Wednesday, June 13th, 2012

HEADLINES

• Mamta meets Sonia to decide on presidential candidate, while NDA appears divided on that issue
• Indian human rights activists Binayak Sen and Bulu Imam will be honoured with the International Peace Award given by the Gandhi Foundation at the House of Lords

NATIONAL NEWS

• Centre vouches for the safety of the kudankulam project
  • The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project is well protected from tsunami or other natural disasters, the Centre submitted before the Madras High Court.
  • The KKNPP had advanced safety systems that would shut down the reactor, remove decay heat from the core and mitigate any accidents. A Chernobyl-type accident was ruled out. The advanced safety features would prevent any serious incident. Countering the petitioners' averments to the contrary, the affidavit said that the KKNPP was located beyond 1,500 km of an epicentre that might generate a tsunami like the one that struck the Fukushima plant in Japan, where it was just about 110 km from the epicentre
    
    
• Sibal,Pitroda pitch for Indian education and growth
  • On the eve of the first-ever India-U.S. Higher Education Dialogue on Tuesday the buzzword of choice for Kapil Sibal, the Minister for Human Resource Development and Communications and IT, was “meta-universities.”
  • A constant theme that Mr. Sibal and his colleague, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Adviser Sam Pitroda, alluded to was the need for “frugal innovation” that could provide low-cost solutions to benefit those at the bottom of the pyramid in India
    
    
• Obama – Singh knowledge awards
  • Indian officials joined their counterparts at the State Department to announce, with much fanfare, the first eight institutional partnership projects awarded under the flagship educational partnership between India and the U.S. — the Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative.
  • Each project will receive an award of approximately $250,000, officials said, and those funds could be utilised over the three-year grant period to “encourage mutual understanding, educational reform, and economic growth, as well as the development of junior faculty.
  • The bi-national Joint Working Group created to implement the initiative is charged with providing final approval for all grants awarded and will allocate the $10 million over five years awarding 8 to 10 university partnership grants annually, officials said
    
    
• India- pakistan differ over modalities on demilitarising siachen
  • A joint statement issued at the end of the talks said the two sides agreed to continue dialogue on Siachen in keeping with the desire of the leaders of both countries for early resolution of outstanding issues. Both sides acknowledged that the ceasefire was holding since 2003.
    
    
• US gives India the Iran exception it did nt ask for
  • On the eve of the bilateral Strategic Dialogue, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton included India in a select group of seven nations granted an “exception” from a requirement in the U.S.' 2012 National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) that any nation importing a significant amount of oil from Iran be slapped with sanctions from next month onwards.
  • On Monday, Ms. Clinton said along with India, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan “have all significantly reduced their volume of crude oil purchases from Iran,”
  • While the exception granted may lead to fewer frictions in the Strategic Dialogue discussions that are already under way and will culminate on Wednesday, officials earlier hinted that India continued to remain in compliance with United Nations sanctions against Iran but refused to recognise any country-specific sanctions overlay above this globally accepted level.

• Finance ministry to start telecom lending against severe odds
  • In order to mitigate the stress in the telecom sector, particularly with respect to a near freeze on bank funding, the Union Finance Ministry has asked the Department of Telecom (DoT) to provide greater security to lenders in the event of termination of licence.
  • Spectrum sharing and a spectrum allotment policy that addresses efficiency of usage and spectrum shortage in 2G, coupled with speedy utilisation of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to facilitate rapid rural network expansion by the operators have also been strongly recommended to the DoT

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS AND COLUMNS

• Article on protecting the western ghats
• Article on the recent controversy of marriageable age in the Islamic law
• Editorial on siachen issue
• An opinion on India – Japan naval engagement
• Editorial on vocational education