Thursday, February 23, 2012

HEADLINES

• Italian Deputy Foreign Minister meets his Indian counterpart and proposes midway stand on the issue of the shooting by its marines but India says that the matter is with the courts and the Govt cannot intervene
• A Delhi Court has held that service of summons by email and SMS is proper and valid; interestingly this position was passed in the court in the 2G case relating to service of notice to the promoters of Loop Telecom and Essar Group
• PIL filed in Madras High Court against the National Counter Terrorism Centre (Organisation, Functions, Powers and Duties) Order 2012
• Dr. Nikhil Kothari, a Jaipur-based intensive care medical specialist has bagged the prestigious Hansraj Nayyar Memorial Award for his research on critical care and therapy for high-risk patients suffering from sepsis or septic shock
• Syed Haider Raza, the Grand Old Man of modern Indian art, turns 90.

NATIONAL NEWS

• Central Govt to soon have access to phone conversations
  • Soon the Centre would have direct access to all your telephone conversations as the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has developed capabilities to intercept phones without keeping the telephone operator in the know;
  • The Central Monitoring System is being set up after concerns of leak of tapes pertaining to Niira Radia. The system is developed by DoT's Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) Cell along with the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT). Currently, trials are on in Delhi and Haryana through a main server established in the national capital. It would take another 12 months before the system is officially operational;
  • The present system of phone-tapping is a complex one as intelligence and investigating agencies wanting to snoop on anybody's phone are required to approach the Union Home Ministry for clearance with specific reasons. Armed with necessary clearances, the department officials would then approach the telecom operators for tapping phones;
  • However, in the new mechanism, the DoT will have total control of a tapped line, giving telecom firms no access to the intercepted line. Another important aspect of the new centralised system is that irrespective of operators, lines would be tapped at one location, which will be manned round-the-clock by officials of the government agencies.
• India and Norway's confrontation draws close with the approaching expiry of visas
  • India has reacted angrily to attempts by Norway to keep two Indian toddlers in foster care after their visa ends next month by pointing out that the children were neither orphans nor Stateless persons and they enjoyed the protection of the Indian State;
  • Child welfare authorities in Norway had accused the NRI parents of negligence.
• Narendra Modi miffed at proposal to give Railway Police Force powers
  • In yet another confrontational course, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has taken strong exception to the Centre's proposal to amend the Railway Protection Force Act 1957 to give the RPF the power to act against offenders — now held by the State police;
  • He said the provisions being proposed to be inserted in the RPF Amendment Act were not in consonance with the schemes provided under Article 246 of the Constitution of India (i.e. central, state and concurrent lists);
  • He argued that ‘public order' and ‘police' are State subjects in Schedule VII of the Constitution and proposing an amendment on these subjects under entry 22, 30 and 93 of the Union List (entries dealing with railways, transport and laws for offences relating to the same) would violate the federal structure. This debate comes at a time when there is already a confrontation between the Centre and states on the issue of the NCTC and its powers to arrest which are once again rights of the State Govt.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Iran-IAEA talks fail to make breakthrough to the current impasse around Iran's nuclear ambitions
• Two western press reporters killed in Syrian violence
• Losar, the Tibetan new year is coming up next week

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article on the legal issues which form part of the stand-off between India and Italy in the recent case of shooting that killed 2 Indian fishermen
• Read this article on the issue of giving the death sentence for trafficking of drugs
• Read this article on the issue of tax avoidance in India. The article also criticises the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Vodafone tax case