You will be happy to know that we have released a new version of the Private Pilot CBI. The main benefits of this release are: 

• Compatibility with Windows 64-bit Operating Systems
• DVD disc delivery (only 5 DVDs instead of the 26 CD-ROMS in the previous version)
• Course now includes a Home-Study Completion Certificate
• Special installation allows for easy flight instructor review 

It is important to know that neither the course content nor the training syllabus has changed. However, with this version, the DAX (Daily Automated eXchange) is no longer used to update home-study progress to the CMM. As a result, the suggested training steps have been slightly modified and an outline is attached to this letter.

 A review copy of the new course along with 5 Instructor Review Installation Cards was sent to your CPC. Each Instructor Review Installation Card will allow for a single installation of the course sharing the DVDs in the binder. When installed for instructor review, the course will not save progress or allow the printing of a completion certificate.

 Part 141 School Information

 The content of the course and the training syllabus has not changed, so in most cases, this new course will continue to be valid for Part 141 approved courses. The only exception may be rare cases where your Part 141 TCO specifically states that customer home-study progress travels to your CPC electronically via the DAX. In those cases, the current CD-ROM course will continue to be available until your TCO has been updated or you have switched to a new TCO based on the Sport/Private Course.

 Exchange Information

 King Schools will gladly exchange any unsold, new (course must be shrink wrapped) CD-ROM binders from kits you have in inventory with the new DVD disc binders. All other kit elements remain the same. We will also pay for shipping the media both ways. Just contact Steve Lane at (877) CPC-KITS.

 Customers  who are studying with the current CD-ROM version should continue with their existing kits. They will lose all their progress if they switch to the new DVD course. However, if you have customers  who have purchased a kit, but have not been able to use it on a 64-bit computer, please have them call King Schools and we will exchange the discs and binder for them.

 Questions and Answers

 Q: When should I use this course and when should I use the new Sport/Private Pilot online course?

A: The purpose of this update is to provide a 64-bit Operating System compatible version of the traditional (legacy) Private Pilot CBI course for CPCs that have not yet transitioned to the new Sport/Private Pilot course. The new Sport/Private Pilot online course is recommended for all CPCs and reflects the future direction of the Cessna Flight Training System.

 Q: Will this new CBI course work on Windows 7 computers?

A: Yes, the new course has been tested with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7.

 Q: Will this new CBI course work on Mac computers?

A: No, only the new Internet-based Sport/Private Pilot course is Mac compatible.

 Q: Is the old CD-ROM based Private CBI still available?

A: Yes, but it should only be ordered if you are operating under a Part 141 TCO that specifically requires the DAX exchange. All future orders for the Private CBI will receive the new kit by default.

 Q: Can I track customer progress using the newly released CBI course together with the new CTA?

A: No, progress for this course can only be tracked in the CMM. This is because the CTA is designed to track progress for syllabi utilizing Scenario-based training and Learner-centered grading. Those are features of the new Sport/Private Pilot course.

 Q: Will the Instrument CBI also be updated for 64-bit compatibility?

A: Yes, the updated Instrument CBI course should be available by the end of this year.

 Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions.

 Best regards,

 Barry Knuttila

SVP Marketing and Technology

King Schools, Inc

bknuttila@kingschools.com

(858) 576-6265

Paul and P-40 (Esther was his mother)

At 1000 on 26 Mar 44, Paul wrote

The electrifying cry of scramble came over. We dashed to our ships, took off, circled our position for about 30 minutes, and then were told to “pancake.” False alarm.

On the morning of 27 Mar, 80th FG fighters intercepted a “large force of Jap bombers and escorting Zeros” on the way to bomb Lido. Paul wrote:

I didn’t get there soon enough to have some fun, too, but four of our pilots who were returning from a  mission ran into them and each got two confirmed bombers plus one probable.

That proved to be a four-ship record for the CBI Theater. Paul listed the successful 90th FS fighter pilots in his diary:

• Capt Ward
• 1Lt Patton
• 2Lt Lyon
• Flight Officer Hammer

In total, the group’s three squadrons recorded 13 bombers and 13 fighters destroyed, two bombers and two fighters claimed as probables, and two fighters damaged. The 89th lost two P-51s and one P-40.

Paul noted that “Marshall, the P-40 pilot, bailed out safely.”

