HEADLINES
- Gu Kailai, wife of the former Chinese Politburo member, Bo Xilai, is given a 'suspended death sentence' for the murder of a British businessman; she is likely to spend between 15 – 25 years in jail
- Union Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma kicked up a controversy with remarks that he was “happy” over the rising prices of food items as it would benefit farmers
- A severe foodgrain crisis stares Andhra Pradesh this kharif season for the first time in recent years due to the uneven distribution of rains
NATIONAL
NEWS
- Central Govt blocks more websites; plans to give Islamabad evidence
- The Govt said it would share with Pakistan evidence of its people and organisations having uploaded inflammatory and objectionable content on the Internet to incite religious sentiments in India, which led to the exodus of northeast people from various States;
- The government blocked 89 more websites on which morphed images and fake videos were uploaded from across the border. The Govt has said it will share with Islamabad all evidence of the involvement of certain Pakistani groups and individuals in the uploading of morphed images and videos to spread rumours and create communal tension in India;
- The Centre is also planning to share the findings of its cyber security teams at international forums as this episode has turned out to be the biggest instance of cyber warfare against India in recent times. The focus is on a Pakistan-based militant group said to be behind doctoring images and videos and uploading them on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
- Central Electricity Authority (CEA) submits report on grid failure to Govt
- A committee headed by A.S. Bakshi, chairman of CEA, in its report submitted to the power ministry on the recent blackouts (July 31 – northern grid; August 1- norther, eastern and NE grids) across India has recommended new planning criteria, setting up new transmission capacities and stressed the need for “dynamic compensation” to boost voltage;
- Dynamic compensation boosts the voltage up when it drops, and when the voltage surges, it holds it. All of this happens in real time. This system is in place at only a few places in the country and there is a need for it given the recent grid failures;
- he report blamed the overdrawing of power by northern region states such as Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana and underdrawing of electricity by the western region states as a reason for the worst grid failure that India has seen;
- Load management functions are overseen by the state-owned Power Grid Corp. of India Ltd and carried out by its subsidiary Power System Operation Corp. Ltd. A grid collapse is the worst-case scenario for any transmission utility; if this happens, states that draw power from that particular network go without power. India has five regional grids—northern, southern, eastern, north-eastern and western. All except the southern one are connected;
- India’s transmission planning criteria is still based in 1992-94 when the grid was small. The grid has become large and its problems are also new. There has been a paradigm shift from small system to large system requiring a new planning criteria;
- India plans to deploy smart grids that will help utilities detect, isolate and correct problems. Northern states such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir aim to prevent grid failures such as those that took place by setting up defence mechanisms such as islanding. This would isolate the fallout of a grid disturbance on the national power grid, restricting it to a particular region, or also allow a particular region or essential service to isolate itself in the event of a grid failure. While the eastern grid supplies power to Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Sikkim, the north-eastern grid supplies electricity to Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.
- Induction of Nag missile likely to be delayed further
- The induction of anti-tank Nag missile is likely to be delayed further, with three of the four missiles failing to hit the target and the missile’s carrier, Namica, falling short of the Army’s expectations during recent user trails, which were halted midway. The Nag is a third generation fire and forget anti-tank missile developed by DRDO;
- The induction of the missile has already been delayed, with the Army seeking many changes to Namica, after previous trials, to make it lighter and improve its amphibious performance. The recent issues arose when it failed to hit on-target as well. Disappointed with the failure, the Army wanted DRDO to further ruggedise the Namica and schedule retrials after six months;
- The DRDO sources virtually faulted the Army for the failure of the two missiles. There was no adequate thermal contrast for the seeker to lock on and track the target before the missile was launched.
- Working group to assess report of Western Ghats Panel
- A working group headed by Planning Commission member K. Kasturirangan will assess the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) report and submit an action plan for its “effective implementation” to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF);
- The MoEF has asked the group to evaluate the report of the Madhav Gadgil headed WGEEP in a “holistic and multidisciplinary fashion in the light of the comments” received from various stakeholders, including State governments and Central Ministries;
- It will also study the “effects and challenges of climate change in the ecologically significant Western Ghats region,” “the implications of the UNESCO heritage site recognition of some parts of the Western Ghats” and the constitutional implications of Centre-State relations regarding the conservation and sustainable development of the region”;
- It will also look into issues of biodiversity in the region and protection of the rights of forest dwellers. It is also expected to “recommend further course of action” regarding the report within two months;
- The WGEEP said it would be premature to assess the comments and the report as the views of a majority of the stakeholders had not been obtained. Till now, only the views of some elite groups were taken leaving out the masses in the region, he said. Further, the MoEF is not consulting the WGEEP on these issues after the report was submitted.
