Sunday, February 26th, 2012

HEADLINES

• CBI raids across the country relating to deal signed between BSNL and Starnet Communciations for WiMax which is said to have caused loss of Rs.535 cr to BSNL
• Search and seizure commences aboard Enrica Lexie, the Italian ship which fired upon the Indian fishermen
• China tells India not to complicate border issue; comment comes shortly after Defence Minister, AK Anthony's visit to Arunachal Pradesh
• Osama Bin Laden's house in Abbottabad where he was killed being razed down by Pakistan

NATIONAL NEWS

• Odisha to regulate visits of foreign tourists to tribal regions
  • The Odisha Govt announced its devision to regulate the visit of foreign tourists and researchers to areas inhabited by vulnerable tribal groups such as Bondas, Dongria Kondhas and other such communities;
  • A special permission would be need from the District Magistrate marked to the local police station would be required to visit these areas.
• India taken off WHO's Polio Endemic List
  • WHO has removed India from the list of Polio-endemic countries. This comes after India has not recorded a single case of polio in the last one year. Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the countries remaining on the list. In India, the last case was reported on January 13, 2011 in West Bengal. The Govt has said that any new case would be treated as a public health emergency.
• PM for hassle-free, cashless outpatient care
  • Describing the rising cost of health care, the PM has advocated the need to work towards hassle free and cashless outpatient care in public hospitals as it currently places a huge burden on the poor;
  • Cashless outpatient care and a specialised cadre for public health are major recommendations of the high level expert group of the Planning Commission on universal health care. The group also proposed cashless health packages.
• Camera Trapping used in Tiger Census
  • Camera trapping method has been used for the first time in the ongoing tiger census at Namdapha National Park in Arunachal Pradesh. Earlier censuses were carried out using pug marks and other methods. Over 100 cameras are installed;
  • Namdapha was declared a tiger reserve in 1983 and is spread over 1985 sq.kms. Tigers, leopards and clouded leopards are found in the park and it is facing huge conservation challenges due to a lack of adequate manpower to deal with the tremendous hunting pressure and targetted poaching, timber felling and other threats. It borders China and Myanmar.
• India wants Exclusive Economic Zone out of war zone list
  • India has made a fresh appeal to the London-based Joint War Committee, a body of Insurance underwriters, to exclude India's EEZ from the war zone notification considering there has been no piracy incidents in India waters for the last 9 months;
  • Excluding Indian EEZ from the war zone notification will have implications on the premiums for insurance cover. It also has safety considerations as when in a war zone area ships will stay near the coastline due to perceived threats;
  • In a separate issue, India is planning to use its paramilitary forces on ships with the Indian flag to prevent piracy attacks. At present many ships are using foreign and private security arrangements.
• India closest in defence ties with Russia
  • Russia has said that it has closer defence ties with India than any other country. References were made to the BrahMos supersonic missles, the Akula class nuclear submarine leased to India, the multi-role transport aircrafts and the 5th-generation fighter planes.
• Supreme Court says - in preventive detention, subjective satisfaction of authority is key
  • In hearing a case, the SC said that the court cannot interfere with the subjective satisfaction reached by the detaining authority on breach of public order, except in extremely limited grounds. The SC said that the object of the law of preventive detention is not punitive but only preventive and further that the action of the executive in detaining a person being only precautionary, normally should be left to the discretion of the authority ordering the same;
  • The Court said that it could not lay down guidelines of conduct to authorities in this matter.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi becomes new president of Yemen removing Saleh; has the difficult job of overseeing a two year political transition

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• Vedanta group has announced that it is consolidated its Indian subsidiaries Sterlite and Sesa Goa into one called Sesa Sterlite; the move is expected to cut costs and beef up cash flows while improving economies of scale