After months of uncertainty in which the entire political and state machinery has been galvanized to ensure that the perpetrators of the horrific rape and murder of two young women in Shopian go scot free, the Central Bureau of Investigation has produced a report that gives a clean chit to the indicted policemen and claims that the two women drowned in a stream. Below we carry a report by the Independent Women’s Initiative for Justice. Do circulate as widely as possible.

by DNA India, December 15, 2009.

New Delhi: The mammoth fraud at IT major Satyam, involving over Rs14,000 crore as per CBI, proved to be the most brazen swindling act, forcing the government to re-write corporate governance rules during 2009 and tighten the norms for chartered accountants.

While the investigating agencies had a tough time going through voluminous documents to get to the extent of the scam and uncover the modus-operandi of the fraud, disclosed by the company’s founder and then chief B Ramalinga Raju himself in January, it could still take quite some time for the courts to punish the guilty.

In the rarest of rare occasions, the government was forced to take over management of a global player to safeguard the credibility of India Inc, besides protecting the interest of investors and salvaging the nation’s image across the globe…(continue reading)

Srinagar, December 14 (KMS): In Kashmir, the President of High Court Bar Association, Mian Abdul Qayoom has said that the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is trying to hush up the Shopian dual rape and murder case from the day first.

Mian Abdul Qayoom, addressing a seminar in Srinagar, said that the CBI had already announced that the case had been closed when it was still going on and was being monitored by the High Court of the occupied territory.

He said that the CBI personnel harassed the advocates from Shopian on different pretexts. “The family members of the deceased were not spared and were questioned from time to time, if they had any association with the freedom movement particularly with Syed Ali Gilani,” he added.

Mian Abdul Qayoom said that Indian agency also violated the directives of the High Court by involving a medical team in exhumation process, which comprised of the people with little expertise.

The Bar President read a letter he had received from an associate professor of the Forensic Department at the Institute of Medical Science, Dr Sudhir K. Gupta, claiming that the four doctors who had conducted the post- mortem of the two Shopian women were either under-qualified or involved in criminal cases.

Addressing the seminar, the founder of Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, Parvez Imroz deplored that the incidents like Shopian had become a routine in the occupied territory.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Ghulam Nabi Shaheen, Dr Shaikh Showkat Hussain, Zaher-ud-din, Dr Altaf Hussain and Mohammad Shafi Khan. The speakers demanded a probe by the United Nations into the incident.

In the Meanwhile Indian troops, killed three innocent Kashmiris including a girl in Doda and Kulgam areas.

The troops Killed two youth at Gandoh in Doda during a siege and search operation while a nine-year-old girl was deliberately hit and crushed to death by a speedy vehicle of Indian army in Frisal at Kulgam.

People took to streets in the area and held a forceful anti-India demonstration against the killing of the girl.

On the other hand, two troopers of Indian Central Reserve Police Force committed suicide at Batamaloo and Soura in Srinagar, raising the number of such deaths amongst the troops to 162 since January 2007.

Source: Kashmir News Service

——TOP

The anti-corruption branch of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) here arrested A Balasubramanian, president of Sri Balaji Society  which runs a chain of management, law and degree institutions on charges of cheating the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for securing its approval to the society’s four management institutes.

Three AICTE officials are also under investigation for allegedly helping Balasubramanian secure the council’s approval despite “deficiencies” found by the CBI after an on-site inspection of the society’s academic complex at Tathawade on the Katraj-Dehu road expressway bypass.

CBI’s superintendent of police (ACB) Vidya Kulkarni told reporters that the “deficiencies” found at the Tathawade campus mainly relate to infrastructure not being in proportion to the number of institutions and courses offered by the society. “This included the land, the built-up area, essential facilities like computer labs and library, and even the number of students that are required to be maintained as per the norms,” she said. Read More>>

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Hon’ble Speaker of Orissa Legislative Assembly allowed the Government an abrupt abortion of its winter session as the Opposition was seen determined to unveil corruption in mining and land grabbing by the mafia during continuous incumbency of Chief Minister Navin Patnaik.

To layman’s comprehension, Navin is not accepting the Opposition demand for a CBI inquiry into the ongoing loot of Orissa mines lest the corruption comes out.

But what the State Vigilance has disclosed to have discovered is no less than description of unprecedented loot, even though the volumes thereof estimated by the official agency looks like mere tip of the iceberg.

No wonder, premature termination of the session was the only option readily available to the Government to escape.

Ankur Chawla, the son of India Today editor Prabhu Chawla*, who was named in a bribery case concerning the Hindi newspaper Amar Ujala 10 days ago, has had a “status update”.

