Tuesday, January 17, 2012

HEADLINES

• Indian Army Chief moves the Supreme Court over the age row with the Govt
• Supreme Court says that the Babri Masjid demolition was just an incident and neither famous nor imfamous
• Supreme Court tells authorities to carry out its order in letter and spirit to preserve and protect the lives of homeless people during the intense cold wave in the North during this season
• Pakistan's PM, Gilani to appear before the Supreme Court for to explain why contempt charges should not be leveled against him for not initiating action against Zardari inspite of the Courts order. Gilani offers to quit

NATIONAL NEWS

• INS Krishna to make last voyage today; INS Shardul to be replacement for now
  • After traversing the seas for 44 years — first as the British Royal Navy's HMS Andromeda from 1968 to November 1994 and in its current avatar as one of Indian Navy's First Training Squadron Ships, INS Krishna, from August 1995, the ship will be decommissioned today;
  • The INS Krishna has been active in addressing piracy in the east arabian sea region. INS Shardul will take over INS Krishna's duties for the time being.
• Ombudsman for Central Educational institutions
  • All institutions affiliated to the University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education and the National Council for Teachers Education will now be required to establish a grievance redressal mechanism for students and applicants before the commencement of the admission season this academic year, as per a Govt order;
  • All Central Govt run institutions and universities would need to follow this regulation. An applicant could get a redressal within one month of approaching the ombudsman;
  • The ombudsman will have the jurisdiction to hear grievances concerning denial of admission, non-observance of declared merit in admission, non-observance of applicable regulations for reservation, withholding of documents and non-refund of fees in case of withdrawal of admission, discrimination and other such matters concerning students in pursuit of studies in the institution.
• New strategy to deal with the totally drug resistant TB (TDR-TB)
  • The civil administration in Mumbai have come up with a three-pronged strategy to deal with the TDR-TB (i.e. TB which does not respond to any medication). As many as 12 cases have been detected and the authorities feel there may be much more;
  • The civic administration now plans to keep the patients detected with TDR-TB in isolation, sensitise the qualified medical practitioners to deal with such cases, spread awareness among the patients and semi-qualified practitioners, and collect the data from the city hospitals and laboratories. They will also open more specialised laboratories for TB testing that would help in early detection.
• Border talks between India and China commence in Delhi
  • The boundary talks between both countries started on January 16, 2012 with Shivshankar Menon representing India and Dai Bingguo representing China. If all goes well, both sides may sign an agreement on consultation and coordination on the border soon;
  • Both sides had briefly fought a war in 1962, over their claims on the long, mountainous border. China claims around 90,000 square km of Arunachal Pradesh. On its part, India alleges that China occupies 38,000 sq km of territory in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as of additional 5,180 sq km ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963;
  • India’s official position is that it shares 4,117-km border with China, while according to Chinese, it’s only around 2,000 km. The 15th round of talks between the special representatives was scheduled for November, 2011 but China had postponed the same as the Dalai Lama was addressing a meeting in Delhi at the same time. The 2 day session of the 15th round finally were confirmed for January 16-17.
• India is not China, says Google India
  • The lawyers appearing for Google India in the Delhi High Court, where Google and 20 other websites are facing a charges for hosting objectionable content, said that India was a democracy with freedom of speech and therefore could not be totalitarian like China;
  • The lawyers also drew a distinction between Google India which was in-charge for all content in India and Google Inc which controlled content around the world, and said that the two were not linked on that front.
• India and Nepal to share terror information on a real-time basis
  • The Home secretaries of both the countries met to discuss countering cross-border crimes and terrorist activities. The talks are being held after a gap of 2 years. The countries agreed to share information on a real-time basis through telephonic communication;
  • The issues discussed were countering circulation of fake Indian currency, smuggling of arms and ammunition, trafficking in narcotics and psychotropic substances and misuse of SIM cards. They decided to share intelligence reports, progress in establishment of integrated checkposts and laying of border roads, and India's support for training and capacity building of Nepal's security apparatus.
• New species of scorpion found
  • The World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) commissioned cotton-area biodiversity survey in Andhra Pradesh has discovered a new species of scorpion. The new species, which is not yet named, is one of the smallest found so far and differs from the other Indian species as it has a short metasoma.
• Work underway for the Kallar-Jakkanari elephant corridor
  • Govt has started work for the acquisition of land to restore the Kallar-Jakkanari elephant corridor. A study undertaken indicates that there is are bottlenecks in the corridor;
  • Man-animal conflicts and cases of straying of elephants into human regions is only because the corridor has been impacted. Further, confinement of elephants into one region makes them aggressive and they need space to move between regions. Further, without corridors there is a problem of in-breeding between the elephants as well;
  • Once this corridor is restored, elephants will cross from Walayar to the Coimbatore region and then to the Nilgiris. In Kallar – Jakkanari, the issue is the non-forest land and land usage pattern along the reserve forest boundary and it is being addressed by acquisition of land for the corridor. In many pockets, non-forest land in the buffer zone were required for restoring the lost connectivity for the elephants to migrate, officials point out;
  • The other corridors that had witnessed disintegration and disturbance to the elephant population are the Irutupallam – Thanikandi, Thanikandi – Marudhamalai, Mangarai – Veerapandi, Nellithurai – Bhavani, Jakkanari – Odanthurai besides the Kalkothi – Walayar corridor.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Kazakhstan's ruling party wins snap parliamentary elections
  • Kazakhstan's ruling party has swept snap parliamentary elections, but two other parties won seats for the first time. President Nursultan Nazarbayev's party, Nur Otan, won 80.74 per cent of the vote;
  • After winning re-election with over 95 per cent of the votes last year, Mr. Nazarbayev ordered early elections to Parliament in order to improve his democratic credentials with the West. Mr. Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan since 1990, has been criticised for having a one-party Parliament (in the 2007 elections Nur Otan won 88 per cent and no other party won seats).
• China walks tight-rope in the persian gulf
  • Without undermining its ties with Iran despite growing military tensions in the region, China is seeking a deeper engagement in the oil and gas sector with Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states, as part of a developing contingency plan, in order to ensure stable energy supplies;
  • Chinese PM, Wen Jiabao has just concluded a visit to Saudi Arabia and has arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as part of a regional tour, which will also take him to Qatar, a leading international natural gas exporter;
  • The visit takes place shortly after Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary of the United States, journeyed to Beijing to implore the Chinese leadership to scale down its energy dependence on Iran, China's third largest supplier of oil. Washington is trying to throttle Iran's oil exports, apparently to dissuade Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapon capability — a move that Iran has countered by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of the world's oil supplies pass.
• Al-Qaeda takes over the capital town of Sana'a in Yemen

