Friday, 23rd march, 2012

HEADLINES

• India votes for resolution against Sri Lanka
• Rail fare rolled back except for high end classes

NATIONAL NEWS

• India Votes for resolution against Sri Lanka
  • India voted for a United States-sponsored resolution at the United Nation's top human rights body censuring Sri Lanka for its alleged rights violations during the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
  • With 24 votes for, 15 against and 8 abstentions, the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted the resolution, which noted with concern that an internal inquiry report in Sri Lanka did not adequately address “serious allegations” of violations of international law.
  • The resolution asked Colombo to present expeditiously a comprehensive action plan detailing the steps to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and to address alleged violations of international law.
  • India underscored that any assistance from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights or visits of UN Special Procedures to Sri Lanka should be in consultation with and concurrence of Colombo.
  • India played a role to incorporate two amendments to the resolution promoting reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka. Through one, it inserted in the preamble earlier Council resolutions 5/1 and 5/2 on institution building; and through the second, effectively made space for the country by insisting agreement of the Sri Lankan government, instead of the draft that said Colombo should “accept.”
  • India urged Colombo to take forward the process of broader dialogue and show concrete movement towards a meaningful devolution of powers, including the implementation of the 13th Amendment and beyond.
• Rail fare rolled back except for high end classes
  • Railway Minister Mukul Roy on Thursday rolled back the fare hike, except for three high-end classes of travel, which his predecessor proposed. Mr. Roy also struck down the plan to restructure Railway Board.
  • Mr. Roy withdrew the hike for second class suburban and non-suburban, and sleeper class travel fare by 2 paise, 3 paise and 5 paise per km, saying it was a “huge drain on the pocket of the masses.”
    
    
• Public investment board nod for Kochi metro rail
  • The Public Investment Board has given the green signal to implement the Kochi Metro Rail project on the lines of the Chennai Metro.
  • The Centre would pool in 20.26 per cent of the total project cost, which works out to Rs.1,002.23 crores
    
    
• Technical committee will estimate poverty : Manmohan
  • Dr. Singh said there was a need for a multi-layered process to assess poverty estimates and disclosed his decision to have a technical group take a considered view of all the inputs that had been called for
  • The new technical committee would not work at cross purposes with the committee set up under Planning Commission Member Abhijit Sen; the two committees would discharge their duties as defined by their respective terms of reference.
    
    
• India has highest number of MDR-TB cases in South east Asia, says WHO
  • India had an estimated 63,000 cases of notified multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in 2010, the highest in the South East Asia region, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
  • The MDR-TB prevalence is estimated to be 2.3 per cent among new cases and 12-17 per cent among re-treatment cases.
  • However, due to the size of population and number of TB cases reported annually, India ranks second among the 27 MDR-TB high-burden countries worldwide after China.
  • Enforcement of regulations for prescribing and sale of anti-TB drugs, promoting rational use of first-and second-line anti-TB drugs outside the programme to prevent the MDR and the XDR-TB are some of the major challenges for India
  • The Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme has developed a plan to scale-up considerably MDR-TB services in order to treat annually at least 30 000 MDR-TB patients in the country, supported by the Global Fund Round 9 and the UNITAID to enable a rapid expansion of the MDR-TB services in the next few years.
  • Though the death rates in the region have declined due to successful implementation of the DOTS (directly observed treatment, short course), the disease still claims about half a million lives a year in the Region.
  • As on July 2011 in India, the revised estimated prevalence and incidence rates of all forms of tuberculosis were respectively 256 and 185 per 100 000 population in 2010.
  • Recent country-level data shows that about 5 per cent of TB patients are HIV-positive. National surveillance has shown that the distribution of HIV among TB patients is highly heterogeneous, and is closely correlated with the distribution of HIV infection.
    
    
• TN moves SC to restrain Karnataka from depleting cauvery reservoirs
  • The Tamil Nadu government has approached the Supreme Court seeking urgent directions to restrain Karnataka from taking up summer irrigation and consequent depletion of storages in the reservoirs in Karnataka, in contravention of the final order passed by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in February 2007.
  • The tribunal in its final award on February 5, 2007 had allocated Kerala, 30 tmcft, Karnataka 270 tmcft, Tamil Nadu 419 tmcft and Puduchery 7 tmcft out of the total 740 tmcft available for allocation.

• Mulayam gets global jurists award
  • Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo and Member of Parliament Mulayam Singh will be honoured with the prestigious ‘International Jurists Award-2012.'
  • In a statement, Justice Gavin Lightman, retired Judge of the High Court of England, said Mr. Singh had been selected for his unflinching contribution to the advancement of the Bar and the Bench. His support to the development of the legal fraternity was unparalleled in the world.

INTERNATIONAL

• Soldiers oust Mali leader
  • Soldiers looted the presidential palace of Amadou Toumani Toure, one of the few established democracies in the corner of Africa, hours after ousting Mali's leader about one month before he was due to leave office anyway.
  • The soldiers said they were overthrowing the government because of its mishandling of an ethnic Tuareg insurgency in the country's north that began in mid-January.

• China – Russia plan prevail in UNSC
  • The U.N. Security Council has unanimously backed Kofi Annan's plan to halt violence and start a political process that could end the crisis in Syria, without calling for President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
  • With no implied references to regime change, Mr. Annan, special envoy of U.N. and the Arab League, called upon the government to lead the political transition in Syria, which has been ravaged by violence since the anti-regime uprising began a year ago.
  • Citing respect for the principle of national sovereignty and rejection of attempts to enforce “regime change”, both countries had vetoed earlier U.N. resolutions that implied that Mr. Assad should step down first.
  • Earlier, the Arab League, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the lead, had insisted on Mr. Assad's exit as a prelude to the formation of national unity government headed by the country's Vice-President. Both Riyadh and Doha also showed considerable enthusiasm to arm the Syrian opposition — a position that even the West found unacceptable, given the fractious nature of Mr. Assad's foes.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS AND COLUMNS

• An article on India's stand in the UN security council stand on Syria
• Editorial on the UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka and India's role in it.

ECONOMICS

• Expert help sought for coal block auctions
  • Keen to adopt a transparent method for auctioning coal assets, the government has asked the Central Mine and Planning Design Institute (CMPDI) to hire a consultant to advice it on the methodology for putting up around 50 to 60 coal blocks under competitive bidding process.
  • “CMPDI is currently engaged in the task of finalising a consultant for putting in place a methodology for fixing the floor price/reserve price of around 50 to 60 coal blocks and finalising the bid document and assisting in conducting the bid,”
  • The auction will be done by the Centre after fixing a minimum price for blocks on offer
  • At present, coal blocks are offered to the end-users on a preferential basis by an inter-ministerial screening committee.
  • Under the new rules, offers will be invited through auction from companies engaged in the business of specified end-user. They will be required to submit technical and commercial bids. With regard to allocation of blocks to PSUs, the Centre will identify areas and fix a reserve price.

• 16 FDI proposals worth Rs. 233 crore cleared
  • The government has cleared 16 FDI proposals, including that of VRL Logistics, entailing total investment of about Rs.233 crore. VRL Logistics has got the approval for induction of foreign equity to carry out the business of transportation of goods and passengers and courier services. It has also been allowed to bring FDI in aircraft charter services, and wind power generation, involving the installation and sale of electricity produced by wind power generators
  • Decision on Mahindra & Mahindra's proposal to set up a joint venture for defence manufacturing and 20 other requests had been deferred.