Sunday, August 26, 2012

HEADLINES

• Neil Armstrong, the legendary US astronaut who, in 1969, became the first man to set foot on the moon, dies at the age of 82

NATIONAL NEWS

• Supreme Court to examine legality of Advocate-on-record (AOR) system
  • The Supreme Court has decided to examine whether the AOR system, by which only those advocates who are qualified in the AOR examination are eligible to file petitions, is violative of Section 30 of the Advocates Act which empowers advocates to practise in all courts and fora without any restriction;
  • The petition argues that the power of the Supreme Court under Article 145 of the Constitution (i.e. power of the Supreme Court to make rules) was subject to the provisions of law made by Parliament. Hence, the Supreme Court had no power to continue the AOR system in the light of the Advocates Act;
  • The right to practise conferred under Section 30 of the Advocates Act was denied by virtue of Rules 6 and 10 of Order IV of the 1966 Supreme Court Rules which gives only AORs the right to file petitions in the Supreme Court and also limits access to other benefits for lawyers working in the court.
• Prithvi-II missile test, a success
  • The Strategic Forces Command, which is in charge of nuclear weapons, successfully fired the surface-to-surface Prithvi-II missile from Chandipur in Odisha’s Balasore district on Saturday, confirming yet again that the armed forces are capable of launching nuclear missiles independently;
  • The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed three Prithvi variants: Prithvi-I for the Army; Prithvi-II for the Indian Air Force; and the Dhanush for the Navy. All the three have been inducted into service. Prithvi-II, a single-stage missile using liquid propellants, can carry a 500-kg warhead and is meant for deep interdiction (means the act of delaying, disrupting, or destroying enemy forces or supplies en route to the battle area).
• The National Advisory Council has set up a two-member working group of Mirai Chatterjee and A.K. Shiva Kumar to study the report on Universal Health Coverage prepared by the High Level Expert Group and the Govt’s proposal to expand the scope of the National Rural Health Mission and convert it into a National Health Mission

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Iran's NAM invite to Hamas irks Palestinian Authority (PA)
  • The Palestinian Authority on Saturday criticised Iran for inviting a Hamas leader to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran, calling into question whether PA President Mahmoud Abbas would still attend. Iran is a supporter of Hamas and considers it to be the legitimate government of the Palestinians;
  • For those who aren't aware, Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades;
  • Based on the principles of Islamic fundamentalism gaining momentum throughout the Arab world in the 1980s, Hamas was founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Hamas Charter affirmed in 1988 that Hamas was founded to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation and to establish an Islamic state in the area that is now Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip;
  • Since June 2007 Hamas has governed the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories, after it won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament in the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections. The European Union, the United States, Canada, Israel and Japan classify Hamas as a terrorist organization while the Arab nations and countries such as Russia and Turkey do not.
• The Organisation of American States back Ecuador on the Assange issue
  • The Organisation of American States declared “solidarity and support” on Friday for Ecuador in its dispute with Britain over granting asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It is surprising to see that US also backed the resolution but it is likely to be only due to the fact that the resolution talks about the diplomatic issue of the risk of London violating the diplomatic requirements given to the embassy in London;
  • The meeting of the Americas bloc was convened at Ecuador’s request to consider a resolution rejecting any attempt to put at risk the “inviolability” of its embassy in London, where Mr. Assange is holed up. In the resolution, Foreign Ministers and representatives of the 34-member regional body headquartered in rejected “any attempt that might put at risk the inviolability of the premises of diplomatic missions.”
• At least 85,000 people in Myanmar have fled their homes as the worst monsoon flooding in years submerged hundreds of thousands of hectares of rice fields

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

• Apple wins case against Samsung
  • In a massive victory in its patent case against Samsung, technology giant Apple has won more than USD 1 billion after a California jury held that the Samsung violated a series of Apple’s patents pertaining to software and design of mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad;
  • The court also held that Apple’s patents were valid and Apple did not violate any of Samsung’s patents as was alleged by Samsung.