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article on what constitutes a strategic partnership in international relations. A quick snapshot of the article is provided below:
  • The term strategic relations originated at the end of the cold war when countries who had allied into the two blocs in the world suddenly had to make new alliances;
  • Nations define their relationship as partnership, alliance, etc, but when the term strategic is used it means it has reached a new level. In the last decade, India has signed strategic agreements with several countries as a consequence of becoming a global reckoning force;
  • Strategic partnerships are commonly associated with defence or security related issues, but a survey of formal strategic partnerships around the world reveal they can also be quite a hold-all, covering a wide range in bilateral relations, from defence to education, health and agriculture, and quite commonly, economic relations;
  • Analysts argue that the use of the term strategic relationship is just to project a higher status. A study has looked at India's strategic partnership with six countries — United States; Russia; France; United Kingdom; Germany; and Japan — by grading them on the dividends these partnerships have yielded for India in three areas of co-operation: political-diplomatic ties; defence ties; and economic relations.
  • Of these, the India Russia relationship has been the most fruitful and consistent. Russia consistently backs India on Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan and terrorism, and according to the study “is most comfortable with India's rise” while sharing Indian “concerns on the implications of China's rise”. On nuclear issues, its 2009 India-Russia civilian nuclear pact is much better than the deal that New Delhi got from United States. Defence co-operation too is in good health. India sources most of its military hardware from Russia. But of all the six countries Russia scores least on trade relations. The total annual trade between the two countries is just slightly over $5 billion;
  • On the contrary, US-India have high trade relations, but US stand on Kashmir and other issues have always been inconsistent. Similarly, Japan has always taken varied stands on several issues which impact India. India should not bestow the “respectable nomenclature” of a strategic partner on one and all, but only on those countries with which there is “a strong and mutually beneficial relationship” in all three sectors — political-diplomatic; defence and economic co-operation. For India's so-called strategic agreements with a host of other countries, the study suggests finding a “less serious” nomenclature;
  • For example of partnerships colliding – a strategic partnership with US also has to deal with the US strategic partnership with Pakistan. To put it in context, the US has strategic partnerships with countries across the world, but with Britain whom the US works with the most, the relationship is just defined as special or essential.

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• India – EU Free Trade Agreement to take more time to discuss the finer details
• Vodafone India prepares for IPO of its shares