Tuesday, April 17, 2012

HEADLINES

• The Opposition-ruled States used the annual Chief Ministers' meeting on internal security on Monday to focus attention again on their objections to the Centre's proposal to set up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre, saying it violated the principle of federalism
• Chief Ministers of non-Congress governments — Jayalalithaa (Tamil Nadu), Narendera Modi (Gujarat) and Naveen Patnaik (Odisha) — had separate meetings to discuss strategies to counter the Centre's move and uphold the States' autonomy
• Agni-V missile with a strike range of 5,000 km is being prepared for its maiden test likely on Wednesday

NATIONAL NEWS

• Akhilesh Yadav, UPs Chief Minister, seeks vigil along Nepal border
  • Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday expressed concern over the open border with Nepal and sought “special policing” by the Centre to check any anti-national activity along it. He pointed out that due to strict vigil on the country's borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, the possibility of anti-social and terrorist activity along the 550km open Indo-Nepal border has heightened;
  • He also sought assistance with intelligence, manpower and security apparatus for smooth conduct of the Kumbh Mela in 2013.
• India, UAE to draw up road map to bolster relations
  • India and the UAE on Monday sketched out the outlines of a road map, centred on a new partnership rooted in energy security and investments, to firm up their ties;
  • India was looking for larger volumes of crude imports from the UAE to meet its growing needs. Usually, these transactions take place in the form of annual contracts. The UAE has agreed to look at increasing the volumes when the next annual contract is due for review;
  • With investments of around a trillion dollars required over the next decade, India is looking for Abu Dhabi's participation in developing its infrastructure;
  • The two sides also proposed the establishment of a joint committee to address “consular issues” related to birth or death registration, travel documents, and “quasi-judicial” matters involving the detention or arrest of nationals of both countries.
• Start making profit, Sibal tells BSNL
  • Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), that is facing stiff competition from private players, has been asked by Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal to come up with projects that would help it write off losses and start making profit;
  • Due to its falling market share, the BSNL has seen its losses shooting up over three times, from Rs.1,823 crore in 2009-10 to Rs.5,997 crore in 2010-11. The company had clocked a net profit of over Rs.10,000 crore in 2005-06, but since then its financial performance has been declining;
  • A committee formed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and headed by his advisor Sam Pitroda had given several suggestions, including voluntary retirement scheme for the overstaffed company, public issue, expansion of mobile business and proper use of towers and land resources. The report is yet to be implemented.
• Killer drivers can't get away lightly any longer
  • Keeping in mind the Supreme Court's concerns, the Centre has initiated a move to amend the Indian Penal Code to provide for more stringent punishment to those inflicting deaths in road rage and accidents;
  • The court recently expressed displeasure at the failure of the legislature to enact stringent laws to deter fatal accidents that made innocent people pay the price for the risks taken by others. Road accidents claim a life every four minutes in India;
  • The court decreed that fatal accidents caused by drunken driving be punished with prison terms of up to 10 years and the offenders should not be let off with light sentences. Now the law provides for a maximum of five-year imprisonment for road offenders inflicting death, that is when the matter is reported. Most cases are still settled out of court;
  • The Law Commission too has recommended amendments to the IPC, stating the maximum punishment under Section 304(A) is not an adequate deterrent and prescribed that it be doubled to 10-year jail, and that the offence be made non-bailable. The minimum punishment for causing death under the influence of liquor should be two years' imprisonment.
• Be more friendly towards Indian investors, students, Indian Commerce Minister tells UK
  • India urged UK to create a more investment-friendly environment for Indian companies, pointing out that they often faced unnecessary legal and bureaucratic problems;
  • Union Minister for Commerce, Industry and Textiles Anand Sharma, who is in UK for the eighth round of the India-U.K. Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO), flagged up the concerns of Indian businesses during his talks with his British counterpart;
  • Calling for changes to the current restrictive regulatory environment for investments, Mr. Sharma pointed out that Indian companies which wanted to acquire companies in Britain faced legal hurdles and delays in getting clearance. He also complained of delays in visa clearance and referring to new restrictions on non-EU immigration, he said these adversely affected the operations of Indian companies;
  • He specifically referred to the U.K. Border Agency treating intra-company transfers of IT experts, professionals and highly skilled workers as prospective immigrants and said this had badly affected the performance of Indian companies operating in the U.K. He also expressed concern that this move may force Indian companies, especially IT companies, to relocate to other European capitals;
  • Mr. Sharma also told the Chancellor that the move to restrict post-study work permits for non-EU foreign students would hit Indian students. Many were now looking for options to study in other countries. He stressed that this development is expected to impact the U.K. universities where at present over 40,000 Indians students are studying;
  • Mr. Sharma said India was committed to creating investor-friendly environment and invited British companies to invest in infrastructure development projects in India such as the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and Bangalore-Chennai corridor.
• Urban planners want Rajasthan to focus on Rajiv Awas Yojana
  • Urban planners attached to an advocacy group on Panchayati Raj here on Monday called upon the Rajasthan Government to pay greater attention to the Centre's flagship scheme, Rajiv Awas Yojana, for providing affordable housing to slum dwellers in the cities. The focus of the Yojana is on according property rights to people living in slums;
