Friday, 6th July, 2012

HEADLINES

• Pakistan offers joint probe into 26/111
• UK bans Indian Mujahideen

NATIONAL NEWS

• Jayalalitha wants training for Sri Lankan personnel scrapped
  • Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Thursday took exception to Sri Lankan Air Force personnel being trained at the Air Force base at Tambaram
    
    
• Sibal offers dialogue with lawyers on bill
  • Faced with stiff opposition from lawyers to the Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has offered a dialogue with the members of the bar associations to clear their apprehensions
  • The Bill aims to subsume the functions of the University Grants Commission, the All India Council of Technical Education, the National Council for Teacher Education and the Distance Education Council within the National Commission for Higher Education and Research.
    
    
• Centre has nothing to do with Thorat panel report : Sibal
  • Nearly a week after the panel constituted to review cartoons in social sciences textbooks of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) recommended the removal of several cartoons, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal, said that the Centre had nothing to do with the issue
  • The panel headed by former chairperson of the University Grants Commission (UGC) S.K. Thorat had ordered the removal of several cartoons claiming that they were “ambiguous, negative or show politicians and bureaucrats in an incorrect way”.
    
    
• Fact finding team for halt to Tata Mundra power project
  • An independent fact-finding team has called for suspension of work related to the upcoming 4,000 MW Tata Mundra Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP) in Gujarat, citing “serious social and environmental violations”.
  • Members of the fishing and pastoralist communities are being affected as access to fishing and grazing areas has been blocked or diverted.
  • The group has alleged that the social and environmental impact assessments are “misleading and erroneous” and excluded a large number of communities whose livelihood is being affected by the project.
  • The report said the project has caused drastic reduction in fish catches, failed to thoroughly examine the health and environment impacts of fly-ash contamination, ignored the potential impacts of radioactivity from the coal ash and violated the environmental clearance by adopting a one-through cooling system
  • It has also recommended compensating all local people for the loss of livelihood, creating a fund for the restoration of destroyed mangroves, deployment of all possible pollution control measures on a war footing to save this fragile zone from further damage and unconditional restoration of people's access to fishing and grazing grounds and salt-pans.
    
    
• India – Pakistan resolved to prevent cross border firing
  • The Border Security Force and the Pakistan Rangers have decided to prevent cross-border firing and step up border domination to prevent smuggling, said a joint statement issued on Thursday after the conclusion of five-day Director General-level talks between the two forces.
  • “Efforts will be made to ensure that no such instance of firing along the border takes place…and if at all a ceasefire violation happens, such an instance will be nipped in the bud so that it does not aggravate,”
  • During the talks, which were for the first time organised in Delhi, India also raised issues of drug trafficking and smuggling of arms and fake Indian currency and asked Pakistan to act strictly against such activities
  • During the meeting, the two sides also agreed to pursue the issue of early release and repatriation of fishermen apprehended on both sides for crossing international borders, besides enhancing mutual confidence and understanding and building synergy between both the border guarding forces

• UGC set standard for tie ups with foreign universities
  • The University Grants Commission (Promotion and Maintenance of Standards of Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign educational Institutions) Regulations, 2012 approved in June will ensure that academic collaboration between Indian and foreign educational institutes followed the highest standards
  • The regulations mandate that only institutes graded ‘A’ by the National Board of Accreditation or the National Assessment and Accreditation Council can collaborate with foreign institutes, which, in turn, must figure in the list of top 500 global educational institutes, as ranked by the Times Higher Education Rankings or the Shanghai Rankings.
  • Students will not only get a degree from the Indian institute where they are enrolled but also from the collaborating foreign institute, if it is inclined to give one. No programme of study and research shall be offered which is against national security and territorial integrity of India.
  • The two institutions (Indian and its foreign collaborator) will have to enter into an agreement which will have to be approved by the UGC before it is implemented. The approval will be valid for 5 years and the Commission may review the progress made and periodically inform the agencies concerned about the results of such a review. After the expiry of this period, the UGC may extend or withdraw the approval or impose such other conditions for extension, as may deem fit. The regulations make clear that no franchise arrangement will be allowed.
  • Existing tie-ups through the Indian institutions will have six months to meet the new eligibility criteria. In case they fail to do so, they will have to terminate the agreements. Institutions that refuse to comply with the new regulations can lose UGC funding, de-recognition in case of a deemed university, and public notices announcing the ineligibility of the institution to enter into collaborations with foreign partners.
  • Disputes arising in relation to collaboration will be settled as per Indian laws.

• Mauritius assures India to resolve tax controversy
  • Mauritius has assured India of its readiness to resolve the controversy over its tax treaties and appreciated New Delhi’s help to bolster its security and safety.
  • The issue that was discussed earlier would again be brought up at a scheduled joint working group meeting next month
  • The issue at stake is capital gains tax. The India-Mauritius tax treaty says capital gains accruing in India from investments sourced from Mauritius can only be taxed in that country. As Mauritius does not tax capital gains, investments routed through it are not taxed

INTERNATIONAL

• China pledges aid to cuba
  • China on Thursday pledged financial aid to Cuba as it undertakes historic economic reforms, promising visiting President Raul Castro a new credit line as well as help in health care and technology
  • The offers were announced after a meeting between Mr. Castro and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao during which the two leaders spoke warmly about the strong ties between the long-time Communist allies.

• Fukushima was a man made disaster
  • Last year’s Fukushima nuclear accident was a manmade disaster caused by Japan’s culture of “reflexive obedience” and not just the tsunami that hit the plant, a damning parliamentary report said on Thursday.
  • Ingrained collusion between plant operator Tokyo Electric Power, the government and regulators, combined with a lack of any effective oversight led directly to the worst nuclear accident in a generation, the report said.
  • “We believe that the root causes were the organisational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions,” it said.
  • “They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly ‘manmade’,” said the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS AND COLUMNS

• Article on death row convicts
• A nice article on TB
• An article on EU and what it needs now
• Editorial on the god particle
• Editorial on filling up SC seats in central universities