Thursday, August 16, 2012

HEADLINES

• On Independence day, Prime Minister Singh announced that India would send a mission to Mars to collect important scientific information
• Thousands of panic-stricken people of the northeast living in Bangalore boarded trains, headed to Guwahati, on Wednesday night, following rumours and SMSes of violence targeting them
• Prominent Odia writer Jatindra Mohan Mohanty, 80, passed away on Wednesday. He won the Sahitya Academy Award in 2003 for Surya Snata, a work on Odia poetry

NATIONAL NEWS

• Judicial overreach will erase legitimacy of review says Chief Justice of India
  • Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia called for judicial restraint among judges while delivering judgments. While interpreting the Article of a fundamental right, “we must also keep in mind that there is [an] institutional structure and architecture of the Constitution which provides for checks and balances. Sometimes in our anxiety to do justice we give an interpretation which may disturb the constitutional balance between the three branches [executive, legislature and judiciary] of the government.”
  • “We the people,” “Rule of law,” all these have very wide concepts. They have to be interpreted keeping in mind the checks and balances within the system. Sometimes these balances are getting disturbed by our judgements and the judges should be very careful when they draft the judgments. If there is judicial overreach, the legitimacy of judicial review will be obliterated”;
  • The power of judicial review of legislation is given to the judiciary both by the political theory and text of the constitution. There are several specific provisions in the Indian constitution, judicial review of legislation such as Articles 13, 32, 131-136, 143, 226, 145, 246, 251, 254 and 372. The power of High Courts to judicial review is found under Articles 226 and 227 and the power of the Supreme Court for the same is found in Articles 32 and 136;
  • At the same event the Chief Justice of India, while making it clear that the judiciary was not afraid of laws to make judges accountable, cautioned the government not to tinker with its independence. He was apparently referring to the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, which has already been passed by the Lok Sabha and is pending in the Rajya Sabha;
  • A controversial clause states: “No judge shall make unwarranted comments against the conduct of any constitutional or statutory institution or officials at the time of hearing matters in open court.” The Bill allows citizens to complain against erring judges but has been facing criticism for this provision and the government is contemplating amending it.
• India plans to establish two more missile testing ranges
  • India is planning to set up two more missile testing ranges with a number of missions coming up in the next few years. Top Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) officials said that with the present Integrated Test Range off the coast of Odisha getting “overloaded,” plans were on to establish similar facilities along the East Coast;
  • The official said that each of the upcoming facilities would be a full-fledged testing range to support both short-range and long-range missions. It would have a launch control centre, a few launch pads, a blockhouse and state-of-the-art communication network, besides permanent monitoring stations such as telemetry and electro-optical tracking;
  • Besides the two ranges along the East Coast, the DRDO was also planning to establish a Floating Test Range, which would include radars and launch facilities on a ship. Problems relating to safety and other issues could be overcome through a Floating Test Range, which could be used for testing missiles relating to air defence or ship-based Dhanush missiles.
• National Rural Health Mission to be expanded to towns also says Prime Minister Singh
  • The government will expand the scope of the NRHM to all towns and cities, by converting it into a National Health Mission (NHM), Prime Minister Singh announced on Wednesday. The NHM would be launched in a couple of years by merging the National Rural Health Mission and the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), which is likely to be put into place early next year. The NRHM, a flagship scheme of the Congress-led UPA government, was launched in 2005 to provide better health services in remote and rural areas;
  • The government credits the NRHM with a number of successes and made a strong case for launching the NUHM to cover towns and cities with a large slum population. Since 2005, the infant mortality rate had declined from 58 per thousand live births in 2005 to 47 in 2010 and maternal mortality from 254 per one lakh deliveries in 2004-2006 to 212 in 2007-2009. The Janani Suraksha Yojana registered impressive gains with 1.13 crore women benefiting during 2010-11;
  • In its proposals to the Planning Commission, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said the NUHM would be taken up as a thrust area under the 12th Plan and launched as a separate mission for urban areas with the focus on slums and the urban poor. It will cover 779 cities and towns with a population of more than 50,000 each, including the megacities of Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad;
  • The budget allocation for the mission is envisaged at Rs. 30,000 crore which will be invested in recruitment of health professionals, creation and upgrade of infrastructure and strengthening of the health care service delivery system. At the community level, outreach services will be provided to urban poor slums with the help of Urban Social Health Activists (USHA) — one for every 200-500 households — and activists from the Mahila Arogya Samiti (one for every 50-100 households);
  • The NUHM will cover the entire urban areas (including the general population, and listed and unlisted slums), but outreach services will be targeted at slum or slum-like areas and other homeless people, street vendors, railway and bus station workers, street children, and construction site workers. Inter-sectoral convergence will be planned among the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the Rajiv Awas Yojana and the NUHM, according to the proposal.
• 12-point plan to avoid grid collapse
  • To avert a total breakdown of the grid system and prevent a major blackout in future, the northern grid States have formulated a 12-point plan including installation of automatic demand management schemes. The Northern Grid had collapsed on July 31 impacting nearly 300 million lives and bringing the region to a virtual standstill;
  • At a recent meeting held at the Power Ministry, the plan was agreed upon by a dozen States including major offenders Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan. Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and Delhi were also part of the agreement. The points agreed between the parties are:
    • the northern grid States will prepare their islanding schemes in consultation with the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL), Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and Northern Region Power Committee within the next 3 months and ensure their implementation within the next 6 months;
