june 1, reaction to the release of sergeant bowe bergdahl after five years in taliban captivity. why indian tech entrepreneurs are heading home. >> we can make much higher salary in the u.s. this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. and under threat. animals and plants on the brink of a great extinction, next on "pbs newshour weekend". >> made possible by judy and

josh westin. the wallic family. bernard and irene. corporate funding provided by mutual of america designing customized, individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by -- and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tish wnu studios, hari sreenivasan. u.s. army sergeant bowe bergdahl is recuperating today in germany held captive for five years the nation's last known prisoner of the afghan war was released saturday in exchange for five prisoners. traveling to afghanistan defense

secretary chuck hagel said u.s. officials had to act quickly to rescue bergdahl. >> we had information that his health could be deteriorating rapidly. there was a question about his safety. we found an opportunity. we took that opportunity. i'll stand by that decision. i signed off on the decision. the president made the ultimate decision. >> republicans said president obama violated u.s. law by approving a prisoner exchange without notifying congress in advance. speaking on cbs's "face the nation" john mccain criticized the decision to release high level detainees. >> i think there is questions about these individuals who are being released and the conditions under which they will be released. these are the hardest of the hard core. these are the highest high risk people. >> meanwhile in bergdahl's

hometown of haley, idaho people wait for his return. >> we haven't talked to bowe yet. we haven't called him on the phone. there is reason for that and that is because bowe has been gone so long that it's going to be very difficult to come back. >> and in iraq may was the deadliest month so far this year according to the united nations. violence claimed the lives of 799 iraqis. more than 600 were civilians. terrorist attacks by al qaeda militants has intensified. the israeli prime minister urged the international community not to recognize a unified palestinian government. benjamin netanyahu said a cabinet would jeopardize peace

talks. >> translator: it is a terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of israel. this will not strengthen peace. it will strengthen terror. >> palestinian president said an announcement will come tomorrow. an update on the case of the mother convicted in sudan. on saturday government officials told the bbc her release was imminent. lawyers say only a court could authorize their client's release and this is just a political statement. she and her 20-month-old child has been in the women's prison since february. this past week she gave birth to a baby girl. a coalition of religious leaders in pakistan have issued a statement about honor killings. this comes after the gruesome

honor killing on tuesday which sparked outrage and con demnation in pakistan. the pakistani human rights commission estimates there were nearly 900 honor killings last year, mostly in rural areas. six climbers in washington are presumed dead after searchers found climbing equipment on the mountain believed to be theirs. the four climbers and two guides were last heard from on wednesday when the men failed to return to base rescue crews were alerted. an official said today the search has been suspended and there are no plans to recover the bodies of the climbers as conditions on many parts of the mountain are too dangerous for rescuers. lewis katz was killed on saturday night along with six other people on board when the private jet he was on caught fire as it tried to take off at a small airport near boston

enroute to atlantic city. a few weeks earlier he gained control of a media company. katz's son will take his place on the board. the national transportation safety board will investigate the crash. returning now to the release of bowe bergdahl. we are joined once again from washington, d.c. by adamant s. let's talk about some of the critiques that you saw on the sunday morning talk shows. you had senator mccain and others wondering what assurance that we have that the five individuals we traded for bowe bergdahl don't go back on the battlefield against us in the future? >> well, this was a big effort on the part of the u.s. negotiating team in the months leading up to this transfer and

exchange where they were working out with the government of qatar to get the assurances which includes a one-year travel ban for the five detainees returned to qatar where they will be monitored by security forces and the national security agency of the united states to make sure that they don't start communicating tactically with the taliban in the field. >> some members of congress have been concerned that this puts big bulls eye on the back of every american solder that one u.s. soldier is worth five high valued prisoners that we have. >> american officials who defend this exchange point out that obama has set a policy of trying to close down the guantanamo bay prison in cuba anyways.

so at least down the road there was this intent to have to transfer them at some point. you know, there is definitely an argument to be made that this exchange gives a boost to the taliban just at a time when the u.s. is winding down its forces there. at the same time, you know, i think for american officials this was in some ways something of a test of concept that they can negotiate something very complex with taliban negotiators and according to the negotiators at the american side that i have spoken to they were rather impressed by the straightforwardness of the taliban negotiating team and the command and control that they were able to exercise to carry out this very complex, highly choreographed exchange. >> is this something that can happen in the future? what is the diplomatic end game?

