Friday, 27th April, 2012

HEADLINES

• Gilani guilty of contempt of court
• Sachin, rekha, and social activist Aga nominated for Rajya Shabha
• No Change in Visa policy for Narendra Modi
• India sends back Bangladesh pilot in a goodwill gesture

NATIONAL NEWS

• EPF rate will be raised to 8.6%
  • The interest rate on the Employees' Provident Fund will be increased to 8.6 per cent for the current fiscal, Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said in the Rajya Sabha. Now, the rate is 8.25 per cent.
    
    
• Chinese expedition to POK
  • To celebrate its “long-term friendship” with Pakistan, China has said it will send an expedition to the Baltoro glacier in the Karakoram mountain range, located in the disputed Pakistan- occupied Kashmir (PoK) region
  • The expedition has been seen as reflecting China's growing willingness to engage in the disputed PoK region, both commercially and politically
  • Chinese policies to the region have concerned India, including the issuing of stapled visas to Indian citizens from Jammu and Kashmir, even while the PoK residents are issued regular visas, and Chinese investments in infrastructure projects.
  • India also expressed concerns over the presence of between three and four thousand Chinese military personnel in PoK, although China says the troops are all from engineering and construction corps and stationed there for humanitarian activities in the wake of the 2010 floods.
    
    
• Bid to protect scavengers in western and eastern ghats
  • The last significant vulture population in the Western and Eastern Ghats are threatened by indiscriminate use of pesticides
  • A team of researchers from CareEarth Arulagam has taken up a detailed study in the wild and creating awareness of conservation of these forest scavengers.
  • The study has two components: ecology and conservation. In the ecology part, the team is identifying nesting sites of vultures and studying their site characteristics. Under the conservation component, the team is educating the Forest Department staff and villagers in the vicinity of the vulture habitat about different species of vultures, as most of them are unaware of the number of vulture species in existence or about how to identify them
  • Diclofenac is the main reason for the decline in vulture population. It is an anti-inflammatory veterinary drug and if the vultures eat the carcass of any animal which the drug had been administered to, it would affect the kidney of vultures, leading to their death.
  • Four species of vultures are found in Tamil Nadu - White-backed Vulture, Long-billed Vulture, Egyptian Vulture and Red-headed Vulture.
    
    
• Monsoon most likely to be normal
  • The India Meteorological Department announced on Thursday that the coming monsoon would “mostly likely” be normal. The average rainfall would be 99 per cent of the long period average [LPA], with a model error of plus or minus five per cent.
  • rainfall is likely to be between 94 per cent and 104 per cent of the LPA, with a greater possibility of its being near the lower end of the band rather than the upper end.
  • There is a probability for the emergence of a weak El Nino condition during the later part of the season and the development of a weak negative Indian Ocean Dipole event during the second half of the year.If these came true, they could have an adverse impact on the rainfall at the tail-end of the season.
    
    
• India asked to scale up treatment for HIV+ mothers
  • Appreciating India's efforts in providing treatment to HIV-affected people, UNAIDS on Thursday asked it to scale up its health care services for HIV+ mothers and children.

• UN keen to help India in dealing with Malaria and HIV
  • The United Nations would like to showcase India's experiences and best practices in dealing with maternal and child health issues for others to follow, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said.
  • Commending India's success in combating polio, Mr. Moon also offered to help India deal with diseases such as malaria, tetanus and measles and HIV-transmission related mortalit

• Even if consensual sexual contact with girl under 18 will be criminal offence
  • The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved tabling afresh in Parliament the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2011, which would make sexual contact with a girl below the age of 18 a criminal offence, even if it is consensual.
  • The original Bill provided for hefty monetary fines for the offenders, while the revised measure has left the decision on the quantum of fine to court discretion
  • The Bill had included domestic workers, and public and private sector workers — organised or unorganised — on the recommendation of the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
    
    
• One – fifth of the girls become mothers before adulthood says report
  • As many as 30 per cent of adolescent girls in India (aged between 15-19 years) were married, and at least 22 per cent women aged 20 to 24 became mothers before attaining adulthood in India, says a UNICEF report.
  • The report by UNICEF, based on a survey conducted in the period 2000-2010, says only five per cent of male adolescents were married when compared to girls.
  • Released globally on Thursday, the report says 47 per cent women who are 20-24 years old, were married before they were 18 years old, and 18 per cent of women aged 20-24 years were married or were in union before they were 15 years old.
  • The UNICEF report also states that 12 per cent of males and females in the country between 2000 and 2010 were involved in child labour.
    
