Thursday, February 16, 2012

HEADLINES

• No breakthrough in the Delhi blast case; a red motorcycle is found abandoned in Delhi
• UP polling passes off peacefully
• Russian ambassador says that their scientists cannot remain idle at Kudankulam as they are highly qualified and also have work in other countries
• The empowered committee headed by A.S Anand which is looking into the safety issues on the Mullaperiyar dam has sought time till April 30 from the SC for submitting its report
• In a defiant move, Iran showcases its nuclear advances and shows its first domestically produced 20% enriched uranium reactor
• 300 killed in fire in Honduras prison
• Referendum in Syria soon on single party rule

NATIONAL NEWS

• Mamata Banerjee writes to PM on excess flow of water to Bangladesh
  • Mamata has written to the PM expressing concern over the excess flow of water from the damaged gates of the Farakka barrage. Bangladesh was supposed to get 35,000 cusecs during the dry season (current months) according to an agreement, but it was getting over 82,000 cusecs due to the drainage of water from the Farakka barrage. The water level in the barrage has fallen from 72 feet to 65 feet.
• Increase maternity leave from 12 to 24 weeks: Committee of the ILC
  • A committee set up by the 44^th Indian labour conference has suggested that maternity leave for women employees, provided under the Maternity Benefit Act, be raised to 24 weeks from the present 12 weeks;
  • Briefing journalists on the ILC deliberations, Union Labour & Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said a committee on minimum wages was also formed and had suggested an increase of wage ceiling for application of Employees Provident Fund Act from Rs.6,500 a month now to Rs.10,000 or 15,000 for getting medical benefits under the Employees State Insurance Corporation. Most of the committee members also wanted the ceiling for (number of) workers covered under the EPF Act to be reduced from 20 to 10.
• No Below Poverty Line (BPL) or Above Poverty Line (APL) distinction for sanitation scheme
  • The Centre plans to remove the distinction between BPL and APL and bring all the needy under the Total Sanitation Scheme (TSC). It would be renamed as Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan to send home the message that its implementation would be a people's movement rather than a bureaucratic programme;
  • The new scheme will be part of the structural changes to be introduced from April. Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, who also holds the portfolio of Drinking Water Supply &Sanitation, made a presentation on the changes before the Planning Commission;
  • Mr. Ramesh said the sanitation scheme would cover all needy people since 60 per cent of the population was defecating in the open. This practice was derogatory to the dignity of women and posed a danger to their security. He maintained that India would be freed of the practice within 10 years;
  • The objective is not only to scale down the targets but ensure full coverage and that would be done by shifting the focus from individual households to gram panchayats. There are only 25,000 nirmal gram panchayats so far out of the 2.5-lakh panchayats in the country.
• National Policy for natural fibre mooted
  • The new chairman of the Coir Board, G. Balachandran, has underlined the need for a national policy on natural fibre and said it could encompass natural fibre such as jute, abaca, banana, sisal and coir. He said value added products of coir such as Bhoovastra and ornaments had high potential to attract international market. Bhoovastra could be utilised in road laying works to improve the condition of the roads;
  • Procurement of coconut husk was also not being carried out effectively now, he said. If de-husking machine could be transformed into a mobile unit, it would be highly helpful to the sector as a whole;
  • Several measures would be required to improve the working conditions in the sector. Technology upgrading would be another area which required focus. Traditional looms need to be modernised so as to reduce the burden on the workers. Coir workers were abandoning the sector in search of more fruitful occupations.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• India and Pakistan to go in for liberal visa regime
  • As part of the confidence building measures to promote peace in the region, India and Pakistan have decided to completely revise the 1974 Bilateral Visa Agreement and put in place a liberal visa regime shortly for all categories of people, especially businessmen;
  • The announcement came during the meetings of the Commece Ministers of the countries. The ministers also discussed other issues of trade particularly the movement from to negative list approach by Pakistan.
• India, Saudi Arabia to set up defence cooperation panel
  • India and Saudi Arabia have decided to set up a joint panel on defence ties. It will also explore ways of cooperation in fighting piracy in the Indian Ocean region. At a meeting between Defence Minister A.K. Antony and his Saudi counterpart Prince Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud on Tuesday, the two sides expressed concern over the rise in piracy in the Indian Ocean region and agreed to “explore practical cooperation and an active role of the Royal Saudi Navy in the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium construct.”
• A month after the 15th border talks, Chinese paper says Aksai Chin is a closed chapter
  • A month after India and China border talks, a commentary in a Chinese newspaper has questioned India's claims on Kashmir and asserted that the only dispute was over the status of Arunachal Pradesh;
  • An article in the Communist Party-run Jiefang Daily , or Liberation Daily newspaper said the disputed western section of the border — including the Aksai Chin region which is now under China's control — was not part of the dispute, underscoring how far apart both countries' positions remained even after 15 rounds of negotiations;
  • In New Delhi last month, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon and Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo, the two Special Representatives for border talks, discussed a framework for the settlement of disputes in all three sectors — western, middle and eastern. This was in keeping with the 2005 agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles, which marked the ending of the first of three stages of negotiations;
  • According to Article III of the agreement, the boundary settlement would be “final, covering all sectors of the India-China boundary.” Apart from Arunachal Pradesh in the East, there were two different disputes in the western sector — Aksai Chin and the territory from a 1963 Chinese-Pakistani agreement;
  • Under the 1963 Sino-Pakistan treaty, which, he said, “contrary to the conventional wisdom in India” favoured Pakistan, China kept around 5,300 sq km of land that Pakistan claimed, but transferred to Pakistan 1,942 sq km of land in the Oprang Valley and dropped claims to an additional 1,554 sq km of land. China acknowledges a dispute with India in the Western sector of Aksai Chin, but does not acknowledge a dispute with India over its border with Pakistan adjacent to Kashmir. The Jiefang Daily report is not specific enough on this point.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article on the recently drafted national water policy which is being criticised from many sections of society
• Read this article on the role that Russia, China and India should play to ease the level of confrontation between the developed powers and Iran
• Read this editorial on the opening up of flight sectors under bilaterial treaties by the Govt. This was earlier reserved only for Air India