>> this could be one of. it is unclear where this leads. the taliban were clear that these negotiations were only about bergdahl and the five detainees. that said, for the american side at least there is sort of a sense of potential hope that there might be common ground that could be used going forward now that the americans see that there is a partner on the other side that they can have a conversation with. that can be expanded down the road if there is an effort for a broader effort to try to reconcile in afghanistan. >> joining us from washington, thanks so much. >> thank you. and now to our signature segment. tonight the growth of high tech entrepreneurship in india.

instead of fleeing for silicon valley or new york many indian tech entrepreneurs including those who are educated and worked in the u.s. are deciding to build businesses in india. they are focusing on the growing indian domestic market and looking to compete globally and some americans are following there. i reported from india and we initially aired this report in february. this city of more than 10 million people long has been known as silicon valley in india, a place where leading companies export jobs. that lesson has not been lost on indian high tech entrepreneurs, many of whom have faced visa hurdles in the u.s. despite dealing with rolling power outages, rampant congestion and corruption of a developing country many of these indians are returning home after

being educated in the united states. they are benefitting from a culture change around startups and convinced that india presents a unique set of opportunities. >> they are really going after moon sharks. >> reporter: an entrepreneur and investor in early stage startups who has a think tank devoted to helping software product companies in india. >> the culture here is inherently risk overse. when people say get a job in a fantastic big company that is what we have prepared you for and poured love and affection and money and schooling into you. what has changed in india so people are turning towards startups? >> there will be at least one company worth a billion dollars. that is changing the perception. you can go from a zero to a hero in the startup and there are examples of that. since there are examples of that there are really smart people

beginning to do that. >> reporter: we met? entrepreneurs taking that chance. the co-founder and ceo of a travel startup that allows users to browse itineraries taken by people, customize them and book their own trips. >> we are going after being the world's destination for planning. essentially a billion dollar plus business. >> reporter: left a job at google in new york to launch in bangalor. >> i thought it was a large complex problem that i didn't think would be solved in three months time. it is human intensive and engineering intensive. it made sense to be in the geography i could think of where it comes together. >> reporter: the money raised has gone a lot further in india. instead of affording a small

team in the u.s. he has a staff of 17 including ten engineers. he says thanks in part to silicon valley-like perks he hasn't lost a single engineer in three years. he says when it comes to developing a software product it is truly a flat world. location is almost irrelevant. >> we are not focused on the indian market alone. indian market is a quarter of our traffic. being in india allows you to take on global markets much more effectively. >> reporter: marketing especially when competing with price line and expedia it isn't as easy. >> travel is exceptionally hard. i wish someone had told me that when i started this company. but here we are. >> reporter: so after more than four years in india he and his family are planning on moving back to the united states. he thinks more people will discover his business once he is

able to build partnerships. >> i love being in india and the u.s., as well. as personal needs arise i see myself going back and forth to the two countries. i see india as a trade destination and see companies coming out of the area much more often. >> other entrepreneurs who did his graduate work at columbia university in new york say india's rapidly growing middle class is too tempting a target to resist. by some estimates the middle class will more than quadruple. >> i think it is an exciting time to be in young business in india. the ceo of online market place conceived by his brother who worked for amazon in seattle. the company allows indians to compare and obtain mortgages, car loans, insurance online. >> when the opportunity came up i hadn't planned it or timed it

that way. but it was a great idea. and i decided to make the jump. and that's how i ended back in india. >> the company has grown to 200 employees with offices in three cities. he says being in a developing economy means the ability to innovate rapidly. >> in six months we have launched a product with a large bank. could we do this in america? can i go to a citi bank office in new york and say i have this platform. might have been a little more difficult. >> the decision means he can be close to family members he might otherwise see once a year. he says he wants to be part of his generation's growing awareness and embrace entrepreneurship. >> the feeling that i can get a job with a bank or insurance company or microsoft or google if i wanted to. the reason i am doing this is

