Tuesday, May 1, 2012

HEADLINES

• Abducted Chhattisgarh collector to be released soon based on an agreement between the Maoists and the State Govt
• President Pratibha Patil on Monday re-appointed Goolam E. Vahanvati Attorney-General for two more years with effect from June 8

NATIONAL NEWS

• E-waste Management Rules kick in today
  • Disposal of e-waste is a critical issue the country is facing today, with rapid technological advancement and growing obsolescence rate of electronics and electrical goods. The country is saddled with huge toxic waste, estimated to be more than 8 million tonnes;
  • The e-waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 2011 will come into effect from May 1, 2012. The rules were notified in May 2011 and aim at reduction in the use of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment by specifying threshold for use of hazardous material including lead, mercury and cadmium. These rules were notified in advance to give the various stakeholders adequate time to prepare themselves and also to put in place the required infrastructure;
  • They will apply to every producer, consumer or bulk consumer, collection centre, dismantler and recycler of e-waste involved in the manufacture, sale, purchase and processing of electrical and electronic equipment or components. The rules place the main responsibility of e-waste management on the producers of the electrical and electronic equipment by introducing the concept of “extended producer responsibility” (EPR);
  • However, they will not apply to lead acid batteries as covered under the batteries (Management and Handling) Rules, 2001, micro and small enterprises as defined in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006 and radio-active wastes as covered under the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962;
  • Sectors like information and telecommunications equipment and consumer electrical and electronics falling within the specified categories will have to ensure that the products do not contain lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, poly-brominated biphenyls or poly-brominated di-phenyl ethers above a specified threshold;
  • EPR is the main feature of the rules, wherein the producer of electrical and electronic equipment is given the responsibility of managing such equipment after its end of life; thus the producer is responsible for their products once the consumer discards them. Under EPR, the producer is also entrusted with the responsibility to finance and organise a system to meet the costs involved in complying with EPR.
• Bt Brinjal poses a risk to health and environment: says Greenpeace report
  • An independent enquiry has revealed that the cultivation of genetically engineered Bt brinjal poses risks to the environment and possibly to human health. The occurrence of wild, weedy and also cultivated relatives presents a likelihood that the GE Bt gene will spread to these relatives but, so far, this has largely been overlooked in the risk assessments for GE Bt brinjal, the report says;
  • Genetically engineered Bt brinjal and the implications for plant biodiversity – revisited , an independent study commissioned by Greenpeace International, finds that brinjal relatives do occur in the regions where cultivation of GE Bt brinjal is proposed, and that GE Bt brinjal may mate with these relatives to spread the GE Bt gene. Spread of the GE Bt gene would have considerable ecological implications, as well as implications for future crop contamination and farmers' rights;
  • Importantly, the spread of the GE Bt gene could result in the brinjal becoming an aggressive and problematic weed, the Greenpeace report suggests, while impressing upon the governments the need to employ the precautionary principle and not permit any authorisation of the outdoor cultivation of GE Bt brinjal, including field trials;
  • The cultivation of GE Bt brinjal is proposed in some countries across Asia, including India, where there is currently a moratorium on commercialisation, and the Philippines, where field trials are going on. “There are many concerns with GE brinjal, which has been engineered to be resistant to certain insect pests using Bt genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. These concerns include food safety and possible effects on organisms other than the pest insect (non-target organisms), such as beneficial insects and butterflies”;
• India reaches out to Seychelles
  • India on Monday extended a $50-million line of credit and a $25-million grant to Seychelles during President Pratibha Patil's ongoing three-day visit here in a bid to forge economic and strategic ties with this island nation in the Indian Ocean. It has also offered to set up a mono rail project, a solar power cluster and a dam in this country of 116 islands;
  • In defence cooperation, the official said India had in February offered to provide one more Dornier aircraft. It would also be setting up a Coastal Surveillance Radar System with the Automatic Identification System through Bharat Electronics Limited within the next six to eight months. This would help track unidentified vessels in the seas and help curb piracy.
• Navy commissions full-scale station at Lakshadweep
  • As part of its efforts to augment the security of the strategically significant Lakshadweep archipelago, the Navy commissioned a full-scale naval base, INS Dweeprakshak, at Kavaratti;
  • The Navy has been operating a detachment at Kavaratti since the 1980s. With the commissioning of INS Dweeprakshak, the island territories will witness calibrated strengthening of assets in tandem with their growing relevance to the security calculus of the nation;
  • He said the Navy had put in place radar stations and other surveillance measures across the island chain to monitor shipping traffic and gather operational intelligence.
• A report by the Assam Forest Department and biodiversity conservation group Aaranyak and WWF has said that Kaziranga has 118 tigers were recorded in the reserve over the three year-period. The figure includes six tigers which died during the monitoring period

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Sign nuclear non-poliferation treaty, Japan tells India
  • Japan on Monday asked India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even as the two sides decided to reopen talks on a bilateral civil nuclear agreement;
  • During the sixth Foreign Minister-level strategic dialogue, the two sides agreed to prepare a master plan for the industrial development of south India, especially areas around Chennai and Bangalore, and accelerate talks on export of rare earths to Japan;
  • Another decision was to extend their dialogue to a code of conduct in outer space, cyber security and maritime issues, including security and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. The talks also covered Japanese investment in high speed trains, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and the Dedicated Freight Corridor. While agreeing to step up interaction between the Coast Guards, India and Japan decided to hold their first-ever maritime exercises towards the middle of the year.
• Switzerland agrees to ease secret account disclosure norms
  • In a step that is expected to make tracking down tax evaders easier and effectively combat the black money menace, the government on Monday announced that Switzerland had agreed to provide details of secret bank accounts of individuals sought by India even on the basis of “limited” information, under a mutual agreement inked on April 20 this year;
  • According to a Indian Finance Ministry statement here, Switzerland has “agreed to provide liberal interpretation on the identity requirements, that it is sufficient if the requesting state identifies the person by other means than by indicating the name and address of the person concerned, and indicates to the extent known, the name and address of any person believed to be in possession of the requested information”;
  • This marks a significant easing of disclosure norms, as under the existing revised bilateral treaty signed under the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), the requesting State has to compulsorily provide the name of the person under examination and the name of the foreign holder of the information as part of the identity requirements without which the information will not be shared by the other country.
• The fate of the ceasefire in Syria continues to hang in the balance with neither the government nor the opposition demonstrating the will to halt sporadic violence
• Aung San Suu Kyi said she and other lawmakers in her opposition party will attend Myanmar's Parliament on Wednesday for the first time and will take the oath of office though they still fiercely dispute its wording

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this editorial on the ineffectiveness of the law prohibiting manual scavenging
• Read this article on the open flouting of labour laws in the construction industry