Sunday, June 24, 2012

HEADLINES

• The rupee hits a record low of Rs.57.11 against the dollar; Finance Minister says that some measures will be taken to improve the market condition
• As the Air India pilots strike enters its 47th day, pilots will go on hunger strike calling for the Govt to meet their demands
• Rio+20 summit dubbed a failure

NATIONAL NEWS

• TISS Report points to anti-muslim bias by the police
  • A report on Muslim prisoners in Maharashtra jails by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) establishes that most of them do not have connections with criminal gangs, and points to an acute bias of the police for arresting them in some cases only because they belong to a particular community;
  • A Study of the Socio Economic Profile and Rehabilitation Needs of Muslim Community in Prisons in Maharashtra, 2011, from the Centre for Criminology and Justice School of Social Work, TISS, states that 96% of the respondents have not been held under preventive detention charges, thus indicating that they are not viewed as a threat to law and order;
  • The study which surveyed 339 Muslims, mostly between 18 and 30 years of age, in 15 prisons says this implies that most respondents do not have connections with criminal gangs or have any record which may be a threat to law and order. About 25.4 per cent of those imprisoned don’t have lawyers to represent them in their cases.
• Russia completes India's submariine modernisation programme
  • The INS Sindhurakshak submarine came off the slips at the Zvezdochka shipyard in Severodvinsk on Saturday, marking the completion of a mid-life refit programme for the Indian Navy’s Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines in Russia;
  • During a 2 year in-depth modernisation the torpedo-firing INS Sindhurakshak, built in 1997, has been equipped with the tube-launched Club-S cruise missiles effective against surface vessels and submarines at a range of about 200 km. It has also been provided with some Indian-made systems, including a hydro-acoustic “USHUS” complex, a CCS-MK radio-communication system and Porpoise Electronic Support Measures. After going through sea trials and firing tests the submarine will be handed over to the Indian Navy later this year;
  • The INS Sindhurakshak is the seventh and the last of the 10 Kilo-class submarines that India bought from Russia between 1986 and 2000 to have undergone mid-term repairs and modernisation in Russia. Of the remaining three submarines one was repaired in India and the two others are currently under repair in India.
• Rediscovered tree still extinct on IUCN Red List
  • A rare tree rediscovered from Kerala 14 years ago is still categorised as Extinct on the Red List of International Union for Conservation of Nature. The latest version of the list released early this week has described Cynometra beddomeii , “a large tree, which has only ever been recorded from Tambacherry Ghat” as regionally extinct in Kerala. It had also stated that the plant has “not been found since 1870, despite intensive explorations”;
  • Incidentally, a team of scientists of the Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI), Thrissur, have rediscovered the tree from a few locations in Kerala, including Thiruvananthapuram and Wayanad in 1998. According to N. Sasidharan, programme coordinator, Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation of the institute, who rediscovered the tree, a few trees of the species were identified at Thamarassery Ghat and Agasthyamala of Thiruvananthapuram.
  • It needs to be reclassified as Critically Endangered or Endangered following its rediscovery. However, that had not happened in this case.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Turkey avoids direct confrontation over the shooting down its warplane in Syria
  • The shooting of a Turkish warplane threatened, on Saturday, to escalate the Syrian conflict at a time when a proposal to include Iran in a fresh round of diplomacy was encountering stiff resistance among regional countries who seemed more inclined to pursue a military option to resolve the crisis;
  • The measured response could be attributed to the likelihood of a full-scale conflict involving regional and extra-regional players. Analysts pointed out that Turkey is a NATO member and its engagement in war with Syria could drag the entire western military alliance into an armed conflict.
• USD 163 billion European Union Growth plan
  • The leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Spain agreed to push for a growth package worth up to $163 billion at a key EU summit next week aimed at kickstarting the economy and safeguarding the currency bloc.
• Paraguay's President Lugo impeached
  • Paraguay’s Senate removed President Fernando Lugo from office in a rapid impeachment trial on Friday. The Senate tried Mr. Lugo on five charges of malfeasance in office, including an alleged role in a deadly confrontationbetween police and landless farmers that left 17 dead.

EMINENT PERSONS IN THE NEWS

• Read this article about Sunil Janah, a photographer who gained fame for his work during the famine in Bengal during 1940s
• Read this article about Sunita Williams who is all set to return to the international space station where she spent 6 months in 2006