Friday, 05th june, 2013

NATIONAL NEWS

• Government may drop gag clause; wants judges to show restraint
  • The government may not press ahead with a clause in the draft Judicial Accountability Bill that seeks to curb casual observations ( obiter dicta ) made by senior judges against the legislature and the executive during the hearing of a case
  • The government may not insist on the provision that deems as misconduct the value judgements made by justices outside the contours of the case being heard. It would be preferable if the judges exercised self-restraint

• Unicef blames it on malnutrition
  • A UNICEF investigation report on the recent infant deaths at Attappady says that “anaemia in pregnant mothers and inadequate nutrition” are the main causes for the tragedy.
  • “Lack of medical facilities and trained medical personnel and inadequate transport facility also caused a large number of infant deaths in Attappady
  • The report says, “The cause of deaths was recorded for 33 out of 39 cases as asphyxia, ARDS, aspiration and apnoea, preterm and low-birth weight, development growth delay and Intrauterine Growth Retardation (IUGR), congenital heart disease, pneumonia, and meningitis

• France eases visa norms for Indian students
  • At a time the U.K. is mulling over hefty visa cash bonds raising concerns here, France on Thursday announced a slew of India-specific measures easing visa norms for those wishing to pursue higher education in the country.

• A round table in the Indian ocean
  • Seeking to leverage the growing strategic importance of the Indian Ocean and give new purpose to their 15-year-old regional association, countries in its littoral spanning three continents have launched an ambitious effort to find a common economic agenda
  • Minister of Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma, who is leading the Indian delegation, spoke of how the balance of world economic growth had shifted from the “North-West axis” to the global south, particularly the Asia-Pacific region.
  • This put the IORARC countries, with their combined GDP of $6 trillion (in 2011), in an advantageous position to create new pathways of cooperation not only among member-states, but with other regions, for the “shared benefit of economic development”.
  • Mauritius — the co-host of the event along with the IORARC chair India — is particularly keen to position itself as the main platform for the increasing financial investment in Africa.

• UK aid for marine biodiversity in the Andamans
  • The U.K.-based Whitley Fund For Nature has decided to extend financial support to BNHS India’s marine biodiversity conservation programme in the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
  • Chief Operating Officer of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) Deepak Apte has been awarded the Continuation Funding grant for developing Giant Clam species recovery plan and identifying potential sites for marine conservation reserves in the Andaman and Nicobar islands
  • The BNHS Andaman-Nicobar Programme starts off at an appropriate time and is in line with the “Aichi Targets” of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Incidentally India has two-year presidency for the CBD from Conference of Parties 11 (COP 11) that took place in October 2012 in Hyderabad, where conservation of marine and coastal biodiversity was designated a priority area.
  • Under the Andaman-Nicobar Programme, BNHS aims to establish baseline data for Giant Clam population ecology as well as the establishment of profound understanding of the social fabric of these islands.l the species of Giant Clam are protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act.

OPINION/EDITORIALS

• Article on the recent tragedy on love marriage in Tamil nadu
• Another article on the judicial appointments
• Article on river nile
• Editorial on Egypt's political abyss
• Editorial on Ishrat jahan case