Thursday, 26th January, 2012

HEADLINES

• Bill Gates Praises India for eradicating polio.
• Man steals bus, runs amok killing 9 in Pune.
• A European warship rescues an Indian Dhow with 15 mariners from Somalian pirates

NATIONAL NEWS

• A call for quality
  • All hospitals providing alternate system of medicine will now have to undergo quality assessment before seeking empanelment with the Central Government Health Services (CGHS)
  • This has been done to ensure the quality of treatment and infrastructure in the hospitals specialising in AYUSH (ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homoeopathy) forms of treatment. 
  • The CGHS and the Quality Council of India (QCI) have signed a memorandum of understanding for assessment of AYUSH hospitals.
  • As per the agreement, the Quality Council of India (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers or NABH) will develop the criterion for AYUSH Hospitals, on the basis of which they would be evaluated and assessed by QCI.
  • Any AYUSH Hospital spread all across the country will be empanelled by CGHS subject to evaluation and recommendation of the Council.

• International conference 'Yoga, naturopathy and argya expo 2012' to be held in Bangalore will focus on communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis and preventive health measure.
  
  
• Not bound by US, Euro Sanctions against Iran : India.
  • India have strongly conveyed that it was only bound by United Nations-backed sanctions and would continue to “fully source” its crude oil requirement from Tehran.
  • The multi-disciplinary Ministerial task force has held talks with Iran on finding a ways to source payments for future oil purchases in view of the U.S. and EU sanctions.
  • Iran accounts for 12 per cent of India's crude oil imports and there are fears that Turkey may come under pressure and stop routing payments.
    
    
• TRAI cap on SMS goes off.
  • The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) removed the 200 SMS per SIM cap on text messages that are generated by automated machines or sent to it.
  • So a registered company may send information pertaining to services or goods to be delivered to the customer under the transactional message category.
    
    
• Independents will not lose separate identity – court
  • By joining a coalition government and becoming Ministers, Independents will not lose their separate identity, and later by expressing lack of faith in the Chief Minister, they will not attract disqualification, the Supreme Court ruled.
    
    
• TAPI: a step forward
  • India and Pakistan agreed to have a uniform transit fee to ferry natural gas from Turkmenistan which will take forward the ambitious $7.6-billion TAPI (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan) pipeline project.
  • Under the in-principle agreement, India will pay transit fee to Pakistan and Afghanistan to get its share of 38 million standard cubic metres a day of gas through the pipeline, while Islamabad will pay ferrying charges to Afghanistan.
  • The 1,735-km-long pipeline will run from Turkmenistan's Yoloten-Osman gas field to Herat and Kandahar province of Afghanistan, before entering Pakistan. In Pakistan, it will reach Multan via Quetta before ending at Fazilka (Punjab) in India.
  • The project envisages a total throughput of 90 million standard cubic metres a day (MSCMD) of gas, of which India is expected to receive 38 MSCMD

INTERNATIONAL

• India srilanka take steps to end fishermen travails
  • India and Sri Lanka have intensified efforts to resolve the issue of fishermen from both countries plying their trade in a “limited pool of water.
  • India has presented a non-paper and proposed a variety of options for joint management of resources, setting up of bio-parks and promotion of sustainable aquaculture.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS AND COLUMNS

• Opinion on the selection of Judges
• Nice write up on India – Pakistan nuclear agreements
• Editorial on unethical means in science
• An opinion on the present health care system in India

BUSINESS/ECONOMICS

• Ministry for petroleum products under GST
  • The Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry has asked the Finance Ministry to bring petroleum products, including crude oil, petrol, diesel, ATF and gas, under the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime in line with the recommendations of the XIII Finance Commission.

• India offers to export petro goods to Pakistan
  • India has offered to export petrol, diesel and other petroleum products to Pakistan and if there be an agreement, India could even build a pipeline to carry these products.
  • Pakistan's existing refining capacity meets only half its total domestic requirement. On the other hand, India now exports almost one-fourth of its 185 million-tonne capacity.
  • A Joint Working Group on petroleum and petrochemical products had recently been constituted by the two countries to go into the specific details of facilitating trade in the sector which included infrastructure upgradation and augmentation of railways, customs facilitation, setting up of banking channels, etc.

• India – Thailand trade target fixed at $14 bn
  • Both countries also decided to forge maritime partnership to develop seaport at Dawei, a strategic location on the South-Western coast of Myanmar, and work for developing port infrastructure in Chennai. Dawei is a strategic location for India to get access to Southeast Asian markets.
  • The two countries also want to upgrade it to a full-fledged Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) covering not only goods but also services and investment.