blood transfusions in hotel rooms and tinkering around with their bodies at the molecular level many months before they ever lined up for a race.

To be sure, Armstrong didn't invent all of this, any more than he invented original sin-nor was he acting alone. But with his success, money, intelligence, influence, and cohort of thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers-and the way he used all this to prop up the Lance brand and the Lance machine at any cost-he became the poster boy and lightning rod for all that went wrong with cycling, his high profile eclipsing even the heads of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the global cycling union, who richly deserve their share of the blame.

It is not his PED popping that is the hard-to-forgive part of the Lance story. Armstrong cheated better than his peers, that's all.

What I find troubling is the bullying and calculated destruction of anyone who got in his way, raised a question, or cast a doubt. By all accounts Armstrong was absolutely vicious, vindictive as hell. Former U.S. Postal team masseuse Emma O'Reilly found herself being described publicly as a "prostitute" and an "alcoholic," and had her life put through a legal grinder when she spoke out about Armstrong's use of PEDs.

Journalists were sued, intimidated, and blacklisted from events, press conferences, and interviews if they so much as questioned the Lance miracle or well-greased machine that kept winning Le Tour.

Armstrong left a lot of wreckage behind him.

If he is genuinely sorry, if he truly repents for his past "indiscretions," one would think his first act would be to try to find some way of not only seeking forgiveness from those whom he brutally put down, but to do something meaningful to repair the damage he did to their lives and livelihoods.

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Officials: 5 Americans Escaped from Algeria Terrorists

Five Americans who were at an Algerian natural gas facility when it was raided by al Qaeda linked terrorists are now safe and believed to have left the country, according to U.S. officials. At least three Americans, however, were being held hostage by the militants when the Algerian military mounted an rescue operation earlier today that reportedly resulted in casualties.

Reports that as many as 35 hostages and 15 Islamist militants at a BP joint venture facility in In Amenas have been killed during a helicopter raid have not been confirmed, though Algeria's information minister has confirmed that there were casualties. According to an unconfirmed report by an African news outlet, the militants say seven hostages survived the attack, including two Americans, one Briton, three Belgians and a Japanese national.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said that Algerian forces had attacked the compound, and that the situation "was ongoing."

"We face a very bad situation at this GP gas compound in Algeria," said Cameron. "A number of British citizens have been taken hostage. Already we know of one who has died. ... I think we should be prepared for the possibility for further bad news, very difficult news in this extremely difficult situation."

An unarmed U.S. Predator drone is now above In Amenas and is conducting surveillance. A U.S. official says the U.S. was not informed in advance by the Algerians of the raid they launched today.

In a statement, BP, a joint owner of the facility, said it had been told by both the British and Algerian governments that "the Algerian Army is attempting to take control of the In Amenas site."

"Sadly, there have been some reports of casualties but we are still lacking any confirmed or reliable information," said the statement. "There are also reports of hostages being released or escaping."

Algerian troops had surrounded the compound in the Sahara desert, where hostages from the U.S., Algeria, Norway, Japan, France and other countries are being held by terrorists who claim to be part of Al Qaeda and are led by a one-eyed smuggler known as Mr. Marlboro.

SITE Intel Group/AP Photo

Leon Panetta on Americans Held Hostage in Algeria Watch Video

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told ABC News that as many as 100 hostages are being held, and that there may be seven or eight Americans among them. "Right now, we just really don't know how many are being held," said Panetta, who said information about the situation, including the total number of hostages and where they are being held, is "pretty sketchy." The kidnappers have released a statement saying there are "more than 40 crusaders" held "including 7 Americans."

U.S. officials had previously confirmed to ABC News that there were at least three Americans held hostage at the natural gas facility jointly owned by BP, the Algerian national oil company and a Norwegian firm at In Amenas, Algeria.

"I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation," said Panetta. "I don't think there's any question that [this was]a terrorist act and that the terrorists have affiliation with al Qaeda." He said the precise motivation of the kidnappers was unknown. "They are terrorists, and they will do terrorist acts."