because i have done that and i want something more challenging. >> a small community of young american entrepreneurs moved to india, as well. they met as under graduates at the university of pennsylvania. he attended harvard law school and both dropped out of business school to start zoom, a zip car style car sharing business in india. >> it was sort of like a no brainer. the size of the opportunity is staggering. >> urban density is the single biggest predictor of car sharing success. if you are looking at large, dense cities that don't own cars the fact that car sharing has not been done is shocking. >> it is estimated 68 cities with a million people or more by 2030. since launching more than a year ago zoom has been sold out every weekend. the company is hoping to expand

to a second city. >> aside from the business you have made personal sacrifices to be here. you could be making money possibly on wall street, possibly in the u.s. is it a risk worth taking? >> well, there is no question that it is worth taking. sure, we would be making much higher salary in the u.s. but it is personal being separated from my girlfriend for a year and a half. that is the real cost. it is still worth it. the skill and opportunity is a once in a lifetime opportunity. >> no question. it helps we are still young, both under 30. we are not married. we were very fortunate in the fact that for us it was a perfect time in our lives. >> they are committed to being in india for at least the next couple of years. >> it is crazy how ambitious it is. if you come back to us in five years there is a chance we could be a billion dollar company and we could be hugely disrupting the way that people in india

cities get around. >> besides challenges sometimes unreliable electricity, corruption, says the biggest worries are the same ones startups face no matter where they are based. >> most startups fail. the numbers are stacked against you when you decide to take on a venture like this. is there anything different about the entrepreneurship climate here? >> it is higher. >> in 2012 only one indian company among 500 firms acquired by some of the biggest tech companies in the world. >> as the wave of entrepreneurship in india increases what does the u.s. stand to lose? >> there are irritants like these visa issues. i think in some sense u.s. has positioned itself as a fountain head of tech entrepreneurship. >> in many from silicon valley venture capital firms to

international tech giants like microsoft are betting on indian entrepreneurs and on india itself emerging as a huge center for innovation. meet an entrepreneur in india using cell phones to find people better jobs. visit newshour.pbs.org. plant and animal extinctions are happening at a rate 1,000 times quicker. the planet has been through five major extinctions before. scientists think we are on the cusp of a sixth. i spoke with stewart pim. >> an enormous asteroid plowed into the yucatan peninsula in mexico. it sterilized much of north america and eliminated the dinosaurs.

that kind of catastrophe will be what will happen over the next 100 years if we don't do something about the species extinction crisis. we will leave to our children and grandchildren a much depleted planet. >> how do we know about the rate of extinction since humans have only been on the planet for a certain period of time? >> there are two parts of it, one is what is happening now or at least over the last 50 to 100 years. we can follow species from when we first learned about them to the present and see what fraction of them are dying off. and they are dying off a pretty hefty rate. working out what happened before humans came along is a little more difficult. the fossil record can tell us a lot about that. we also learn a lot from their dna, from the molecular evidence of how fast species are born and how fast they die off. and it's comparing those two things, what is happening to

species now with what happened in the geological past that has allowed us to come up with the statement of how fast species are going extinct. >> help us put this startling extinction number in perspective a bit. >> extinction is a death rate. we used to think of human beings dying off the rate per year. species often die off but the rate of 1 species in ten million a year. species are going extinct the rate of 100 to 1,000 species extinctions per million species. and that is a rate that is very, very much higher than we thought it was. >> and what is causing these extinctions? is it humans? is it climate? >> we are the ultimate problem. there are 7 billion people on the planet.

we tend to destroy critical habitats where species live. we tend to be warming the planet. we tend to be careless about moving species around the planet to places where they don't belong and where they can. >> people are assisting in conservation efforts with technology in their hands today. >> absolutely. there are millions of people around the world who are passionate about orchids and frogs and birds and dragon flies. and that crowd sourcing is giving us an enormous amount of detailed information about where species are. and we can use that detailed information to send very precise, very crisp conservation priorities. it helps us know where we need to act, where we need to invest our scarce conservation dollars. >> thanks so much. >> thank you so much for having

me on the program. that's it for this edition of "pbs newshour weekend". i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. "pbs newshour weekend" is made possible by -- corporate funding is provided by mutual of america, designing customized, individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by --

and by corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions from viewers like you. thank you.

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