Chawla junior, a Supreme Court advocate, has now been inducted into the CBI team probing the bribery case involving the acting head of the company law board (CLB).

In other words, the accused has turned approver, with a difference—he will now probe the very case he was a part of.

Chawla had been named as a “middleman” in the CBI first information report (FIR) after the CLB chief R. Vasudevan was caught on the night of November 23 while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 7 lakh from Manoj Banthia, a company secretary of Amar Ujala, to settle a dispute in the family running the regional daily.

Ankur Chawla feigned innocence claiming he was “out of the country” but his house in New Delhi’s Defence Colony was raided and a file relating to the case was recovered “establishing his links with the case“.

Chawla’s name was also missing from the CBI press release.

The Hindu reported that CBI had registered a case against Vasudevan, Banthia and Ankur Chawla under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 7 (public servant taking bribe other than legal remuneration in respect of an official act), 8 (taking bribe, in order, by corrupt or illegal means, to influence public servant) and other sections of the prevention of corruption Act.

Although The Times of India reports that Banthia “has all along maintained that it was Ankur Chawla who had allegedly handed over the cash to him asking him to further hand it over to Vasudevan,” a Delhi court was told a different story on November 30.

# “It is submitted that accused Ankur Chawla (the lawyer) joined investigation today,” additional sessions judge O.P. Saini noted, while entertaining a petition seeking policy remand of another accused Manoj Banthia for one more day, reports The Times of India.

# Press Trust of India reports that CBI wanted to quiz Ankur Chawla with the statements made by Banthia during his custodial interrogation but the judge allowed CBI to interrogate Banthia for one more day on the ground that Ankur Chawla had “joined the probe“.

* Disclosures apply

Also read: Prabhu Chawla’s son named in bribery case

Kochi: The session court in Ernakulam issued an order shifting the pending part of the trial in the Sister Abhaya murder case to the special CBI court-II. The court will take the case which was quizzed and charge sheeted by the CBI, on 11 Jan.

Meanwhile the court granted bail for the three accused. Father Thomas Kottur, Father Jos Pithrukayil, and Sister Sefi the three principal accused in the controversial case were present at the court today.

Royal Bank of Scotland to offer financial aid to small businesses

Possibly good news for small businesses today, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) announced that they would be making essential improvements to the borrowing terms for their 1.2 million small businesses that currently do business with them.

The RBS have announced the following changes to-date:

Free banking services for all new business start-ups.

They will cap their overdraft charges at 1.5% for any business that has a turnover under £25 million. In addition to this they have guaranteed that they will not withdraw existing overdraft facilities without a breach of contract.

They have also agreed to cap loan arrangement fees for small businesses at 1.5% as well as renew lending on the same of improved terms for at least 12 months.

Despite this apparently good news there have been mutterings that the Government have effectively pushed them to this decision. This is something that RBS’ small business chairman, Peter Ibbetson, vehemently denies and is in fact quoted by the Daily Mail as saying:

“This is the right thing to do; we are trying to respond to what businesses are telling us.”

To me this sounds like a bit of a cop-out, however, before we pass judgement let’s take a look at some of the facts of the case:

The RBS reported in the third quarter that lending had fallen by £500 million in the first nine months and then argued that this was partially due to lack of demand. Interestingly enough RBS has produced this long-term improvement plan just after the Treasury demanded that they provide evidence that businesses are not choosing to apply for loans.

Apparently the pledge of not withdrawing overdrafts has been in place for several years, however, instead of requiring their customers to accept that it can be withdrawn at any time they have put in an extensive list of terms and conditions that must not be broken. If they are broken, no surprise, they remove the overdraft facility!

The promise that overdraft charges will not increase depends on whether or not the risks associated to lending to the customer has risen. So if you’re operating in a declining environment then there is a good chance the charges will increase. Considering we are trading in one of the most serious economic recessions in the past hundred years doesn’t that include everyone?!

So they reserve the right to charge higher fees for firms in financial difficulties – I can’t see how this is beneficial to small businesses… can you? Let’s face the facts – they’re simply going to charge an already struggling company more money and make their financial situation even worse with high bank charges!

Other useful links:

RBS offers funding to small businesses.

Photo by Graeme Weatherston

Liberhan Commission Report on Babri Masjid

Vijay M. Deshpande

 

Justice M.S. Liberhan Commission of Enquiry submitted its report on demolition of Babri Masjid on 6^th December 1992. Selective leakages and thereafter extracts of the report have been published by the media. The commission was set up within ten days of the event on 16^th December 1992 and has outlasted any other commission perhaps going into Guinness Book of Records! 48 extensions and 17 years time frame was designed to test the patience of the people. Not that anyone really cares for what the report says, but it speaks volumes about what is not there in the report perhaps.