  • The scheme is expected to cover about 250 cities with a population of more than one lakh across the country. As part of the scheme, the Union Government will provide financial assistance to the States willing to assign property rights to slum dwellers and take up slum re-development so as to create an affordable housing stock;
  • The entitlement to property and deletion of habitations from the list of slum localities after the creation of basic civic amenities such as pathways, water supply, toilets, brick houses and drainage and location in secure areas would be a significant step towards providing succour to the urban poor;
  • Though several slum improvement programmes have been launched in the State since 1973, their benefits have not accrued to the target population in the real terms.
• Flamingos come calling for summer in the lagoons of Rameshwaram
  • Flamingos have arrived in the Lagoons of Rameshwaram rather late this year. According to the officials of the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park (GMMNP), the arrival of foreign birds starts from November and they will move on to next destination from January end or first half of February. During this period, thousands of endangered birds, particularly flamingos from Russia and other European countries, would flock different coastal belts, bird sanctuaries of Tamil Nadu particularly the Gulf of Mannar.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• As campaigning for the French presidential election entered its final round, the two frontrunners — Conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and his Socialist challenger Francois Hollande — held massive rallies in the capital in a numbers war that most observers said was a draw
• Sudan brands South Sudan as an enemy
  • Clashes have spread along the border of Sudan and South Sudan, with Sudanese officials claiming to have seized an area sympathetic to South Sudan. Fighting along the north-south border has been near constant over the past two weeks;
  • The Sudan Media Centre also reported that Sudan's Army took control of Mugum, a stronghold of the southern army in Blue Nile State, which is near South Sudan's border;
  • The government of South Sudan is an enemy, Sudan's Parliament voted unanimously. When the South became independent Khartoum lost about 75 per cent of its oil production and billions of dollars in revenue, leaving the economy reeling and Heglig as its main remaining oil centre. South Sudan disputes that Heglig is part of the north's territory.
• Intolerant Governments a threat says co-founder of Google
  • The growing tendency among governments around the world to control access to the Internet poses a threat to the very principle of openness that “underpinned” its creation, Google's co-founder Sergey Brin has warned;
  • The threat came not only from increasingly intolerant governments but also the likes of Facebook and Apple which tightly controlled the software that could be put on the net. The entertainment industry's crackdown on piracy also contributed to the shrinking openness on the net;
  • Mr. Brin singled out Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and Russia for attempting to restrict their citizens' access to the Internet. But he was equally concerned about the impact of the way Facebook and Apple tried to control access through their “proprietary platforms”;
  • Mr. Brin admitted that there were concerns about the amount of personal data that the American government could access because of its availability on Google's servers but said the company did “everything possible” to protect such data.
• Transitional council in Guinea – Bissau
  • The army and opposition parties in Guinea-Bissau will dissolve all existing institutions and set up a National Transitional Council, a spokesman for both sides said;
  • The size and composition of the council, as well as the duration of its mandate, would be determined at a meeting on Monday among the political parties, who would then take their proposals to the junta;
  • Two committees had been set up to run the country in the period leading up to the creation of the transitional council: one would handle diplomatic affairs; the other social issues;
  • The diplomatic committee would meet on Monday with delegates from the West African bloc ECOWAS, which has already denounced last Thursday's coup and called for a return to constitutional rule. ECOWAS has also said the presidential election, which was disrupted, should be put back on track;
  • The Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west. It covers 36,125 km² (nearly 14,000 sq mi) with an estimated population of 1,600,000. Guinea-Bissau was once part of the kingdom of Gabu, as well as part of the Mali Empire. Parts of this kingdom persisted until the 18th century, while a few others were part of the Portuguese Empire since the 16th century. It then became the Portuguese colony of Portuguese Guinea in the 19th century. Upon independence, declared in 1973 and recognised in 1974, the name of its capital, Bissau, was added to the country's name to prevent confusion with the bordering Republic of Guinea;
  • Guinea-Bissau has a history of political instability since gaining independence and no elected president has successfully served a full five-year term. On the evening of 12 April 2012, members of the country's military staged a coup and arrested the interim president and a leading presidential candidate. The military has yet to declare a current leader for the country. Only 14% of the population speaks the official language, Portuguese. A plurality of the population (44%) speaks Kriol, a Portuguese-based creole language, and the remainder speak native African languages. The main religions are African traditional religions and Islam, and there is a Christian (mostly Catholic) minority. The country's per-capita gross domestic product is one of the lowest in the world;
  • Guinea-Bissau is a member of the African Union, Economic Community of West African States, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Latin Union, Community of Portuguese Language Countries, La Francophonie and the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article on the fears in the region of an Afghanistan without NATO forces
• Read this article on the RTE
• Read this editorial on the coup in Mali
• If you have time, quickly look at this article which discusses pro-activeness of MPs in Parliament

