Tuesday, June 26, 2012

HEADLINES

• Pranab Mukherjee receives affectionate farewell after 34 years of becoming a member of the Congress Working Committee; he will be filing his presidential nomination papers in the next 3 days
• Even as the Air India pilots went on a hunger strike on Monday, the Air India management and Union Civil Aviation Ministry stick to their stand that pilots should return to work unconditionally and end the strike
• Though its territorial jurisdiction is yet to be determined, elections to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), the new autonomous body for the Darjeeling hills, will be held on July 29

NATIONAL NEWS

• Study says PATH's claim of India burden of cervical cancer is faulty
  • A recent study has shown that the current available data on human papillomavirus (HPV) type and cervical cancer incidence do not support the epidemiological claims made by the Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) regarding India having a large burden of cervical cancer;
  • Cervical cancer is estimated to cause around 2,74,000 deaths a year, approximately 80% of which occur in the developing world. Guidelines for cervical cancer screening are implemented in few States in India. HPV is associated with cervical cancer and of the 100 HPV types, 18 have been categorised as high risk types or possible high risk types for cervical cancer. HPV types 16 and 18 are said to account for approximately 70% of all cervical cases in India;
  • The latest study shows that PATH's findings were not based of disclosed information and therefore could not be verified. Contrary to PATH’s claim, the overall incidence and mortality rate of cervical cancer is low in India.
• No new FDI likely in 2G spectrum auctions in August
  • Present signals strongly indicate that the upcoming 2G spectrum auctions in August will not attract any new foreign investors and only existing operators will bid for the telecom licenses that are being auctioned in August. This means that in the current fiscal, the telecom sector, which was once one of the leading sources of foreign direct investment in India, will fail to deliver. Sources cite the following reasons for the for the decline:
    • he lack of clarity on crucial issues such as the reserve price and final slots available till just weeks before the scheduled start of the auctions has been the biggest deterrent, since no serious player can plan multi-billion dollar bids in a hurry;
    • the hike in the FDI limit in telecom to 74% in 2005 is another impediment, since long-term telecom investors with pan-India ambitions need at least $12–15 billion for operations, build-out and consolidation beyond acquiring start-up spectrum. In 2006, Vodafone had invested roughly $12 billion to acquire Hutchison’s stake in Hutch-Essar. Consequently, the Indian partner is minimally required to bring in $3–4 billion into the venture, though as a minority partner in a business whose gestation is long, with recent financial parameters, including return on investment, Average Revenue Per User (ARPUs) and Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization margins under squeeze;
    • the absence of any merger and acquisition (M&A) guidelines. Any foreign investor would need 2G spectrum beyond these auctions, requiring clarity on M&A norms to acquire or merge with other operators to obtain spectrum beyond start-up, along with an existing customer base;
    • uncertainty arising out of the governments’ Presidential Reference against the Supreme Court 2G licence cancellation verdict has further complicated matters. Nearly 80 telecom licences remain under legal threat of cancellation, withdrawal of spectrum, or a possible retrospective hike in one-time costs of spectrum, owing to the Presidential Reference. Till the Supreme Court decides on the issue, no foreign company can partner with existing operators to bid for spectrum — since most companies’ existing assets face uncertainty;
    • foreign companies will be hard put to find a local partner and navigate the lengthy Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance process in just one month before the auctions begin in August.
• Nirmal Bharat status to be gained in ten years: Jairam Ramesh
  • Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has said the country will take at least 10 years to achieve the Nirmal Bharath status, when all the 2.4 lakh grama panchayats in the nation could be declared free of open defecation under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA);
  • Mr. Ramesh said only 28,000 grama panchayats, constituting a mere 12 per cent, were currently declared as Nirmal Grama Panchayats;
  • The task ahead was a huge one, given the fact that 60 per cent of the entire world’s open defecation happened in India, with around 70 per cent of the country’s women forced to resort to the routine for lack of toilets;
  • Stating that toilets should be made a constitutional right and compulsory too, Mr. Ramesh said no funds would be allowed under the Indira Awaz Yojana unless the intended beneficiaries had toilets;
  • Since there was increasing medical evidence showing that malnutrition was directly attributed to poor sanitation and non-hygienic practices, the scale of financial assistance under the programme to construct toilets had been hiked from Rs.3,500 to Rs.10,000 while APL and BPL distinctions were done away with. 70% of the grant will come from the centre and the rest will be from the states.
• IRCTC branches out to non-Railway sectors
  • As if to prove a point to the Railways, which divested it of the task of serving food on trains, the Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has started its services in non-Railway sectors, especially in educational institutions;
  • The IRCTC, a Mini Ratna corporation and a subsidiary of the Indian Railways that once served food on more than 300 trains daily, finds itself left with just a handful of trains after the Catering Policy 2010 vested the task with the Railways;
  • Far from disheartened, the IRCTC has branched out its services, bonding successfully with educational institutions and government offices. It has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian Institute of Management, Indore, for opening a cafeteria in the New Sports Complex of the institute. IRCTC has already been providing its service at the Institute of Secretariat & Training Management, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, Indian Institute of Public Administration and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, and in Pondicherry University and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram.
• Doctors across the country are on strike to oppose the National Council for Human Resources in Health (NCHRH) Bill 2011. The proposed National Council for Human Resources in Health will act as a supreme body in health sector