    
• PSLV – c-19 puts RISAT-1 in orbit
  • India's first indigenously built all-weather Radar Imaging Satellite, RISAT-1, with applications ranging from agriculture to natural disaster management, is now in polar orbit after its carrier, the PSLV-C19, was launched with clinical precision from the Sriharikota spaceport of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
  • RISAT-1, weighing 1,858 kg and the heaviest satellite launched yet by the PSLV, is a state-of-the-art Active Microwave Remote Sensing Satellite carrying a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) that will operate in the C-band.
  • The PSLV C-19 is the 21st flight in the PSLV series of satellite launches, the 20th consecutive successful launch and the third to involve the high-end version (PSLV-XL) equipped with six extended strap-on motors, each carrying 12 tonnes of solid propellant. The two earlier flights of the PSLV-XL were used to launch Chandrayaan-1 and the GSAT-12 communication satellite.
    
    
• GSLV launch with indian cryogenic engine planned
  • The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is confident of using an indigenous cryogenic engine to propel its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicles (GSLV) by September-October this year
  • As part of this, the GSLV will undergo an endurance test of 1,000 seconds and a vacuum test at a special facility at the Liquid Propellant System Centre at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu.
  • However, India's second moon mission Chandrayaan-2, slated for 2014, would have to wait until the ISRO carried out GSLV flights successfully

• Tamil Nadu womens stars in satellite launch
  • As India's first indigenously-developed Radar Imaging Satellite RISAT-1 nestled in its orbit hundreds of kilometres above the earth, here on terra firma, the woman from Tamil Nadu, responsible for the feat, too, turned into a star in her own right
  • N. Valarmathi, ISRO's Bangalore-based Project Director for the space mission, was hounded by journalists and television crews
  • Ms. Valarmathi is the second woman to be the satellite project director at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) after T. K. Anuradha, who headed the communication satellite GSAT-12 programme, but she is the first woman to head a remote sensing satellite project.

INTERNATIONAL

• Turkey's Gulen movement sees a smear campaign
  • As the endgame in Turkey's transition to a mature democracy nears, media attacks have sharpened against the Gulen movement — a mass mobilisation vehicle that has, over the years, openly and peacefully challenged the concentration of privileges among the military-backed old guard. Simultaneously, the movement has offered a socio-political alternative based on inclusivity, growth

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS AND COLUMNS

• An article on the growing line of treaties that are becoming problematic in India
• Editorial on the growing land issues

ECONOMICS

• TAPI fee likely to be finalized by next month
  • With India, Pakistan and Afghanistan reaching a broad understanding on the issue of transit fee for import of natural gas through the proposed $7.6 billion Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (TAPI) pipeline project, the nations concerned are likely to meet next month to sort out the issue and give it a final shape.
  • All the three nations had met in Islamabad early this month to work out the issue of transit fee but no breakthrough could be achieved as India showed its reluctance to accept and pay the transit fee being asked by Afghanistan. During the trilateral talks, India had declined to pay the 50 cents per million metric British thermal unit (mmBtu) as transit fee for the gas.
  • However, the Indian side is learnt to have offered to stretch its offer to 47 cents per mmBtu and had sought time to get the approval of the government before coming back to the negotiating table
  • The contract price of TAPI gas is linked to a formula which contains indices based on fuel basket and other indices which are not as volatile as crude oil. The formula is similar to the ones used in international contracts. The Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) relating to the TAPI pipeline, which includes, inter alia, the pricing of Turkmen gas has not been signed as yet.
  • The U.S. is backing the pipeline as an alternative to the India-Pakistan-Iran (IPI) pipeline that has been stalled for quite some time now due to U.S. pressure on India and Pakistan not to go ahead with the project. The 1,735 km pipeline will run from the Turkmenistan gas fields to Afghanistan. It will start from the Dauletabad gas fields and run into Afghanistan alongside the highway running from Heart to Kandahar and then via Quetta and Multan in Pakistan. The final destination will be Fazilka near India- Pakistan border
    
    
• Centre clears banking bill
  • The Union Cabinet, on Thursday, decided to retain the voting rights in the private sector banks at 10 per cent and felt it could be raised progressively to 26 per cent as suggested by the Standing Committee
  • In December last, the Parliamentary Standing on Finance had recommended raising voting rights of investors in private sector banks but with a cap of 26 per cent with a view to maintaining a balance between economic control and promoting corporate democracy.
  • The Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2011, introduced in the Lok Sabha in March, 2011, had proposed providing voting rights to investors commensurate with their shareholding in the private sector banks. At present, the voting right is capped at 10 per cent irrespective of the share holding in private sector banks.