- Experts reject privatisation of water supply as panacea of Delhi's woes
- As Delhi gets ready to implement public-private partnership models in the city to plug water and revenue leaks and ensure round-the-clock supply, water conservation experts want the Administration to look beyond dams and private companies and focus instead on water harvesting, recycling and off-channel reservoirs;
- Experts have said that Delhi has a high per-capita water supply (220 litres per day per person). The problem is management with the main problems being poor quality, inequitable distribution, revenue and distribution losses. Experts suggest that storm drains currently designated as sewage drains should be restored to start rainwater harvesting;
- Experts also say that enforcement under the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, has to be followed unlike the present situation. Experts say that privatising water management by leaving it to market forces will only destroy the system as it is an essential for all persons.
- Major Dalit groups and human rights organisations have demanded amendments to the 23-year-old Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act due to increasing crime against SCs/STs, low conviction rates and lack of coordination among enforcement authorities
INTERNATIONAL
NEWS
- Myanmar ends direct media censorship
- Myanmar on Monday abolished direct censorship of the media in the most dramatic move yet toward allowing freedom of expression in the long-repressed nation. But related laws and practices that may lead to self-censorship raise doubt about how much will change;
- Under the new rules, journalists will no longer have to submit their work to state censors before publication as they did since the 1962 coup. However, the same harsh laws that have allowed Myanmar’s rulers to jail, blacklist and control the media in the name of protecting national security remain unchanged and on the books;
- For decades, this Southeast Asian nation’s reporters had been regarded as among the most restricted in the world, subjected to routine state surveillance, phone taps and censorship so intense that independent papers could not publish on a daily basis;
- The move was expected for months but was repeatedly delayed as the government struggled to draft a new media law to overhaul the industry in Myanmar.
- South American Nations back Ecuador on Julian Assange
- Britain came under pressure Monday after Ecuador’s South American neighbours backed Quito’s decision to grant Julian Assange asylum, but he remained a virtual prisoner in its London embassy;
- Foreign Ministers of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), meeting in Ecuador’s biggest city Guayaquil, expressed “solidarity” with the decision to grant asylum to the former computer hacker whose anti-secrecy website has enraged Washington;
- They also declared support for Ecuador over the “threat of violation of its diplomatic mission”, a reference to Britain highlighting an obscure 1987 law under which its police could enter the embassy and extract Mr. Assange;
- Britain is already at loggerheads with UNASUR member Argentina, which claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.
- Ex-dictator's daughter targets top post in South Korea
- South Korea’s ruling party overwhelmingly voted for the daughter of an assassinated dictator, Park Geun-Hye, to be its presidential candidate on Monday, the first time a major party has chosen a woman to run for the post;
- Ms. Park is the daughter of Park Chung-Hee, who seized power in a coup in 1961 and was assassinated by his spy chief in 1979. Her father won wide respect for transforming the poor war-ravaged nation into an economic juggernaut, but is also reviled in some quarters for his human rights abuses. She also lost her mother to a gunman, a pro-North Korean agent who shot the first lady in 1974 while aiming for the President.
- War-torn Somalia’s new Parliament was due to be convened for the first time on Monday in the latest bid to end 20 years of instability, but the election of a President has been delayed
- 11-year old Christian girl suffering from downs syndrome is arrested on blasphemy charges in Pakistan (she was accused of burning pages of the Koran); Activists say this is a move to remove the the Christians in the locality where the incident took place
- Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsy is heading for China and Iran — a path-breaking visit that is unlikely to please the United States, which has gone overboard to cultivate relationship with the new leadership in Cairo
EMINENT
PERSONS IN THE NEWS
- Alan Mathison Turing, the father of computer science
- This is the birth centenary year of Alan Mathison Turing (i.e. born in 1912), the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. With his concepts of algorithm and computation, demonstrated with the theoretical construct of the Turing Machine, he ushered in a revolution that is ongoing;
- During World War II, Turing worked at Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers;
- Turing was a homosexual and this resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined that his death was suicide; his mother and some others believed his death was accidental;
- In September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated". As of May 2012 a private member's bill was before the House of Lords which would grant Turing a statutory pardon if enacted;
- The Turing family were of ancient Scottish descent and were very connected to India. His father was a member of the Indian Civil Service. Alan's brother was born in Coonoor, Nilgiris, and Alan himself was born in Orissa;
- The family left India in 1926 after Alan's father resigned from the ICS in a huff. Alan went on to Cambridge where he made a name for himself.
EDITORIALS,
OPINIONS & COLUMNS
- Read this article on the recent discussions between China and Bhutan and what it means for India-Bhutan relations. Important topic
- Read this editorial on the recent decision of the Australian High Court in relation to the tobacco industry
No comments:
Post a Comment