    • An independent third party audit of the protection systems will be carried out within one month and the Regional Power Committees (RPCs) will monitor the same;
    • All the utilities will also adopt good operation and maintenance practices and random checks of these will be carried out by the RPCs. States will prepare plans in long term, medium term and short term for procurement of power, and carry out network and demand management in accordance with the Indian Electricity Grid Code (IEGC);
    • States will carry out periodically power system studies for operation planning and Transfer Capability determination; they will take all necessary steps for strengthening and upgrading the State Load Dispatch Centres (SLDCs);
    • All states shall adhere to the Indian Electricity Grid Code and take all requisite measures for its effective enforcement.
• Waste Management neglects rag pickers
  • As governments grapple with mounting quantities of waste and draft policies to tackle it, waste pickers who earn their livelihood from collection, segregation and disposal of waste still remain neglected, reveals a new study by a non-government organisation;
  • Accessing the welfare programmes and the prevalent rules for waste management in 14 major cities, Chintan, an environment action and research group, in its report ‘Failing the Grade’ has claimed that there was no city that has fully implemented the rules and policies for waste pickers;
  • Citing the case of Delhi, the report says the New Delhi Municipal Council has included waste pickers for doorstep collection, but the three new Municipal Corporations have set up a series of waste-to-energy plants, and contracting out waste handling and collection to private companies, thus displacing waste pickers and waste traders;
  • “In March 2007, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) released a Performance Audit of Management of Waste in India. Amongst the observations, one was related to the lack of recognition of the informal sector. The report stated, ‘Only 17 per cent of the sampled States had recognised the role of the waste pickers.’ Five years on, there are new rules and new policies in place that refer to the informal sector, but their implementation remains, as the CAG noted then, unmonitored,” the report claims. The report of the CAG has not been acted upon.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Maoists, Madhesis form a new alliance in Nepal
  • In a development with significant implications for the future direction of Nepali politics, the ruling Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), constituents of the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) and several small Madhesi and Janjati outfits have come together to form a Federal Democratic Republican Alliance (FDRA);
  • The stated aim of the coalition is to strive for ‘a constitution with federalism; and federalism with identity’. The alliance was announced at an official function. Explaining the political logic of the alliance, Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (Democratic) general secretary Jitendra Dev said the key aim was to counter the attack on federalism by other forces;
  • A possible addition to the alliance in the future could be a proposed Janjati party. Last week, Janjati (indigenous ethnic) activists had announced that they would soon form a Social Democratic Pluri-National Party;
  • In the now-expired Constituent Assembly, the Janjati MPs caucus, Madhesi parties and Maoists had signed a joint petition demanding that either the CA committee’s 14-state model, or the State Restructuring Commission’s 10-state model, be adopted.
• Brazil Court orders work on Amazon dam to be suspended
  • A federal court in Brazil has ordered the suspension of work on the huge Belo Monte hydro-electric dam in the Amazon, the third largest dam in the world, a court official said. The official said the regional federal court ruled that the construction of the dam across the Xingu River should be immediately suspended pending a congressional hearing at which the area’s indigenous people would be heard;
  • The court noted that when Congress approved the project in 2005, it called for an environmental impact study after the start of the work. Under the law, the native communities were given the right to air their views in Congress on the basis of that environmental impact study, but this was not done, the court said;
  • Indigenous groups fear the dam will harm their way of life while environmentalists have warned of deforestation, greenhouse-gas emissions and irreparable damage to the ecosystem. Belo Monte is expected to flood an area of 500 sq km (200 square miles) along the Xingu and displace 16,000 people, according to the government, though some NGOs put the number at 40,000 displaced;
  • The federal government plans to invest a total $1.2 billion to assist the displaced, by the time the dam is completed in 2019.
• World's toughest law on Cigarette promotion upheld
  • Australia’s highest court on Wednesday upheld the world’s toughest law on cigarette promotion, meaning tobacco companies will be prohibited from displaying their logos on cigarette packs that will instead feature images of cancer—riddled mouths, blinded eyeballs and sickly children;
  • The High Court rejected a challenge by tobacco companies who argued the value of their trademarks will be destroyed if they are no longer able to display their distinctive colours, brand designs and logos on packs of cigarettes;
  • Starting in December, packs will instead come in a uniformly drab shade of olive and feature dire health warnings and graphic photographs of smoking’s health effects. The government, which has urged other countries to adopt similar rules, hopes the new packs will make smoking as unglamorous as possible;
  • British American Tobacco, Philip Morris International, Imperial Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International are worried that the law will set a global precedent that could slash billions of dollars from the values of their brands. They challenged the new rules on the grounds that they violate intellectual property rights and devalue their trademarks. The cigarette makers argued that the government would unfairly benefit from the law by using cigarette packs as a platform to promote its own message, without compensating the tobacco companies. Australia’s constitution says the government can only acquire the property of others on “just terms.”
• Iran has stood up firmly against the suspension of Damascus from the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), saying the Syrian crisis can be resolved through a comprehensive internal dialogue and not from a policy of exclusion
• After embarrassing delays caused because of inter-governmental coordination issues and contractor truancies, the pilot project of the $270- million Indian Housing project backed by India and started in 2010 for displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka is complete
• The U.N. telecoms agency has invited the world’s more than two billion Internet users to join a debate about the future of the Internet. The Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union’s announcement on Wednesday follows criticism from civil society groups who say preparations for an upcoming global conference have been shrouded in secrecy. It is scheduled to be held in Dubai in December

