Tuesday, September 4, 2012

HEADLINES

• Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Monday rejected the Opposition demand for cancellation of coal blocks that have come under the CAG scrutiny, saying the government had to hear out the allottees and could not enforce cancellation by diktat
• After disbanding his team, Anna Hazare is working on plans to put together a new team to continue his campaign against corruption
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NATIONAL NEWS

• Bill on sexual harassment at the workplace passed
  • The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal) Bill, 2010 that seeks to protect women, including domestic workers, from sexual harassment at workplace was passed in the Lok Sabha. The bill defines domestic worker as a woman employed to do household work for remuneration;
  • According to the Bill, sexual harassment includes any unwelcome act or behaviour such as physical contact and advances, a demand or request for sexual favours or making sexually coloured remarks or showing pornography. The acts or behaviour — direct or by implication — will also include any other physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature;
  • Non-compliance with the provisions of the law will be punishable with a fine of up to Rs 50,000. Repeated violations may lead to higher penalties and cancellation of licence or registration to do business;
  • The Bill was passed without discussion due to the coalgate uproar in parliament. A Parliamentary Standing Committee, which examined the bill, held the firm view that preventive aspects had to be strictly in line with the Supreme Court guidelines in the 1997 Vishaka case. The judgment not only defines sexual harassment at workplace but also lays down guidelines for its prevention and disciplinary action.
• Public-Private Partnership suggested for coal evaluation from Coal India Limited mines
  • Underlining the need for ramping up coal production to meet the growing domestic demand, the Inter-Ministerial Group on PPP in coal mining, comprising the Planning Commission, the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) and the Coal Ministry, has strongly pressed for PPP mode for mining and evacuation of coal from Coal India Limited-owned mines;
  • At a meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) held recently, the DEA pointed out that there were 180 coal blocks available with CIL, of which some could be given to private sector operators on the PPP basis for mining.
• The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2010 is introduced in the Lok Sabha
• The President of the Republic of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon is visiting India; Heads of both States said that they should combine forces to fight terrorism, and as secular countries, both should strive to preserve their secular values and provide safety and security

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s advocacy for military strikes against Iran is running into rough weather with powerful domestic voices rejecting his call as “irresponsible.”
• In view of what it called ‘increasing acts of intimidation against Sri Lankan nationals in Tamil Nadu,’ Sri Lanka has issued a travel advisory to citizens against visiting the State

EMINENT PERSONS IN THE NEWS

• Manbir Singh becomes member of the UPSC
  • Former Indian Foreign Service officer from the 1976 batch, Manbir Singh took the oath of office and secrecy as Member of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Monday;
  • A former Secretary (Economic Relations) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr. Singh has held several important positions, including Counsellor (Commerce & Economics) in the former USSR and later the Russian Republic, Minister in the Embassy of India in the United Arab Emirates, Chief of Protocol in New Delhi, Ambassador of India in Hungary, Iran and the Netherlands.
• Anil Bordia, eminent educationalist and former civil servant passes away
  • Eminent educationist, activist and former civil servant Anil Bordia, who played an important role in defining the country’s new education policy, died in Jaipur late on Sunday night following a heart attack. He was 78. He was born on May 5, 1934, in Indore;
  • An Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1957 batch, Mr. Bordia was actively involved in formulation of the national education policy in 1986 and later evolved consensus on it as the Union Education Secretary from 1987 to 1992. He was instrumental in universalisation of primary education in Rajasthan and Bihar;
  • After his retirement as Union Education Secretary, Mr. Bordia conceptualised a highly acclaimed initiative for alternative education for adolescents, “Lok Jumbish”, in Rajasthan and headed it till 1999. He embarked upon “Doosra Dashak” project in 2001 with the emphasis on promotion of education and development among the youth;
  • Mr. Bordia was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 2010 in recognition of his contribution to the field of education. In 1999, UNESCO awarded him the prestigious Avicenna Gold Medal for exceptional contribution to educational development. Earlier, in 1996, he was elected Fellow of UNESCO’s Asia-Pacific Centre of Educational Innovation for Development, Bangkok;
  • The report of a committee on Right To Education (RTE) headed by him suggested measures to harmonise the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan vision, strategies and norms with the RTE mandate and operationalise several provisions under the RTE such as teachers’ capacity and admission of 25 per cent children from disadvantaged groups in schools.

EDITORIALS, OPINIONS & COLUMNS

• Read this article on the constitutional genesis of the powers of the CAG
• Read this interesting interview with the senior Chinese defence official on Sino-Indian relations
• Read this editorial on the Shome Committee recommendations on the GAAR issue
• If you have time, read this article which rounds up the recent happenings on the Julian Assange case. Not important

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• Emerge Platform in National Stock Exchange to help Small & Medium-scale enterprises
  • The NSE recently launched the SME platform called Emerge. There was a huge requirement for capital by the SMEs. It was important to create awareness among these units about the platform. Companies with post-issue face value of capital upto Rs. 25 crore would be able to raise funds and list on the Emerge;
  • The SME platform would enable them to raise the required capital. The NSE would help them take informed decisions. If they wanted to move ahead, it would help them with detailed training and awareness sessions.
• Banks told to issue cheques with uniform features
  • The Reserve Bank of India, on Monday, directed all banks to issue cheques with uniform features conforming to the Cheque Truncation System (CTS) 2010 standard by the end of this month;
  • The homogeneity in security features act as deterrent against frauds, and the fixed field placement specifications facilitate straight-through-processing at drawee banks’ end through the use of optical or image character recognition technology, the RBI said in a notification;
  • Cheque Truncation is the process of stopping the flow of the physical cheque issued by a drawer to the drawee branch. The physical instrument will be truncated at some point en-route to the drawee branch and an electronic image of the cheque would be sent to the drawee branch along with the relevant information like the MICR fields, date of presentation, presenting banks etc;
  • The images captured at the presenting bank level would be transmitted to the Clearing House and then to the drawee branches with digital signatures of the presenting bank. Thus each image would carry the digital signature, apart from the physical endorsement of the presenting bank, in a prescribed manner;
  • The RBI has been discussing the introduction of cheque truncation mechanisms to increase the efficiency in the cheque clearing cycle over sometime now.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

• Vitamin D hastens recovery in TB patients
  • Scientists have found that vitamin D supplementation in tuberculosis patients who are on medication can clear the Mycobacterium tuberculosis — the bacterium that causes TB — quickly and hasten recovery. Vitamin D was used to treat TB before the advent of antibiotics. Its efficacy in enhancing immunity in healthy individuals who are in close contact with TB patients is also well known;
  • In a recent study, scientists conducted a randomised trial on 95 patients with pulmonary TB and who were already on TB medication. Fifty-one patients did not get vitamin D supplementation (placebo group) and the remaining 44 got the supplementation in addition to the medication (intervention group);
  • What they found was truly significant — the average time taken for the bacterium to become undetectable under a microscope was 23 days in the intervention group compared with 36 days in the placebo group. In the case of culture studies, the average time for the intervention group to get rid of the bacterium was 35 days compared with 46.5 days in the placebo group;
  • If the 17 parameters they studied were “significantly affected” by antibiotics alone, the effects were more pronounced in the group that received vitamin D supplementation.