The terror strike came without warning Wednesday morning when an estimated 20 gunmen first attacked a bus carrying workers escorted by two cars carrying security teams.

At least one worker was killed. The terrorists moved on to the residential compound where they are now holed up with the American and other western hostages, including Norwegian, French, British, and Japanese nationals.

There is growing concern this morning about the fate of the hostages, and intelligence officials say the situation is tense. Without the element of surprise, they say, a raid to free them will be very dangerous.
"They are expecting an attack and therefore, it's going to be very, very difficult for Algerian special forces to sneak in without being seen," said Richard Clarke, a former White House counter terrorism advisor and now an ABC News consultant.

Mr. Marlboro: Kidnapper, Smuggler

Intelligence officials believe the attack was masterminded by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a rogue al Qaeda leader who also runs an African organized crime network that reportedly has made tens of millions of dollars in ransom from kidnappings and smuggling. He is known as Mr. Marlboro because of his success smuggling diamonds, drugs and cigarettes. Officials think it unlikely that Belmohktar would actually be in the middle of the hostage situation, but would be calling the shots from his base in Mali more than 1,000 miles away.

Belmokhtar fought in Afghanistan alongside the mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1990s, and lost an eye. He was formerly associated with al Qaeda's North African affiliate, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and was said to be a liaison with al Qaeda's international leadership. Belmokhtar split with AQIM late last year over what other Islamist militants considered his preference for lucre over jihad. He remains affiliated with al Qaeda, however, heading a breakaway group that calls itself the "Signers with Blood Brigade" or the "Veiled Brigade."

According to a Canadian diplomat who was held hostage by Belmokhtar, Mr. Marlboro is "very, very cold, very businesslike."

Robert Fowler was a UN diplomat in Africa when he was kidnapped and held hostage by Belmokhtar for four months in 2009.

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Football: Rooney hammers United into FA Cup fourth round

LONDON: Wayne Rooney marked his first Manchester United appearance since December 23 with the only goal of the game as they beat West Ham 1-0 in a FA Cup third round replay at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

Victory saw Premier League leaders United, the record 11-time FA Cup winners, into a fourth round tie at home to fellow top flight side Fulham.

Rooney opened the scoring in the ninth minute after the recalled Anderson produced a superb, defence-splitting pass and Javier Hernandez bore down on goal before unselfishly squaring the ball to the England striker, who was never going to miss from a few yards out.

The forward could have put the result in this all-Premier League clash beyond doubt in the second half but Rooney blasted over the top from the penalty spot after Jordan Spence handled a cross from Ryan Giggs.

"In the FA Cup anything can happen so we are pleased to get through," United veteran Ryan Giggs told ITV. "Some players are coming back from injury which can be tough but they did well.

"West Ham are a tough team to play against. We couldn't get out of our half at the start of the second half but we kept it better when Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes came on."

Frustrated Hammers manager Sam Allardyce insisted his side had been denied a penalty for handball.

"We should have had a penalty," he said, before voicing the long-held belief that United are favoured by referees at Old Trafford.

"The difference is that Jordan Spence plays for West Ham and Rafael plays for Manchester United at Old Trafford," Allardyce said. "The incidents are the same. If you give one you've got to give both, simple as that."

Earlier, Arsenal left it late before seeing off Swansea 1-0 in a third round replay with England midfielder Jack Wilshere scoring four minutes before full-time with a powerful shot.

"It was a great set-up from Olivier Giroud," said Wilshere

His goal earned Arsenal -- bidding for a first major trophy in eight years -- a fourth round clash with second-tier Brighton, the 1983 FA Cup finalists.

"I didn't want extra-time. It was important we got the winner before 90 minutes. We know Brighton play football, they play great football."

- AFP/jc

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DGCA forms team to review Dreamliner safety

NEW DELHI: With Japanese airlines grounding all their Boeing 787 aircraft for thorough checks, India has decided to do a safety review of the aircraft as Air India has also been facing technical glitches in its Dreamliners.