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• TRAI seeks powers to issue telecom licences
  • With the Centre yet to finalise the new telecom policy, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Monday, said it should be given the task of granting telecom licences, even as the regulator recommended three levels of unified licence for the telecom sector.;
  • “In the new licensing regime, as the spectrum has been delinked from the licence, it has been recommended that TRAI should be entrusted with the function of granting all types of unified licences,” the telecom sector regulator said while issuing its recommendations on ‘Guidelines for unified licence/class licence and migration of existing licences';
  • Similarly, in the framework of unified licence, TRAI has recommended that there will be three levels — national level, service area level and district level. “One time non-refundable entry fee for unified licence shall be (a) Rs.15 crore for national level unified licence; (b) Rs.1 crore for each service area level unified licence except for Jammu & Kashmir and North East Service areas where the entry fee will be Rs.50 lakh each, and (c) Rs.10 lakh for each district level unified licence,” it said in its recommendations forwarded to the Department of Telecommunications;
  • Notably, in its recommendations on “Spectrum management and licensing framework,” issued in mid-2010, TRAI had recommended that all future licences should be unified licences and that spectrum be delinked from the licence. This was accepted by DoT, which had then asked the regulator for detailed guidelines on the new licensing regime. After discussing with telecom companies and other stakeholders, TRAI has now forwarded its final recommendations that will shape the future course of the Indian telecom sector;
  • Earlier, DoT used to issue separate licences for separate services, and in case of mobile services, spectrum came bundled with licences. This lead to the entire 2G scam.
• India seeks strategic investment ties with Qatar for petro projects
  • India has offered Qatar stake in some of the major petro projects, including the petrochemicals complex at Dahej in Gujarat, Indian Oil Corporation's (IOC's) LNG project in Ennore, Tamil Nadu, BPCL's petrochemical project in Kochi, petrochemical project in Mangalore and investment opportunity in the Paradip refinery and petrochemical project to further enhance its strategic partnership and ties. These big ticket investment offers were made to Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani during his talks with the Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Jaipal Reddy;
  • According to official documents, India offered to Qatar a strategic partnership in the Dahej petrochemical complex being developed in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is the promoter of the project on the West Coast. The estimated cost of the project is around $4.25 billion. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2013;
  • The government has sought the co-operation of Qatar for long-term supplies of LNG for the IOC's LNG project at Ennore in Tamil Nadu. IOC is pursuing a 2.5 million metric tonnes per annum (mmtpa) (expandable to 5 mmtpa) LNG import and re-gasification terminal. Ennore Port Ltd. has earmarked the land for LNG storage and re-gasification terminal and water front for the LNG jetty. Feasibility studies and management approval process for the project are under progress.