Thursday, January 19, 2012

HEADLINES

• Setback to Modi Govt as the appointment of the Lokayukta is upheld; Guj Govt to move SC
• BJP fields Uma Bharti in UP

NATIONAL NEWS

• Pankaj Pachauri to be appointed as Communications Advisor to PM
  • NDTV India senior editor and prime time anchor Pankaj Pachauri will be shortly joining the Prime Minister's Office as Communications Adviser to the PM. Mr. Pachauri started out with the Patriot, and then moved to the Sunday Observer, India Today, the BBC World Service and most recently, NDTV India;
  • Currently, Harish Khare (formerly with the Hindu) is the Media Adviser to the PM. K.Muthukumar, an Indian Information Officer designated Officer on Special Duty to the PM, and former NDTV journalist Binoy Job report to Mr Khare, who has Secretary-level status;
  • This is seen as a part of the move for a better interface between the PM and the people in light of all the scandals and scams that the Govt has been facing.
• Transparent Accounting system for all higher educational institutions by 2013
  • All central institutions, universities under the University Grants Commission, institutions recognised by the All-India Council for Technical Education and the National Council for Teacher Education and schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education will have to mandatorily follow a standardised accounting system from the 2013 academic session to bring in more transparency, accountability and good governance;
  • The Govt will hold negotiations with private institutions as well to make the standardised accounting mandatory for them as well. It will define transparently the revenue earned through various sources — tuition fee and other charges, income from consultancy or from intellectual property owned by the institution. It will also identify costs and revenue separately for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and for research and teaching activities.
• Indian Space Research Organisation gearing up for next GSLV launch; RISAT-1
  • The ISRO is gearing up for the next developmental test flight of the GSLV-Mark II, which is slated to be held soon after the indigenous cryogenic test stages are ready by June-July this year. In 2010, two successive GSLV test flights failed. The success of GSLV is key to several important launches, most prominently the Chandrayaan-II;
  • The ISRO is also planning to launch RISAT-1on a PSLV, India's first microwave remote sensing satellite (for surveillance activities), in March this year. RISAT-2 was fasttracked and launched in April 2009 before RISAT-1, in light of the Mumbai attacks of 2008. RISAT-2 helps in watching the borders and avoid insurgent activities. The RISAT series are the first all-weather earth observation satellites from ISRO. Previous Indian observation satellites relied primarily on optical and spectral sensors which were hampered by cloud cover.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Aung Sang Suu Kyi launches bid for a seat in Parliament by standing in elections in April
• Russia warns the west against any unilateral action against Iran and Syria
• Wikipedia, Google protest proposed US internet bills
  • Wikipedia went dark, Google blotted out its logo and other popular websites planned protests to voice concern over legislation in the U.S. Congress intended to crack down on online piracy – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate version, the Protect IP Act (PIPA);
  • The draft legislation has won the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. However free speech organisations and internet companies are protesting this as they see it as a way to shut down websites, including foreign ones, on the pretext of piracy. Read this editorial for more details.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article on the Govt's double standards on the protection of Jarawas

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

• How to Igloos protect Eskimos from the severe cold?
  • Igloo is a domed shape house associated with the Inuit / Eskimos who inhabit the Canadian Artic region. Igloos are made out of snow and ice. The igloo is an ingenious invention, very effective in keeping people warm. These are means to reduce heat loss by wind convection and by moisture from precipitation. Hypothetically, if it is -40°C outside, the igloo has the potential to warm up to 0°C;
  • Reasons are: Snow and ice act as insulators and the occupants body heat get trapped in the Igloo (which gets stronger after a few days of melting and refreezing) and the walls of the Igloo block the wind.
• The GRAIL spacecrafts orbiting the moon to study its gravitation,etc have been renamed 'Ebb' and 'Flow'
• Material found during moon expedition, discovered in Australia
  • Tranquillityite — the last mineral thought to have been unique to the Moon has been discovered in the remote Pilbara region of Australia. It is named after the Apollo-11 landing site (sea of Tranquility);
  • Armalcolite and pyroxferroite are the other two minerals which were found on the moon and then found on our planet.

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• Reliance Industries plans share buy-back to increase the earnings per share value
• UN report predicts that Indian GDP will be 7.7% for 2012
• IMF to increase its fund size by $500 Billion to mitigate the worsening financial crisis
• India confirms that there is no problem in payments to Iran for oil
  • In December 2011, the US imposed sanctions on foreign banks which deal with the Central Bank of Iran. Similarly the EU is discussing the options of banning crude imports;
  • At present India still purchases crude from Iran but routes its payments through banks in Turkey. While India has indicated that it will seek a waiver from the US for making payments to Iran, it has also told its oil marketing companies to import crude from other countries like Saudi Arabia as well. This maybe due to fear that Turkey will come under pressure to shut down all payments to Iran.