Thursday, May 31st, 2012

HEADLINES

• Pakistan looks to India for polio eradication being one of the three countries where polio is still prevalent; The other two being Nigeria and Afganistan

NATIONAL NEWS

• Death sentences over the years have decreased
  • The number of countries still carrying out death penalty has come down to 20 (out of 198 countries) in 2011 from 41 in 1995.
  • Of 18,750 condemned prisoners the world over, 676 were executed in 2011 by 20 countries and this excludes China where thousands went to the gallows including those for non-violent crimes like corruption and drug trafficking.
  • India has not carried out any death sentence since 2004 after a young man was hanged in Kolkata for rape and murder of a school girl.
  • According to Amensty International, an international human rights organisation, the number of people executed in China exceeds the total number of death penalties carried out by other countries last year. The number of executions in West Asia has also increased by 50% compared to 2010.
  • During 2011, 360 prisoners lost their lives due to death sentence in Iran, followed by Saudi Arabia 82, Iraq 68, US 43, Yemen 41, North Korea 30, Somalia 10, Sudan 7, Bangladesh, Vietnam, South Sudan and Taiwan each 5, Singapore 4, Palestine Authority 3, Afghanistan and Belarus 2, and Egypt and UAE one each.
  • While the US is the only country which still carries out the death sentence among G8 countries, in Europe, Belarus is the only one that still has execution in its statue books, the human rights body regretted.
    
    
• India – Iran talks to bypass western sanctions on Tehran
  • India and Iran plan to hold intensive discussions on bypassing western sanctions on Tehran's oil trade during Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi's two-day visit from Thursday. The two sides are also likely to touch on joint efforts to combat piracy off the Gulf of Aden which has impacted their merchant shipping operations.
    
    
• Ganga hydro power projects may be asked to reduce their power generation
  • All hydroelectric projects on the Ganga could be asked to reduce their power generation — possibly up to 50 per cent of capacity — in an effort to provide a clean and continuous flow of the river's waters, if a proposal by Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan is found to be legally viable.
  • CPCB(Central pollution control board) has been told to provide zero-discharge of industrial effluents into the river by October this year.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS AND COLUMNS

• An article on the rights of the third gender
• Article on the Peruvian terrorist organisation “Shining path's” latest attempt to enter electoral politics
• Editorial on death penalty
• Editorial on universal health coverage programme