Monday, August 13, 2012

HEADLINES

• Earthquake in Iran kills 250; injures more than 2000
• Baba Ramdev threatens to walk to Parliament in protest if his demands are not met today
• Sushil Kumar wins a silver medal in wrestling
• An upgraded version of Aakash, the low-cost tablet billed as the cheapest computer in the world, will be launched very soon according to the HRD Ministry

NATIONAL NEWS

• Govt puts word limit on Right to Information pleas, defines format
  • The government has put a word limit of 500 words (excluding annexures) for filing an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Earlier there was no word limit under the legislation. However, the new rules also state that an application cannot be rejected on the ground of exceeding 500 words;
  • Besides this, a new format has been devised for filing an appeal to the Central Information Commission under the RTI to include all previous requests and documents as part of the application to the CIC. The government has also made it mandatory for an appellant or his authorised representative to appear before the CIC either in person or through video-conferencing, according to new rules notified on July 31;
  • According to a notification by the Department of Personnel and Training under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, an applicant will have to pay additional postal charges “involved in supply of information that exceeds fifty rupees”;
  • Further, as per the notified rules, fee can be paid in cash or by demand draft, bankers cheque, postal order or by electronic means in case such facility is available with the public authority.
• Supreme Court stays order bringing cooperatives under the RTI Act
  • The Supreme Court has stayed a Full Bench judgment of the Kerala High Court holding that cooperative societies in the State would come within the ambit of ‘public authority’ under the Right to Information Act;
  • The High Court had interpreted the provisions of the RTI Act to hold that a co-operative society being a democratically run organisation should get covered under the definition of “public authority” under the Act.
• Bio-toilets in all trains in phases
  • Railway track and stations will be cleaner in the days to come, with the railways deciding to install bio-toilets in all coaches in a phased manner. It, however, cautioned that the success of the project would depend upon the cooperation and discipline of passengers;
  • The decision comes close on the heels of an offer made by the Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh to share 50% of the cost from the budgetary allocation of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. The offer pertains to retrofitting bio-toilets that the railways have developed jointly with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in 50,000 passenger coaches;
  • In bio-toilets, the waste is converted into water and gases — methane and carbon dioxide. The waste will be treated by bacteria, which are benign to humans. While the gases get released into the atmosphere, the water will be discharged after chlorination. By completely eliminating the fall of human waste on the track, bio-toilets will help in checking depreciation of coaches and track by preventing corrosion;
  • During field trials, it was found that passengers used the bio-toilet as a garbage bin. The toilets were blocked by various objects rendering the system non-operational. Plastic bottles, tea cups, cloth, sanitary napkins, poly bags and gutka pouches, among other articles, were found in the toilet pans.
• Press Council of India Chairman Markandey Katju on Sunday denounced West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as “totally dictatorial, intolerant, and whimsical” after the arrest of a man who questioned her policy on farmers at a rally. He warned that officials carrying out her “illegal orders” could face the fate of Nazi war criminals

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Huge volcanic rock ice-shelf spotted in the Pacific
  • A huge cluster ‘raft’ of floating volcanic rocks covering an area almost the size of Belgium has been spotted drifting in the Pacific Ocean. The gigantic cluster, made up of lightweight pumice expelled from an underwater volcano and spread over 26,000 sq km, has been spotted drifting in the ocean, about 1,000 km off the coast of New Zealand;
  • Experts reckon the rocks were formed by lava released from an underwater volcano called Monowai. The reason it floats is because pumice, the solidified lava filled with air bubbles, is lighter than water.
• With Olympic success, Tibetan athlete breaks barriers
  • 21-year-old Choeyang Kyi, the only Tibetan athlete to have been fielded by China at any Olympics, became the first Tibetan to ever win an Olympic medal. Her bronze medal win, in the women’s 20 km walk competition, was also greeted by the unprecedented sight of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) national flag and the Tibetan snow-lion flag – which is banned in China and a popular symbol of the independence movement – flying side by side, perhaps for the first time in modern history;
  • Her success as China’s first Tibetan athlete has also triggered calls for China to provide more support to its 55 minority groups, whose members are rarely represented in national sports teams, which are dominated by the majority Han Chinese population.
• Maldivian talks on Tuesday
  • After a rather long stand-off since February, the Maldivian Democratic Party and a representative of the government will sit down next week to try and find a way forward out of the political impasse in Maldives.

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• The Reserve Bank and other Indian agencies are seeking details from British financial regulator FSA about two UK-based global banking giants HSBC and Standard Chartered whose outsourcing of key oversight jobs to India has come under the US scanner in separate probes related to issues like money laundering and terror financing

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

• Google tweaks search results criterion
  • Google has made some subtle changes to the ‘secret sauce’ that makes its web search relevant to all. From next week, websites that have received a substantial number of copyrights infringement notices will rank considerably lower than those that feature legitimate content;
  • Google has been tweaking its copyrights systems over the past two years. Of late, it has been most visible on the video-sharing website YouTube, where every video is tagged with information, explaining whether or not it features contents for which copyrights have been claimed by rightful owners.