HEADLINES

• Both Pranab and Sangma's nomination kept pending in light of objections raised
• TMC to decide on its presidential candidate 3 days before the election
• Sharad Pawar recuses himself from Telecom EGoM due to allegations of his linkage to the 2G scam
• As the EU sanctions on Iran kick in from July 1, Iran remains defiant on maintaining its independence

NATIONAL NEWS

• Under pressure, service tax relief for Railways
  • Ahead of the Presidential election, the Trinamool Congress has successfully pressured the Union government into granting yet another term of exemption of service tax on high-end passenger fares and cargo freight for three months;
  • The Finance Ministry issued a notification to the effect exempting high-end passenger fares and cargo freight from the purview of service tax till September 30.
• Decision on World Heritage status for Rajasthan forts next year
  • The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee has referred the Rajasthan Government’s submission for World Heritage Site status for five hill forts in the desert State to its next session in 2013 with some additional queries;
  • The State’s hill forts were among the two nominations from India – the other being the Western Ghats comprising 38 forest reserve areas – to the WHC this year. The five forts – Amber, Ranthambhore, Gagron, Chittorgarh and Kumbhalgarh – occupy an important place in medieval Indian history;
  • The UNESCO added the Western Ghats as a World Heritage Site at the same meeting. With the inclusion of Western Ghats, the number of World Heritage Sites in India recognised by UNESCO has gone up to 29. These are places of cultural or natural heritage importance as described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention established in 1972;
  • India signed the convention on November 14, 1977. The country’s first two sites inscribed on the World Heritage Sites list in 1983 were the Agra Fort and the Ajanta Caves. Of the 29 sites recognised so far, 23 are cultural locations and six are natural places.
• Western Ghats area infrastructure should stick to heritage norms
  • The World Heritage Committee (WHC), which inscribed the Western Ghats as a World Heritage Site, has asked India to ensure that infrastructure development in the area is in tune with the Operational Guidelines of the World Heritage Convention. The suggestion came from the ongoing WHC meeting at St. Petersburg, Russia;
  • The WHC has urged India to ensure that any proposed infrastructure development is “subject to rigorous prior impact assessments,” to determine if it is “appropriate, including via reporting to the World Heritage Committee in line with paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines”;
  • Paragraph 172 suggests that countries inform the WHC of “their intention to undertake or to authorize in an area protected under the Convention major restorations or new constructions which may affect the Outstanding Universal Value of the property. Notice should be given as soon as possible and before making any decisions that would be difficult to reverse, so that the Committee may assist in seeking appropriate solutions to ensure that the Outstanding Universal Value of the property is fully preserved.”
• E-filing of returns a must for income over Rs.10 lakhs
  • The Central Board of Direct Taxes has made e-filing of income-tax returns mandatory for all assessees whose annual earnings exceeded Rs. 10 lakh during the fiscal 2011-12. E-filing was optional for all returns filed relating to 2010-11 but is now mandatory;
  • However, digital signature won’t be mandatory and these taxpayers, can also transmit the data in the return electronically, and thereafter submit verification of the return in Form ITR-V.
• UN: India likely to miss MDG on maternal health
  • With one maternal death reported every 10 minutes, India is likely to miss the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) related to maternal health, a latest United Nations report says. While there is an improvement from maternal death in every six minutes in 2010 to 10 minutes now, the MDG target in this respect is unlikely to be met, the report said;
  • At present, the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) of India is 212 per one lakh live births, whereas the country’s target is 109 per one lakh live births by 2015;
  • The United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals Report of the U.N. Secretary-General, 2012, which assesses the regional progress on eight MDGs the world promised to meet, suggests that although progress has been made on improvements in maternal health, actual targets remain far from achieving the desired rate;
  • Maternal deaths are defined as the number of women who die during pregnancy or within 42 days of the termination of pregnancy. India has reduced MMR significantly from 437 per one lakh live births in 1999 to 212 now, but needs to hasten the pace under the National Rural Health Mission to achieve the related MDG;
  • “Of the total maternal death burden worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 56 per cent and South Asia accounts for 29 per cent. Together the two regions made up for 85 per cent of the global maternal death burden in 2010,” states the report;
  • ndia needs to focus on Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, where the MMR is still high. To achieve this, MDG 5 (on maternal health) India needs to reduce maternal mortality (MMR) from 437 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1991 to 109 by 2015. It has only reached the 212 mark;
  • India has done better on infant health, and is well within reaching the MDG of reducing IMR to 42 per 1000 live births. As per the latest estimates, India’s IMR stands at 47. India’s progress on the MDG of combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB is also satisfactory.
• New Companies Bill to make CSR norms mandatory
  • The new Company Bill proposed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs will have provisions making corporate social responsibility mandatory for corporates, Union Minister for Corporate Affairs M. Veerappa Moily told reporters on Monday.
• Alternative alignment of Sethu project not feasible
  • The alternative alignment (4A) for the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project without cutting across the Adams Bridge or Ram Setu is not economically and ecologically feasible, according to a report of the expert committee headed by R.K. Pachauri submitted by the Centre in the Supreme Court;
  • The committee was constituted to consider whether the project could be implemented through the alternative alignment (4A) that would cut through the spit of land just east of Dhanushkodi. Work on the present alignment (No.6), which cuts through the Ram Setu, was stayed by the Supreme Court in the wake of considerable opposition to the project;
  • The report however made it clear that the committee had not studied any impact from a climate change perspective.
• Read this article on the various cartoons that are recommended for deletion by the 6 member panel which is reviewing all NCERT social science textbooks