1. When observations have been made with references to Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was not present at the site, why he was not summoned for any clarifications or information? It is unjust to drag his name without giving him an opportunity to tell the truth.

2. Why is there no reference to P.V.Narsimha Rao, then the Prime Minister, who reportedly went to sleep when the Babri Masjid was being demolished? Wasn’t the Union home minister having any responsibility and role to safeguard the structure? Didn’t home ministry have any intelligence reports on intentions of karsevaks if there was a conspiracy?

3. Why the commission was given 17 long years and 48 extensions to come out with a report only at a politically convenient time to suit the Congress and just when BJP is at nadir of its fortune?

4. The final outcome of commission’s findings is released only when they become irrelevant. Or, perhaps this time the commission was not to be given extension due to austerity measures (sick) and was forced to submit winding up report?

5. Why was there a deliberate leakage of the report when it was only with the home minister? And predictably there was some call for setting up another commission of enquiry on this leakage!

6. Why public money is being wasted on such political tools to fool the public?

7. Now Liberhan Commission Report is handed over to CBI as proof to proceed further in prosecution. Is CBI itself not mandated and competent enough to investigate & find out what happened and who is the culprit? Has the government “outsourced” the fact finding & investigative task to Liberhan Commission taking it away from CBI?

8. Didn’t some one say justice delayed is justice denied? Is this “Pseudo justice”?

Safety Valves:

The commissions of enquiries have been always used to cool off the public anger and to let the time take care of the issues involved. It is only an escape valve to let off the steam.

Commissions of enquiry have been set up in the past by states and the centre whenever there have public disturbances, riots or violence of unusual nature. A retired judge is appointed as chairman of the commission to give a sense of impartiality and sound analysis but not the judgment. With a report from a retired judge the government acquires a moral high ground to deal with opposition. Most of such cases could have been dealt with by CBI which has the necessary mandate and specialization for investigation.

Strengthen CBI:

When there is a need to have a fact finding mission about an event, invariably there is a court case and the matter is sub-judice. The prosecution (or the government) needs to gather evidences and supporting witnesses to present the case to the court. The government should therefore leave the matter to the investigative agencies and not find a substitute like a retired judge. If required, CBI should hire a retired judge to do the work and submit the findings just like they would hire a sleuth. CBI should have enough teeth without political interference to investigate the matter. Does CBI have authority to reject the findings of a commission and trust its own assessment?

At least CBI would not have taken 17 years to present a report of their findings.

More Senas and Dals:

There are many Senas and Dals of different hues and shades all over the country which are the fronts for political parties to engineer public unrests. Be it problems in Godhra, Goa, Mangalore, Mumbai, or Orissa the state governments set up commissions of enquiry and perhaps no one knows what happens to them. When inconvenient the Centre appoints another commission, like Laloo Prasad Yadav did to get contrasting report on Godhra.

 One lesson from appointing such commissions is that we should be ready for tackling more of such public disturbances. Today we have separate National Investigative Agency for terror related cases. CBI now focuses on corruption and criminal cases. Why can’t we have an independent agency or a wing under CBI exclusively for politically triggered public disturbances? Possibly such cases will be more in numbers and more frequent than terror events. In such cases generally there will be a political pressure to submit report before the next session of the assembly or parliament. At least there will be a reasonable time frame for investigation and lesser waste of public money.

As far as the utility of the Liberhan Commission report is concerned the government should reflect on what administrative steps should be taken to make it more responsive in future. But the simple facts stand out like Congress first opened the doors of Ayodhya site for limited worship. That was the first mistake. Then Congress at the Centre slept when the structure was being demolished. That was second mistake. The Liberhan Commission was allowed 48 extensions because of which it was robbed of legitimacy as well as seriousness was the third one. And the report was leaked before being tabled in the parliament was the fourth one. Well, it is not that BJP has done nothing wrong. But Congress in power could have done much more by being proactive instead of passive player & a mute witness and now trying to rewrite the history to project itself as the savior of secularism.

I hope the parliamentary debate focuses on how to deal with similar situations in future to avoid fiasco.

Vijay M. Deshpande

Corporate Advisor,

Strategic Management Initiative,

Pune

November 27, 2009

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