Friday, January 6th, 2012

HEADLINES

• Non bailable warrant against Jayalalitha stayed
• Anna Hazare not to campaign in poll bound states.
• BJP meets president, urges her to advice UPA on reconvening session.
• India declares itself free from bird flue (Highly pathogenic avian influenza)

NATIONAL NEWS

• Border Security Force (BSF) goes digital
  • The initiative is to provide easy online access to personnel and administrative works
  • The Intranet Prahari project (IPP) has been extended to 237 locations of the BSF and will benefit around 1.98 lakh workers.
  • The project will connect all the sector headquarters, frontier headquarters, and all the battalions of the force.
  • On the personal information side it will have salary allowances, tax deductions, leave positions etc and in the administrative side it will computerise the whole accounts system, the movement and the deployement of forces.
  • Another para – millitary force Indo – Tibet border police has a similar proposal.

• Manmohan for inculcating the spirit of liberalism and tolerance embedded in sanskrit.
  • PM while pointing out that Sanskrit is the spirit of India, promised to strengthen the efforts for the promotio, development and enrichment of sanskrit.
  • The 15^th World sanskrit conference held in Delhi, which is being organized by the Ministry of human resources and international association of sanskrit studies attracted scholars from 32 countries.
  • The HRD minister recommended the inclusion of contemporary concepts in to old sanskrit language on various subjects including science and medicine to widen the scope of the language and make them relevant and useful in the present day context.
    
    
• India calls for top priority to India – Saudi investment fund.
  • The finance minister pitched for focussing on the proposed $750Mn fund to be set up in cooperation with Saudi Arabia for development of infrastructure, promotion of joint exploration and production of hydro carbon.
  • The investment fund is to be jointly set up by the public investment fund, saudi Arabia and a counterpart Indian agency
  • The bilateral trade between the two countries exceeded $2.5Bn last year and the basket of goods mainly comprised of petroleum and its by products.
  • The FM said that it is important to move in to non oil products and move in to areas of investment and joint ventures and service sectors.
  • The FM also underscored the importance of “memorandum of understanding on labour and employement, as there is large expatriate work force in Saudi Arabia.
    
    
• Election commission orders photographing all Manipur voters.
  • The voters will be photographed when the indelible ink mark is applied on the fingers.
    
    
• Dodging consumer court orders will attract fine.
  • The consumers will now be able to register their fines online and any delay in complying with the orders of the consumer court will invite a fine of Rs. 500 or 1.5% of the amount of penalty.
  • These were the amendements made in the consumer protection bill which will help in quicker disposal of cases and amplify the scope of some of the provisions of the bill.
  • The proposed changes include making a provision that an order of the district forum/state commission/national commission will be enforced as a civil court decree.
  • Another provision is to increase the minimum age for appointment as member of a state commission from 35 to 45 and the national commission from 35 to 55
    
    
• India ahead of China in quality of science papers according to study done by the elsevier, a world leader in medical and scientific publications.
  • India's citation per article is 2.7 while for china it is 2.2
  • India presents maximum number of papers in the subject of Chemistry
  • Bangalore based Indian institute of science leads the table in presenting most number of papers.
    
    
• Arvind Gupta takes over as the chief of Indian defence studies and analysis.

• India declares itself bird flu free
  • A country can declare itself bird flu free if there is no incidence of the disease for three months
  • India has notified to the Office International dez epitoozies(OIE) which has become the world organisation for animal health.
  • The last outbreak of the H5N1 influenza was in september 2011.

• Union government has proposed pension and life insurance fund(PLIF) for overseas Indian workers in the Emigration Check required countries.
  • This scheme offers enhanced protection to the 70% of the estimated 20 lakh keralites living in the Gulf countries
  • It is estimated that around 20% of overseas Indian workers in the ECR countries are women who are recruited for cleaning and other jobs.
  • The government contribution is Rs.1000 /- in line with the swawlamban platform for all PLIF subscribers who contribute between 1000 – 12000 a year in NPS lite, the new national pension scheme
  • A special additional income of 1000/- a year would be made by the Overseas Indian affairs ministry for Indian women workers who contribute 1000- 12000/- a year.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• It is an economic war says Iran
  • Iran has said that the west is waging an economic war through sanctions after the european diplomats said that there is a preliminary agreement on the EU ban of oil from the Islami reublic.
  • The 27 nation EU has stuck and “Agreement in principle” to ban Iranian oil imports
  • EU is the second largest importer of oil from Iran after China and imports nearly 18% of its oil and this ban will severly weaken the already bruised country
    
    
• Obama outlines troop cuts and also strategic shifts
  • US president Obama has outlined a plan to trim down the 4,90,000 troops and potentially close to $1 trillion in funding

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS AND COLUMNS

• Nice write up on the challenges facing parsar bharathi
• For sociology students – Do go through this article
• Editorial on the new electronic delivery of services bill

BUSINESS NEWS

• Petroleum regulator to decide on KG – D6 gas marketing margin
  • The petroleum ministry has refered to the petroleum and natural gas regulatory board a propposal to regulate the marketing margin being charged by the reliance industries
  • The move is done to keep the price to the end comsumer reasonable
  • In the case of KG- D6 the price is controlled by the government but the transportation is governed by the PNGRB but the marketing margin is not regulated.