Thursday, March 22, 2012

HEADLINES

• Amidsts fights between the parents of Indian children in norwegian child care, the authorities cancel court hearing and say they will keep the children
• Russian court dismisses another plea to ban the Bhagwat Gita
• Two more persons die in the cyclonic storms in Kashmir
• Approval of merger of Satyam Computers with Tech Mahindra brings an end to the growth of Satyam story which was considered a forerunner in the Indian IT sector

NATIONAL NEWS

• Lok Sabha blasts Montek; seek disbandment of the planning commission panel
  • Lok Sabha members, cutting across party lines, on Wednesday lambasted Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia for the “cut-off poverty line” estimate released by the Commission and sought his removal as well as its disbandment “for deceiving the country and cheating people”;
  • They took strong objection to the Commission's figures, released on Tuesday, based on the latest National Sample Survey (2009-10) that claimed the number of poor had come down to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10 from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05. “These calculations are based on the daily per capita consumption of Rs. 28 in urban areas and Rs. 22 in rural areas,” the Commission said;
  • It also claimed there was a decline in the incidence of poverty by 7.3 per cent over the past five years and added that as per the new poverty estimate, anyone with a daily consumption expenditure of Rs. 28.35 and Rs. 22.42 in urban and rural areas respectively was above the poverty line;
  • In September last, the Commission filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in which the below poverty line (BPL) cap was pegged at a daily expenditure of Rs. 32 and Rs. 26 by an individual in urban and rural areas respectively at the going rate of inflation in 2010-11;
  • Members called for rejection of the report and formulation of a new one that reflected the true picture of the poor.
• India ranks 9th in global bird wealth list
  • With the presence of 1,168 bird species recorded in the country, India has been ranked 9th in the global list of bird wealth. While a majority of Indian species belonged to the Least Concerned category indicating that they were relatively safe from threats, the country was ranked 6th in terms of globally threatened species. The ranking of the bird wealth and the threats faced by the species were listed in the country profile released by BirdLife International, the “global partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity.”;
  • It was also indicated that 78 of India's bird species belonged to the globally threatened category indicating the threat level they were facing in the country;
  • Land birds formed the majority (1,094 species) of the avian species found in the country and 50 were endemic to India. The country is regularly visited by 460 species of migratory birds, which spend around six months of a year in India. Water birds (202 species) and seabirds (50 species) also formed part of the rich avian fauna;
  • Of the 14 critically endangered species, White Rumped Vulture, Indian Vulture, Red Headed Vulture, Blue Robin and Black Chinned Laughingthrush are found in Kerala. Ten species of vulnerable varieties, including Nilgiri Pipit and Yellow throated Bulbul, are also found in Kerala. The report also said that the Tsunami of 2004 had directly impacted large parts of breeding habitats of the birds.
• 7 mega water routes identified for private investment
  • Seeking to tap the huge potential of the Inland Waterways Transport (IWT), the Prime Minister's Office has identified seven mega projects and corridors all over the country — entailing an outlay of Rs. 2,100 crore — for private sector investment in the 12th Plan;
  • This would throw open new opportunities in transportation of bulk cargo, including imported and domestic coal, and food grains through the inland waterway system. The major beneficiaries would be NTPC's upcoming power plants at Kahalgaon and Barh in Bihar and Bongaigaon in Assam;
  • Corridors for transportation of food grains of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from North India/Kolkata to Tripura via Ashuganj and within the State of Assam; containers between Pandu (Guwahati) and Kolkata; shipment of pipes of ONGC from Kolkata to the north east; ferrying of fertilizers on National Waterway (NW-1) between Allahabad/Varanasi and Kolkata; perishable cargo from South bank of Brahmaputra to Dhubri on North bank; North/South bank connectivity through roll on-roll off ferries are the seven projects identified for private sector investment.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Match Japan on Iran issue to avoid sanctions: USA tells India
  • In its most direct message that India, along with other nations importing oil from Iran, could face sanctions by July if it did not “significantly” reduce such imports, the U.S. State Department warned in a conference call this week that if such countries, “in addition to having imported petroleum products, may have had other kinds of sanctionable activities, it could actually become liable to sanctions even before [June 28]”;
  • The remarks raised brows here as sanctions against countries such as India, China, and South Korea appeared more imminent following the White House's push for upping the ante against Iran through its 2012 National Defence Authorisation Act;
  • The European nations that appeared to have given the U.S. cause for cheer on this front are Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. They have cut their imports from Iran.
• A deadly earthquake with 7.4 magnitude hits southern mexico; 800 dead
• Today is the day of reckoning for Sri Lanka; UNHRC members to vote on the US-backed resolution against Sri Lanka

EMINENT PERSONS IN THE NEWS

• Soumitra Chatterjee, eminent actor, receives the Dadasaheb Phalke award. Mr. Chatterjee made his film debut with Satyajit Ray in Apur Sansar , to go on to become a central actor in the noted filmmaker's team. He has also worked with several other well-known directors.
• Endre Szemerédi, 72-year-old Hungarian mathematician of the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, and Department of Computer Science, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in the United States receives the 2012 Abel prize. Szemerédi's highly influential work has proved to be a game-changer in many areas of mathematics. The book An Irregular Mind was written recently about him. He first attracted international attention in 1976 with his solution of what is known as the Erdõs-Turan Conjecture. In its proof, Szemerédi had used a masterpiece of combinatorial reasoning, which was immediately recognised to have exceptional depth and power. A key step in the proof, now known as the Szemerédi Regularity Lemma, is used for classification of large graphs.The Abel Prize, named after great Norwegian mathematical genius Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829), is given in recognition of outstanding contributions to mathematical sciences and has been awarded annually since 2003.Abel, who died at the age of 26, has often been compared with the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan. The Prize was established in 2001 as part of Abel's 200th birth anniversary. It carries a cash award of 6 million Norwegian Kroner (NOK), equivalent to €750,000 (about U.S$ 1 million), and is comparable in prestige, value and eligibility criterion to the Nobel Prize, which, does not cover mathematics.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article on the benefits or organic farming
• Read this article on the decline of foodgrain production in India
• Read this editorial on the international meet on Somalia

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• Read this article on the recent move of the RBI to tighten the norms for lending by NBFCs against gold loans