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Footprint of 'God Particle' found?
  • Scientists at the world’s biggest atom smasher plan to announce on Wednesday that they have gathered enough evidence to show that the long-sought “God particle” answering fundamental questions about the universe almost certainly does exist;
  • But after decades of work and billions of dollars spent, researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, aren’t quite ready to say they’ve “discovered” the particle;
  • Instead, experts familiar with the research in CERN’s vast complex on the Swiss-French border say the massive data they have obtained will essentially show the footprint of the key particle known as the Higgs boson all but proving it exists but doesn’t allow them to say it has actually been glimpsed. It appears to be a fine distinction.
• India's quest for NSG Membership in trouble
  • India’s quest for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group is at a tricky juncture if last month’s NSG plenary in Seattle, U.S., is any indication;
  • Indian diplomats will have to do some deft footwork despite Washington’s efforts to convince NSG members of the need for giving “like-minded” New Delhi membership. But developments on other fronts are now coalescing in a way that has a section of the NSG questioning the need to expand membership;
  • The first of the concerns is the emergence of Customs Unions such as the ones taking shape in Africa, the Gulf Cooperation Council of six Arab countries, and the one between some Eurasian countries. Members want to know that if one member of a Customs Union is an NSG member, would the others also be considered bound by export control obligations and restrictions on dual-use and trigger-list items;
  • The second concerns Israel and Pakistan. Like India, both have the nuclear bomb but refuse to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And after the NSG made an exception for India in 2008, both want similar treatment. The U. S., during high-level conversations with Israel, had said the complication of dealing with the ire of Arab countries was not worth the trouble. But Pakistan, with China’s assistance, has been trying to beat the current regime. The China-Pakistan tango, abhorrent though it may appear to Indian strategic analysts, appears to mirror the Russian-Indian strategy that led to the setting up of the civil nuclear plant at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu;
  • Answering non-proliferation critics, Russia and India agreed that though the NSG had expanded its restrictions in the mid-1990s, the two had decided to build civil nuclear power plants in the future under an agreement signed in the late 1980s – called “grandfathering.” When challenged by the U. S., at the 1998 NSG plenary, to produce the agreement in which this “grandfathering” was implied, Russia reportedly did not do so, and the deal was reluctantly allowed to proceed;
  • Along with the issues posed by Customs Unions, this Pakistan-China tangle has led to calls at the Seattle plenary for evolving criteria for new membership. This implies that an exception need not be made for India and the whole exercise of having new members could be put on hold until some benchmarks are prescribed;
  • So far there has been no consensus in the NSG. But the mood may be shifting in favour of India after it seemed to be meeting the promise of providing civil nuclear business to the U.S., France and Russia, in return for the heavy lifting they did to grant New Delhi an exemption from full-scope safeguards. But with the complications setting in, thanks to the Customs Union issue and Pakistan’s claim, Indian diplomacy has a lot of hard work ahead.
• Entrance to ancient Timbuktu mosque destroyed
  • Mali’s Islamist rebels smashed the entrance of a 15th century Timbuktu mosque on Monday, escalating a campaign of destruction of the city’s cultural treasures despite threats of prosecution for war crimes;
  • Some residents sobbed as the Islamist militants broke down the “sacred door” of one of the northern Malian city’s three ancient mosques after they wrecked seven tombs of Muslim saints over the weekend;
  • “The Islamists have just destroyed the door to the entrance of the Sidi Yahya mosque... they tore the sacred door off which we never open,” said a resident. The door on the south end of the mosque has been closed for centuries due to local beliefs that to open it will bring misfortune;
  • According to the website of the U.N. cultural agency (UNESCO), Sidi Yahya is one of Timbuktu’s three great mosques and was built around 1400, dating back to the city’s golden age as a desert crossroads and centre for learning.
• Saudi sets rules for women atheletes
  • Saudi sportswomen, who have been given the go-ahead to compete in the Olympics for the first time in London later this month, must respect the ultra-conservative kingdom’s rules, its sports chief said in remarks published on Monday;
  • All women competitors must dress modestly. They must be accompanied by a male guardian and should not mix with men during the Games.
• Russia says that the downed Turkish jet was in Syrian air space

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this editorial on the inclusion of the Western Ghats in the World Heritage List
• Read this editorial on the European Football Championship which just concluded\
• Read this article on the Bhopal gas tragedy in light of the recent US court hearing which absolved UCC and its CEO of liability
• Read the text of this interview with Ashok Chawla, the chairman of the Competition Commission of India. Very important from an exam perspective
• Read this article on the constitution crisis in Nepal
• If you have time, read this article by P.Sainath on the increasing farmer suicides