HEADLINES

• Centre clarifies that there is no intention to impose president's rule in Andhra Pradesh
• Anna Hazare and team actively campaign against The Congress for the upcoming polls in Haryana
• Yemen's President Saleh to give up power in days

NATIONAL NEWS

• New Telecom Policy, 2011 may ring in cheer for mobile users
  • The NTP2011 is likely to be unveiled tomorrow. DoT sources indicate that the policy may do away with national roaming charges completely. This will benefit both customers and operators;
  • A separate cell is likely to be set up within the TRAI to deal with complaints against operators and the it may be given powers to penalise operators for non-redressal of customer complaints;
  • The NTP2011 is keenly awaited by the telecom industry as it will decide the future the the sector, particularly after the controversial 2G allocations in 2008.
  • The policy is expected to provide clarity on spectrum allocation and pricing, relax merger norms between operators and provide a clear exit policy for operators who want to surrender their licences. Focus on manufacturing is also expected to feature given the recent security concerns in relation to the use of foreign equipment;
  • This policy will succeed the New Telecom Policy of 1999 which had replaced the earlier policy of 1991.
• Tighter norms for TV channel licences
  • The Cabinet has approved the changes to the policy for television channel licenses. India presently has around 745 channels of which 366 are news channels. There are 300 new applications for channels that are pending with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry;
  • The changes include and increase in the net worth criteria of the companies making applications for tv channels from the existing 1.5cr to 5cr. In the case of news channels the increase is from 3cr to 20cr for the first channel and 5cr for subsequent channels. The new norms also specify that one of the top level management executives should have experience of a minimum of 3 years with a media company;
  • The norms also indicate that the Govt is giving more teeth to its programme and advertising code which mandates that the broadcast content should not be obscene, vulgar, offend any community or denigrate women and children, or be against national interest. The changes to the policy state that the renewal of licenses will be considered every 10 years provided that the channel has not found guilty of any violations of the programmes and advertisments code on five occasions or more.
• New vocational education cell to be established within CBSE
  • The Govt will establish a vocational educational cell within the CBSE as per the revised scheme of Vocationalisation of Secondary Education for Standard XI and XII students;
  • The scheme has been approved for implementation in the remaining period of the current 5 year plan. A pilot program will be initiated in Haryana and West Bengal.
• Villagers petition the recently established National Green Tribunal to cancel approval for Jaitapur nuclear project on grounds that the approval process has too many inconsistencies

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• U.S issues statement of regret for Anti-Chinese Law
  • While recently there has been a steady deterioration of relations between US and pakistan, the ties between US and China are warming up;
  • US congress took the unprecedented step to issue a statement of regret for the many decades of discriminatory policies against the community and also passed a resolution stating the same about the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act which discriminated against Chinese-Americans;
  • At the same time, Obama issued a warning to the US congress that any law they pass now which labels China as a currency manipulator should be consistent with the US international treaty obligations including that of the WTO.
• Sarah Palin opts out of American presidential race
• Reform or quit, Russia's Medvedev tells his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad
• The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 was awarded
  • The prize was awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work";
  • We will cover the Nobel prizes together in detail once all the prizes are announced.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this good article on the role of Government's in globalisation;
• Read these articles on Myanmar's economic awakening and reformist moves
• For those of you confused about whether deflation or inflation is better here is a good read.

ECONOMY AND BUSINESS NEWS

• India keen to conclude trade pact with ASEAN in services sector
  • India will seek fast tracking the FTA with the ASEAN bloc for opening up trade in services and liberalisation of investment norms. A team from ASEAN is visiting New Delhi later this month;
  • Currently Indian and ASEAN share an FTA for merchandise goods. ASEAN member, Philipines which has emerged as a strong contender for the services sector is not enthusiatic about a services FTA with India;
  • If the sector opens up then India will have opportunities to provide outsourcing services etc to ASEAN countries. Current trade stood at around USD50 billion in 2010. Both sides aim to increase this to USD70 billion by 2012.
• We had already provided a small write up on the changes in SEBI's takeover regulations a few weeks ago. Here is a detailed summary from the papers today.