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• Telecom licences to be delinked from Spectrum
  • Communications and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal announced major contours on spectrum management and licensing framework, which includes allowing operators to hold more spectrum, liberalising mergers and acquisitions, and a uniform licence fee regime;
  • To be a major component of the proposed National Telecom Policy 2011, the new guidelines say all future licences will be ‘Unified Licences' that will be delinked from spectrum allocation, while all existing telecom licences will be migrated to the new regime;
  • There will be uniform licence fee across all telecom licenses and service areas which will progressively be made equal to 8% of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) in two yearly steps starting from 2012-13. At present, this varies from 6 to 8% depending on the telecom circles.
• Centre to miss disinvestment target
  • The Centre is likely to miss the disinvestment target of Rs.40,000 crore for the current fiscal as the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Wednesday failed to reach a consensus on selling the government's stake in ONGC and BHEL;
  • Last fiscal, the government had raised around Rs.22,500 crore through stake sale in PSUs.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

• Pakinson's disease: Some hope for patients
  • Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder affecting the nerve cells in the brain that control movements. As a result the nerve cells or neurons do not make the chemical dopamine leading to disharmony of neurotransmitters and cause the disorder;
  • Around 1% of the country's population is estimated to be afflicted with the disease, which is more common in men and usually occurs around 60 years (adult onset). However, it is manifesting almost a decade earlier among Indians and even cases of young onset (below 40 years) are on the rise. In most cases relating to “young onset” of the disease, the cause could be genetic;
  • A new procedure undertaken in Hyderabad is giving people hope. Under the specialised procedure, called Pallidotomy, a small 2-3 millimetre lesion in the sub-thalamus region of the brain is done and specific nucleus responsible for causing the involuntary and excessive movement of either hands or any other limb is destroyed by giving radio-frequency ablation. This, in turn, would set right the imbalance in neuro-chemicals in the brain and in the circuit;
  • Although another procedure -- Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), involving implantation of electrodes in brain and connected to pace-maker - was also is in vogue to provide relief to patients suffering from Pakinsons, Pallidotomy was far less expensive than the former technique. While DBS costs around Rs. 7 lakh, Pallidotomy would be in the region of Rs. 1.5 lakh to Rs. 2 lakh. another advantage with Pallidotomy was that it was a one-time procedure and the patient need not come once every two to three months as needed in the case of DBS.
• New findings on the Maralia Parasite's clever ploy
  • Scientists claim to have solved a 130-year-old mystery by revealing that the malaria parasite adopts a banana shape before sexual reproduction to sneak into spleen, a finding which may pave the way for vaccines against the disease which kills 600,000 people each year globally;
  • The research on how the malaria parasite (Plasmodium falciparum) changes into a banana shape before sexual reproduction may explain how the parasite evades the human immune system, thus providing a potential target for vaccine or drug development.
• If you have time, read this article on prudent water management practices in agriculture