Saturday, February 4, 2012

HEADLINES

• Supreme Court takes Centre to task over the process of fixing age for the Army Chief; Centre to respond on February 10
• TRAI begins process for spectrum audition after the judgement of the Supreme Court; issues pre-consultation paper seeking comments from stakeholders
• Agitation at Kaiga atomic plant, kaKarnata by residents of surrounding villages seeking acquisition and rehabilitation of their villages which are in a 5km radius of the plant
• Veteran environmental filmmaker Mike Pandey honoured with the prestigious V. Shantaram Life Time Achievement Award at the Mumbai International Film Festival 2012
• Anita Rana, head of Janhit foundation, receives the UNDP award recognising her leadership in community initiatives for a green economy and also receives the Earth Day Networks award for support of its campaign

NATIONAL NEWS

• WADI project does wonders for poor tribal households
  • The NABARD's ambitious “Wadi” project, named after a system for land-based production in local parlance, has promoted agro-horticulture and agro-forestry, thereby enhancing the socio-economic status of the resource-poor families, and has so far helped about 500 households in improving their livelihoods and crossing the poverty line in Rajasthan;
  • Vaagdhara, an NGO in the Banswara region is implementing the project and the main beneficiaries are Below the Poverty Line families earning less than Rs.15,000. The main objective of the project is to help the tribal population who have been forced to give up their traditional livelihoods, to get accustomed to agricultural ways. The project reduces the costs of the families by helping with inputs and also helps with production and management of resources;
  • On conclusion, the project is expected to make the tribal regions drought proof and increase per hectare yeild.
• NABARD introduces new system for farmers
  • NABARD has introduced a Negotiable Warehouse Receipt (NWR) system to help farmers avoid distress sale of their produces. The NWRs would enable small and marginal farmers with Kisan Credit Cards to avail post-harvest loans at concessional interest rates and store their produce in warehouses against warehouse receipts;
  • At present, concessional loan at 7% interest is available to farmers as pre-harvest loan. However, in the case of post-harvest loans, the farmers must pay commercial interest rates.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• UN declares end of Somali famine but warns of risks
  • The UN officially declared that it had moved the Somali situation from the top step of a 5 step scale to one step below (i.e. from famine to humanitarian emergency). The UN and the Food Agricultural Organisation have reiterated that continued assistance is required to stop the region from slipping back into famine situations;
  • Somalia was declared Famine struck last July after successive failed rains. Many Somalis fled to Kenya, Ethiopia and to the capital city, Mogadishu. It was further worsened by the militant group, al-Shabaab, which did not let humanitarian agencies into many areas. FAO said that over 9.5 million people need help (food assistance) in the Horn of Africa region.
• Google unveils plan for country specific content filtering
  • After twitters announcement that it would submit certain posts to local law requirements, Google has also announced that its blogging platform will be made country specific. That means, if a blog violates the laws of a particular country then it will be blocked in that country but will still be available elsewhere;
  • The best live example of the changes is this blog which is a google blogger site – thegyangurus.blogspot.com is now shown as thegyangurus.blogspot.in so that it is made specific to India. Similarly if the blog is accessed from other countries the .com extension will be replaced with the local extension thereby making it subject to the laws of such country. Therefore if this blog violates Indian law then it will be blocked in India but accessible in other countries.
• Potentially habitable planet discovered
  • International astronomers said on Thursday they have found the fourth potentially habitable planet outside our solar system with temperatures that could support water and life about 22 light-years from Earth. The star, GJ 667C has three planets are orbiting it, and one of them (GJ 667Cc) appears to be close enough that it likely absorbs about as much incoming light and energy as Earth, has similar surface temperatures and perhaps water.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article on the flaws in the implementation of the system against female foeticide
• If you have time, read this article on the need to revamp India's educational system