Saturday, September 1, 2012

HEADLINES

• Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi on Friday took charge as the 21st Chief of Naval Staff, succeeding Admiral Nirmal Verma

NATIONAL NEWS

• Having learnt its lesson from the two-day blackout in major parts of the country, the Power Ministry has stepped up the work of integrating the southern grid with the national grid that could not only help in efficient and effective transfer of electricity from various regions, but also provide a huge relief to the power starved South by 2014

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• India, Iran to work around sanctions
  • A day after meeting the top Iranian leadership, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said both countries would attempt to work around hurdles placed by American and European sanctions to step up economic ties. However, the Prime Minister ruled out India intervening to solve problems that Iran was facing;
  • A few days before the meeting with Iran at the NAM Summit, India had a trilateral meeting with Iran and Afghanistan on developing an alternative route from an Iranian port to landlocked Afghanistan and on to Central Asia. India has built a facilitating road in Afghanistan for the purpose and has offered to develop the Chabahar port in Iran along with a link to the Afghan road.
• China's POK rail link plan gains traction
  • Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf will visit China next month to push economic ties, even as the “all-weather” allies are taking forward plans to build a railway line from western China through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Pre-feasibility work on the proposed railway line has been completed. This new link will enhance the economic ties between China and Pakistan as well as create a new link between East and South Asia;
  • The planned railway line runs from Kashgar, the old Silk Road town in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, through the Khunjerab pass in PoK and on to Havelian, where it will join Pakistan’s railway network. In June last year, passenger service began on the first segment of the line which runs from Kashgar to Hotan, in southern Xinjiang. Work has not yet started on the line onwards from Hotan;
  • India has voiced its concerns to China about the railway line stressing that India views the region as an integral part of Jammu and Kashmir. India has also pointed to China’s own long-standing opposition to the involvement of third-party countries in projects in disputed areas. Most recently, China voiced its objections to the presence of ONGC Videsh in exploration projects with Vietnam in the South China Sea;
  • China is also widening and repaving the Karakoram Highway, which runs from Kashgar through PoK to Pakistan, and is working to make it an all-weather road — the highway is closed for around six months every year during the winter, and has been damaged by recent flooding. While work on the Chinese side has been completed, China is assisting Pakistan in a $500-million effort to repave and widen the highway in Pakistan and in PoK;
  • China views the road and rail links as crucial elements to taking forward plans to build a Special Economic Zone in Kashgar — the first such zone in western China, modelled on the success of Shenzhen in the east. The plans, officials say, will boost China’s economic presence westward and also bring development to southern Xinjiang, which has lagged behind the rest of the region and been the source of ethnic unrest and terrorism.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article which discusses why the age of Supreme Court judges should be relaxes
• Read this editorial which exposes Narendra Modi's recent statement about people in Gujarat being malnourished because they are figure conscious