The DGCA ( Directorate General of Civil Aviation) on Wednesday formed a technical panel to examine the issues affecting AI's six B-787s, but as of now there is no move to ground them.

While AI maintains that it has so far not faced any issue that affects safety on the Dreamliner, the airline's engineers and pilots are checking the aircraft before each flight. It will do as advised by Boeing or US Federal Aviation Administration as DGCA will also base its recommendations on the basis of what these two say. DGCA chief Arun Mishra said, "We are taking all details from Boeing and AI. As of now there is no move to ground the Dreamliners here but we are constantly monitoring the situation," Mishra said.

All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines have grounded their 24 B-787s for thorough checks following major problems like fuel leaks and a battery problem triggering a cockpit error message that forced some pilots to land in southwestern Japan.

AI chief Rohit Nandan said, "None of those issues have so far been such that they affect passenger safety. We had some time back called a special team from Boeing for addressing the issues we face with our B-787s. Our engineers and flight safety department is reviewing these aircraft before each flight. As of now there is no plan to ground the B-787 but we are watching the situation very closely and are in constant touch with Boeing. We will not hesitate in taking any step in the interest of passenger safety." AI currently has six B-787s and uses it on both domestic and international routes.

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Bikes and Buses Propel Mexico City to Prize in Sustainable Transport

Bicycles, pedestrian-friendly plazas and walkways, new bus lines, and parking meters are combining to transform parts of Mexico City from a traffic nightmare to a commuter's paradise. The Mexican capital, one of the world's most populated urban areas, has captured this year's Sustainable Transport Award, the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) announced Tuesday.

As recently as late 2011, Mexico City commuters reported enduring the most painful commute among respondents to an IBM survey. Based on factors such as roadway traffic, stress levels, and commute times, the city scored worse than 19 cities, including Beijing, China, and Nairobi, Kenya. Mexico City has seen its roadways swell beyond capacity to more than four million vehicles, which are owned, increasingly, by a growing middle class.  (See related photos: "Twelve Car-Free City Zones")

But the city has also made strides to reorient itself around public spaces and people, rather than cars and driving. "They really changed quite fundamentally the direction and vision of the city, and a lot of it was in 2012," said Walter Hook, chief executive of ITDP, an international nonprofit that works with cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve quality of urban life.

Change at the Heart of the City

Throughout history, the heart of this metropolis has been a place of reinvention. After initial construction of the great Templo Mayor in 14th-century Tenochtitlan, each successive Aztec ruler added a new layer to the monumental complex. And in the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors built Mexico City on (and from) the ruins of the old Aztec capital.

Since 2011, Mexico City has added two new bus corridors to its Metrobus system, connecting the narrow streets in the historic center to the airport and making it the longest bus rapid transit (BRT) system in Latin America. The city also added nearly 90 stations and 1,200 new bicycles to the Ecobici bike-sharing program, began to reform on-street parking, improved sidewalks, and established new walkways. Cars were removed entirely from some narrow streets to make room for free flow of buses and pedestrians, and marketplaces were established for street vendors to help unclog the corridors. "If you want to walk to the Zócalo now, you can walk directly on the pedestrian promenade," Hook said. "It used to be that that street was just choked with traffic." (See related story: "To Curb Driving, Cities Cut Down on Car Parking.")

The day-to-day experience of getting around the city center has changed dramatically. Two years ago, Hook said in an interview, "If you tried to get across the historical core of Mexico City, you couldn't take a bus or a taxi or anything that would travel more than three miles [five kilometers] an hour. It was virtually at a standstill." Most likely, he said, you would ride in an old minibus run by an unregulated operator, or drive a car. And the narrow streets of the historic city center—a UNESCO World Heritage site—would be crowded with street vendors, trash, and illegally parked vehicles, he said. "Now you'd be on a beautiful street, in an ultramodern bus—very clean, absolutely safe."

