Sunday, August 12, 2012

HEADLINES

• Common mobility card ‘More Delhi’ launched for cashless travel across different modes of transport in Delhi
• Yogeshwar Dutt, wins India its fifth medal at the London Olympics as he took the bronze in the men’s 60 kg freestyle wrestling

NATIONAL NEWS

• Great White Pelicans surprise Delhi
  • Climate change has brought around surprise cheer at the Okhla Bird Sanctuary in Delhi. The arrival of a big flock of the Great White Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) at the sanctuary in the rainy season is a cause of big cheer for avid bird watchers. Apart from global warming, climate changes also affect the migration pattern of birds and result in migration even during non-season instead of the usual winter;
  • Ecologists who keep an eye out for such birds all year were thrilled when the flock of over 40, referred to by the locals as hawasil , arrived in the first week of August, much ahead of their normal expected arrival. While their population has been on decline, as per a report of Wetlands International, the arrival of the Great White Pelican in Delhi in a year which had witnessed a drop in migratory bird arrivals during the peak winter season is more than welcome;
  • These birds are seen in pairs or flocks and breeds in Eastern Europe and Middle East. This species migrates to India in large numbers during winters and settles down mainly in Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat
• India Post joins hands with Infosys
  • Infosys Ltd., the second biggest software services exporter, whose business in India only accounts for a small fraction of its overall business, has been chosen by India Post to “transform” its financial services platform. The project is expected to cost Rs. 700 crore;
  • Infosys is to deploy its core banking and insurance platforms for the project. Infosys will also train 35,000 personnel of India Post and implement an electronic content management system to process the millions of documents that are generated across the postal network;
  • India Post has chosen Infosys as its technology and consulting partner to integrate its delivery of financial products across its network of 1.5 lakh post offices across the country, an Infosys release stated. The company will install 1,000 ATMs for India Post. The project, part of the ‘India Post 2012’ modernisation programme, “aims at bringing transparency, agility, flexibility and scalability to India Post’s operations”.
• HCL to manage UIDAI's technology backbone
  • Hardware firm HCL Infosystems Ltd. will manage the Central ID Repository (CIDR) of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the authority that implements the Aadhaar project. The UIDAI inked a pact awarding HCL a contract for seven years;
  • As the designated managed services provider, HCL will be responsible for the procurement and installation of the IT infrastructure, implementation of information security management systems and operations support and maintenance. The scope of work also includes technical helpdesk, support services and database administration.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Refugee to compete under Olympic flag
  • Stateless refugee Guor Marial will compete in Sunday’s men’s marathon under the Olympic flag. Guor Marial was born in what was then Sudan but who fled to the United States in 1993 after 28 members of his family were killed in the conflict. He has a resident’s permit but no passport. He found out just a week before that he could compete as a rare Independent Olympic Athlete.
• Tunisian women see a threat to their rights
  • Tunisian women are rising up against a proposed article in the new constitution seen by many as an Islamist ploy to reverse the principle of gender equality that made Tunisia a beacon of modernity in the Arab world when it was introduced six decades ago;
  • The offending article stipulates that the state guarantees “the protection of women’s rights... under the principle of complementarity to man within the family and as an associate of man in the development of the country.” Women feel this article will define their role in society in terms of their relation with men, and not independently;
  • The National Constituent Assembly, elected after the downfall last year of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, is currently drafting a new national charter and last week a proposed article that activists say would compromise rights enshrined in the Personal Status Code promulgated in 1956 under Tunisia’s first President, Habib Bourguiba;
  • The 1956 code was the first of its kind in the Arab world. It abolished polygamy, under which Muslim men are allowed to have as many as four wives, and the practice of repudiation, under which husbands could divorce simply by saying so three times. At the same time, it instituted not only judicial divorce but also civil marriage.

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• Raghuram Rajan appointed as the new Chief Economic Advisor, replaced Kaushik Basu
  • The Centre has appointed Raghuram Rajan, the outspoken former chief economist to the International Monetary Fund who is critical of the government's economic management, as its top adviser at the Finance Ministry;
  • Dr. Rajan, who is famed for flagging the risks that led to the global financial crisis, would work alongside Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram, one of the architects of India's economic liberalisation in the 1990s.
• India’s foreign exchange reserves rose by $502.2 million to touch $289.15 billion during the week ended August 3, on the back of an increase in foreign currency assets, the Reserve Bank of India said in its weekly statistical supplement