EMINENT PERSONS IN THE NEWS

• Rare Pakistan Honour for Gopi Chand Narang
  • In a rare honour, eminent Indian Urdu litterateur Professor Gopi Chand Narang’s name figures in the list of civilian honours announced by Pakistan on the eve of its Independence Day. Prof. Narang (81 years old) has been conferred Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence), the third highest civilian honour bestowed by the nation. The investiture ceremony will take place in Pakistan on March 23, 2013, Pakistan's Republic Day;
  • Prof. Narang, a Padma Bhushan awardee, says the fact that the legendary writer Saadat Hasan Manto (Nishan-i-Imtiaz), ghazal maestro Mehdi Hassan (Nishan-i-Imtiaz) and eminent poet Josh Malihabadi (Hilal-i-Imtiaz) also figure in the list points to a positive development;
  • In the past, former Prime Minister Morarji Desai and matinee idol Dilip Kumar have been bestowed Pakistan's highest civilian honour, Nishan-i-Imtiaz;
  • Unlike Pakistan where it is a link language, Prof. Narang insists that Urdu has its roots in India and as part of the right to education it should be taught to all at the elementary level. “Otherwise it will be pushed to the madarsas.”

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this editorial on the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration
• Read this article on Bangladesh and the issue with Rohingyas in the region
• If you have time, read this article on the fast widening income gap in China

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

• Sharp drop in HIV cases in India
  • India had witnessed a sharp decline in the number of new HIV cases — a 56 per cent drop — in the past 10 years. According to the Health Minister this has been possible due to political support at the highest levels to the various interventions under National AIDS Control Programme, including Parliamentarians and elected leaders at the state and local levels and cooperation received from NGOs, civil society, etc;
  • In fact, HIV — which causes AIDS — was detected in India nearly 25 years back. Though more than 2 million people are affected by the virus, India is said to be one of the few countries which has actually made significant reductions in HIV infections. The country’s HIV AIDS prevention model has been even lauded by United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon.
• If you have time, read this article about a solar powered toilet that can create fuel
• If you have time, read this article which discusses findings that clones can also have genetic variations