ITDP's Sustainable Transport Award positions Mexico City among an elite group of cities honored over the past nine years, including Guangzhou, China; Medellín, Colombia; and San Francisco, California, in the United States. (See related stories: "Green Moves: Medellín Cable Cars, San Francisco Parking Reform" and "Guangzhou, China, Wins Sustainable Transport Prize.")

A committee of experts from organizations that include the United Nations Center for Regional Development, the EMBARQ program in the World Resources Institute for Sustainable Transport, and the German Society for International Cooperation (known as GIZ) was tasked with judging the vision and accomplishments of cities over the preceding year.

"We are looking for things that are new and innovative," Hook explained. Referring to Mexico City's expanded BRT system, he added, "There has been a lot of nervousness about putting in a BRT in a dense historic core," so the fact that Mexico City's bus project has been "used to sort of revitalize the historic core was really liked."

Turning the Tide

The judging committee selected Mexico City from just a handful of finalists, including Bremen, Germany; Lviv, Ukraine; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Rosario, Argentina. According to ITDP, Bremen made the cut based on its car-sharing programs and efforts to encourage nonmotorized transport in a city where as many as 60 percent of trips are now made by cycling or walking. (See related story: "Car Sharing Widens the Lanes of Access for City Drivers.") Rosario stood out for its adoption of a mobility plan in 2012 that calls for development of a new bike-path network, bike-share program, and public transport in central areas.

Sporting events were important catalysts for change in the remaining two finalist cities. Lviv made it to the final round based on improvements to public transport, walking, and cycling in preparation for the EURO2012 soccer championship. Rio won recognition for an expanded bike-sharing program and the creation of what ITDP calls the city's "first world-class BRT corridor." After the build-out of transportation infrastructure for the 2016 Olympics, Hook said, the former Brazilian capital may have a better shot at winning next year's award. (See related story: "Bike-Share Schemes Shift Into High Gear.")

Not all of the changes in Mexico City have received a universally warm welcome. The new parking system, called ecoParq, introduced multispace meters to thousands of parking spots on streets where parking previously had been free—officially free, anyway. In reality, much on-street parking was controlled by unregulated valets or attendants known as franeleros, who would stake out territories and charge drivers small fees to park and receive protection in their spaces. When the city hired a contractor to take over parking management, starting in the upscale Polanco district, franeleros protested. They reportedly marched through the neighborhood carrying signs bearing messages such as, "The streets are not for sale," and "A parking meter doesn't take care of your car."

However, ecoParq has proven to be popular among many residents. Former mayor Marcelo Ebrard, previously a police commissioner "known for being fairly tough on the informal sector," Hook commented, was instrumental in launching ecoParq in Polanco, as well as Ecobici and other sustainable transport projects. "He convinced the district government of Polanco. When they did it, it worked really well, and surrounding neighborhoods wanted it. It created a chain reaction."

According to Hook, committee members took note of the hurdles. "We try to recognize political courage and guts." The mayor's office had to spend political capital taking on the franeleros, he said. "If they do that, we feel we ought to reward them with a little bit of political payback."

This is only the second year that the Sustainable Transport Award has recognized a city's parking program. Last year it was San Francisco that made its mark with parking reform, introducing pricing schemes that vary based on time of day and real-time availability, while also trading some parking spots for public space as part of its "Pavement to Parks" program. (See related story: "With a Deep Dig Into Its Past, Perugia Built an Energy-Saving Future.")

Mexico City's efforts are part of much larger shifts taking place internationally. "Sustainable transport systems go hand in hand with low emissions development and livable cities," remarked Sophie Punte, executive director of Clear Air Asia, in a statement. "Mexico City's success has proven that developing cities can achieve this, and we expect many Asian cities to follow suit."

The pool of cities moving toward more sustainable transport systems is only growing, said Hook. "Each year we're finding more and more cities that have made fairly dramatic changes to really retake the city," Hook said. "Cities are looking at their mass transit investments now not only as a way of getting people from point A to point B, but also as a way of revitalizing strategic locations and bringing parts of the city back to life."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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