Saturday, 20th july, 2013

NATIONAL NEWS

• Protect the western ghats orders green tribunal
  • The National Green Tribunal has held that the States were under a statutory obligation to protect the environment and ecology of the Western Ghats
  • The tribunal said there was “a statutory obligation upon the State to protect the environment and ecology of the Western Ghats and to ensure that they are not degraded so as to harm the public and environment at large. Environmental protection is not only the obligation of the State but in fact of all concerned.”

• Obama appoints Indian American for the top job
  • U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that he has nominated an Indian-American woman, Nisha Desai Biswal, to a top State Department role overseeing India and a vast swathe of nations in the region
  • Ms. Biswal, who is currently the Assistant Administrator for Asia at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will step into the shoes of incumbent Robert Blake, and lead policymaking at the State Department for India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

• Drugs board want the ban on diabetes drug revoked
  • The Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) on Friday recommended revoking the ban on pioglitazone — an oral anti-diabetic drug which was banned
  • But the DTAB, which was kept in the dark when the decision to ban was taken, has also recommended that the medicine be sold with a boxed warning (that the drug carries a significant risk of serious or even life-threatening adverse effects).
  • The expert committee meeting convened on July 11 wanted the ban to be revoked. The committee was formed when the government was severely criticised by diabetologists for acting in haste and without conducting any scientific study in the country. India approved pioglitazone more than a decade ago and many thousands are on this drug.

• UGC guidelines not binding on the state varsities
  • The Supreme Court has held that retirement age and pay scale fixed by the University Grants Commission for professors are not binding for universities run by States. A bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir (since retired) held that there would be no automatic application of UGC recommendations on State universities and it was for a State government to take a decision

• Article on the reactions from the chinese side on India's mountain corps move.

• NSA puts cyber security initiative on fast track.
  • The government of India has put its cyber security initiative on fast track after years of neglect and looming threat of cyber-attacks. Going a step further from the announcement of the Cyber Security Policy a few days ago, on Friday, the ‘Guidelines for Protection of National Critical Information Infrastructure,’ were placed in the public domain.
  • The detailed document was prepared by the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) which is to function as a specialised unit under the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).
  • Across the world, critical information infrastructure is broadly defined as including those networks which are interrelated, interconnected and interdependent. In India, the guidelines would initially include information and communications, transportation, energy, finance, technology, law enforcement, security and law enforcement, government, space and sensitive organizations.
  • India’s new guidelines are an extension of a legislative recognition under the IT Act 2000, which defines critical information infrastructure as “those computer resource and incapacitation or description of which, shall have debilitating impact on national security, economy, public health or safety”.
  • These guidelines go beyond the statement of intent expressed in the recently announced cyber security policy and have been formulated through a multi-stakeholder Joint Working Group (JWG) consisting of representatives from the government, academia and private sector. The JWG held wide consultations with sector experts and regulators across the key sectors before finalising the guidelines.
  • The cyber-security initiative is unique since given the vast ownership of the private sector of networks, infrastructure and consumers in telecom, Internet, banking, civil aviation, energy and transport sectors, they will now need to actively collaborate with the NCIIPC, as well as participate to ensure effective implementation of the guidelines.
  • Telecom service providers which provide a vast majority of the underlying national network are not only the first line of defence to any cyber-attack on the critical information infrastructure but in fact interconnect several other networks, such as aviation, energy and transport to each other and to the nearly 700 million Indians who have access to telephony and to a smaller degree to Internet and social media.
  • Members of the JWG agreed that this was only the first version of the guidelines which would need to continuously evolve, given the speed at which technology is changing, services evolving and citizens adapting to the same. The JWG also recognised that threats to the critical information infrastructure, unlike traditional national security, can arise from within the country, enemy States and non-state actors from outside India.

• Important article on the mid day meal scheme workers

• Now feed your cattle with fodder blocks and pellets
  • Driven to the wall by the shrinking supply of green fodder and the spiralling price of cattle feed concentrate, dairy farmers in Kerala now have a new option for nourishment of livestock.
  • The Kerala Livestock Development Board (KLDB) has set up a production plant for enriched fodder blocks and fodder pellets. The plant, located on the goat farm at Dhoni in Palakkad, will make quality feed utilising different forms of roughage (the coarse, fibrous constituent of vegetative matter) such as paddy straw, pineapple waste, dried grass and other plant parts.
  • The Rs. 2.83-crore project involves the establishment of a processing unit with adequate storage facilities for roughage and additives for enrichment of the feed. Production of surplus roughage in farms is a major component.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Australia slams the doors on would be asylum seekers
  • Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that would-be asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat will no longer be resettled in the country. They will instead be sent to Papua New Guinea (PNG) for “assessment”, under a new bilateral governmental agreement.
  • The Regional Settlement Arrangement, which was signed by the two countries on Friday, will initially be implemented for 12 months and reviewed annually. It will come into effect immediately. In exchange for their cooperation, Papua New Guinea will get extra foreign aid from Australia in a range of areas including health, education and law and order.

OPINION/EDITORIALS

• A very good article on the problems and possible solutions for Kashmir issue
• An article on a social audit done on the mid day meal scheme
• Article on the recent supreme court verdict on NEET
• A sociological article on Long distance relationships
• Editorial on the NEET verdict
• Editorial on the Court verdict on night dancers in the Mumbai night clubs

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

• FDI in defence to be capped at 49%
  • The government has decided to fix 49 per cent as the upper limit for foreign direct investment (FDI) in defence manufacturing, subject to approval by Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).
  • FDI up to 26 per cent in defence manufacturing would be through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).
  • Any proposal involving FDI of 26 per cent to 49 per cent upper limit, however, will be decided by the CCS if it entails induction of state-of-the-art technology.
  • “The finer details about what will constitute the state-of-the-art technology and high-end technology will be spelled out after the Cabinet gives its formal approval to the proposal