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Defections add to Syria-Turkey spat
  • The slide in ties between Turkey and Syria remains in focus after dozens of Syrian soldiers defected overnight to Turkey, a few days after the shooting down of a Turkish warplane increased tensions between the two neighbours;
  • Turkey’s Anatolia news agency is reporting that a general, two colonels, two majors and 30 soldiers crossed the border on Sunday night and entered the Hatay province, signalling that military defections from Syria is gathering momentum. Turkish authorities say 12 Syrian generals have already defected;
  • The timing of the latest defections fed into growing tensions between the two countries over the shooting down of a Turkish F-4 Phantom fighter jet on Friday by Syrian ground forces. Breaking from the path of studied restraint that both sides seemed to have exercised so far, a war of words began to simmer on Monday. The Syrian side openly contested Turkey’s assertion that its plane had been shot down outside Syrian airspace.
• Dhaka to honour Indian Colonel who rescued Hasina
  • Bangladesh will confer the Friends of Bangladesh Award on a retired Indian Army officer for his outstanding contributions in the 1971 war. Colonel Ashok Tara, now retired from service, rescued Sheikh Hasina, who is now Prime Minister, her mother Begum Fajilatunnesa Mujib, her sister Sheikh Rehana and her brother Sheikh Rasel from a house in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi where they were held captive by Pakistani military throughout the nine months of the country’s liberation war. A team led by Colonel Tara rescued them on December 17, a day after the Pakistani Army surrendered to the joint Bangladesh-India command in Dhaka;
  • Earlier this year, the Hasina government prepared a list of 561 “foreign friends” to be honoured. The highest national award, the ‘Bangladesh Freedom Honour’, was awarded to Indira Gandhi for her role in the country’s liberation. In March this year, the government conferred awards to a total of 83 individuals, institutions and organisations in two categories — the Bangladesh Liberation War Honour and the Friends of Liberation War Honour. The maximum number of individual awardees, 31, were from India followed by 15 from the United States, seven from the former Soviet Union, five from the United Kingdom, three from Japan, two from Germany and one each from Nepal, Bhutan, the former Yugoslavia, Italy, Sweden, Ireland and Denmark.
• Lonely death for Lonesome George
  • The giant tortoise Lonesome George — whose failed efforts to produce offspring made him a symbol of disappearing species — was found dead on Sunday, officials at the Galapagos National Park announced;
  • Lonesome George was believed to be the last living member of the Pinta island subspecies and had become an ambassador of sorts for the islands off Ecuador’s coast whose unique flora and fauna helped inspire Charles Darwin’s ideas on evolution;
  • The tortoise’s age was not known but scientists believed he was about 100, not especially old for giant tortoises, which can live well over a century. Scientists had expected him to live another few decades at least;
  • The Galapagos’ giant tortoise population was decimated after the arrival of humans but a recovery programme run by the park and the Charles Darwin Foundation has increased the overall population from 3,000 in 1974 to 20,000 today.
• Italian hospital conducts first fully robotic liver procedure
  • A medical transplant centre on the Italian island of Sicily said on Monday that it had carried out the world’s first partial liver transplant using only a robot to remove the organ of the donor;
  • The procedure, known as hepatectomy, was performed in March but the news was held until the recipient was given a clean bill of health and discharged from hospital, the centre said. This was the first time that an entire procedure of this nature has been undertaken by robotics.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article on the position of jurisdiction at high seas in light of the case of Italian marines shooting Indian fishermen
• Read this article on the strategic relationship between US-India
• Read this article on the validity of forced marriages in light of certain laws in the United Kingdom