Thursday, February 2, 2012

HEADLINES

• Crucial verdict today in the Supreme Court on the plea to probe Chidambaram in the 2G case
• Cabinet gives clearance for the financial consortium / investors in the Vizhinjam International Container Transshipment Terminal & Port (read our entry few days earlier on the Vallarpadam ICTT also be set up in Kerala)
• Gujarat High Court rejects petition to call Narendra Modi for questioning in the 2002 riots
• Four al-Qaeda members in Britain, including one of Indian origin, admit to planning bombings in December 2010
• Release of Taslima Nasreen's book Nirbasan stalled in Calcutta; she has been facing issues ever since the release of her book Lajja in 1994

NATIONAL NEWS

• Study to locate oil resources in Kerala-Konkan region
  • ONGC has entered into collaboration with the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) for fluid inclusion studies that will help locate the hydrocarbon reserves in the South Ratnagiri and Kerala-Konkan offshore basins. CESS has new technology which studies the sedimentary formations in the regions along with sample drills to locate hydrocarbons;
  • The hydrocarbon potential of the Kerala-Konkan offshore basin extending from Goa in the north to Cape Comorin in the south, is of the order of 660 million tonnes, according to ONGC estimates. But 15 exploratory wells drilled in the basin so far have not yielded oil in commercial quantities;
  • Oil exploration encounters a difficulty in the basin because of the thick basalt layer that masks deeper seismic events below. Only few wells have penetrated below the basalt. The petroleum system in the basin, including the hydrocarbon kitchen area, migration path and entrapment has not been established so far. The proposed fluid inclusion study to be carried out at CESS involves micro-level analysis of the palaeo fluids trapped inside mineral crystals present in the sediment fill of the Mumbai and Kerala basins.
• Court notice to UPSC on language option issue
  • The Delhi High Court has issued notice to the UPSC to reply on a petition challenging the recently revised syllabus for the preliminary exam for the civil services. The peitition said that the students who opted to write the paper in their mother-tongue were at a disadvantage due to the compulsory English comprehension questions (9 x 2.5 marks each) that were included in the paper;
  • The peitition also argued that the new syllabus violated Article 16 of the Constitution of India which states that “there shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the state”.
• Stricter mobile radiation norms from September 2012
  • The Department of Telecom is soon going to notify stricter regulations to check electromagnetic radiation emission from mobile phones to address health concerns and also streamline the mobile phone industry;
  • The guidelines are already being practiced in the US and Europe and rely on the compliance with a specific absorption rate (SAR is a measure of the amount of radio frequency energy absorbed by the human body during use). The DoT is proposing a SAR value of 1.6 Watts per kilogram averaged over a six-minute period and taken over a volume containing a mass of one gram of human tissue.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Pakistan rejects NATO's claim of links between it and the Taliban as old wine in a new bottle
• Russia and China oppose the resolution in the UNSC on Syria on the principle of sovereignty and advocating a peaceful internal dialogue
• Julian Assange's appeal against extradiction to be heard by the British Supreme Court

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article and this editorial on the selection of the rafale for the medium multi-role combat aircrafts by India
• Read this editorial on the need for a long term policy for Indian railways

EMINENT PERSONS IN THE NEWS

• Read this article about A.K. Damodaran, an Indian freedom fighter and a key diplomat post-independence and who was the architect of the 1971 India-Soviet treaty of peace, friendship & cooperation
• Read this article about Mazhar Imam, the modern day urdu poet who used to write about Kashmir