Weekly Current Affairs Bulletin: 7 January, 2013 To 13 JANUARY, 2013

WEEKLY CURRENT AFFAIRS BULLETIN
7TH JANUARY, 2013 TO 13TH JANUARY, 2013
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[ 2 ] Weekly Current Affairs 7th January to 13th January, 2013
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2nd December: Infrastructure & Resources 1. Transportation infrastructure: Road and Highway Networks, Mass Transit Systems, Railways, Waterways, Ports.... 2. Energy infrastructure:- Thermal Power Generation, Natural Gas Pipelines & Petroleum Pipelines, Nuclear Energy, Renewable Energy...... 3. Water management infrastructure:- Drinking water supply, Sewage Collection and Disposal of Waste water, Flood Control, Water Harwesting..... 4. Communications infrastructure:- Television and Radio Transmission, Internet, Social Network, Search Engines, Communications Satellites...... 5. Solid Waste Management 6. Economic Infrastructure: Manufacturing Infrastructure, including Industrial Parks and Special Economic zones, Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Infrastructure.... 7. Resources: Water Resources, Forest Resources, Land Resources, Energy Resources, Minerals, Resource Management..... 9th December: Demography : Population Composition, Density, Literacy, Sex Ratio... 16th December: Environmental Problems & Global Environmental Governance : Deforestation, Pollution: Air, Water, Land, Noise, Desertification, Biodiversity Depletion, Global Warming, SD.......
Production and productivity, Microirrigation, Urbanization, Government Initiatives...... 6th January: Indian Economy Basics, Planning & Trade 1. Industry Services, Agriculture, Energy..... 2. Balance of Payments. Foreign Direct Investment....... 3. Growth, Development and Other Issues......... 4. Poverty Estimates, Impact of Poverty........ 5. Exchange rate. Role of RBI..... 6. Nature of Planning - Five Year Plan, Planning after 1991 (LPG), Inflation..... 13th January: Governance and Contemporary Political Developments : Development Politics, Political and Administrative Institutions, Good Governance, Internal Security....
23rd December: Human Development, Social Sector Initiatives and Programmes & Policies 1. Concept of Human Development, Development vs. Growth, Human Development Index, MPI, Innovation..... 2. Social Inclusion, Child Welfare, Women Welfare.... 30th December: Agriculture, Urbanisation, Health : Agriculture and GDP, Agricultural Regionalization,
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20th January ... 27th January ... 3rd February .. 10th February . 31st March ...... 7th April ......... 14th April ....... 21st April ........
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Weekly Current Affairs 7th January to 13th January, 2013 [3]
NATIONAL
20th Law Commission Appointed
Justice D. K. Jain has been appointed as the Chairman of the Law Commission of India which gives advice to the government on complex legal issues. It has a three-year term ending on 31st August, 2015. The Terms of Reference of the Twentieth Law Commission include the following: A. Review/Repeal of obsolete laws: a) Identify laws which are no longer needed or relevant and can be immediately repealed; b) Identify laws which are not in harmony with the existing climate of economic liberalization and need change; c) Identify laws which otherwise require changes or amendments and to make suggestions for their amendment; d) Consider in a wider perspective the suggestions for revision/ amendment given by Expert Groups in various Ministries/Departments with a view to coordinating and harmonizing them; e) Suggest suitable measures for quick redressal of citizens' grievances, in the field of law. B. Law and Poverty: c) Improvement of standards of all concerned with the administration of justice. D. Examine the existing laws in the light of Directive Principles of State Policy and to suggest ways of improvement and reform and also to suggest such legislations as might be necessary to implement the Directive Principles and to attain the objectives set out in the Preamble to the Constitution. E. Examine the existing laws with a view for promoting gender equality and suggesting amendments thereto. F. Revise the Central Acts of general importance so as to simplify them and to remove anomalies, ambiguities and inequities. G. Recommend to the Government measure for making the statute book up-to-date by repealing obsolete laws and enactments or parts thereof which have outlived their utility.
a) Examine the Laws which affect the poor and carry out post-audit for socio-economic legislations; b) Take all such measures as may be necessary to harness law and the legal process in the service of the poor.
C. Keep under review the system of judicial administration to ensure that it is responsive to the reasonable demands of the times and in particular to secure: a) Elimination of delays, speedy clearance of arrears and reduction in costs so as to secure quick and economical disposal of cases without affecting the cardinal principle that decision should be just and fair; b) Simplification of procedure to reduce and eliminate technicalities and devices for delay so that it operates not as an end in itself but as a means of achieving justice;
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Weekly Current Affairs 7th January to 13th January, 2013
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Cabinet enacted legislation to declare Lakhipur-Bhanga stretch of Barak River as a National Waterway
The Union Cabinet has approved the introduction of a Bill in the Parliament for declaring LakhipurBhanga stretch (121 kms.) of the Barak River as a National Waterway. It also gave its approval for preparation of projects/schemes for development of infrastructure facilities on this stretch of the river at an estimated cost of Rs.123 crore with implementation in two phases. Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) set up under IWAI Act, 1985 will be the implementing agency for this project. The first phase of the project would be completed by 2016-17 followed by the second phase which is likely to be completed by 2018-19. The enactment to declare Lakhipur-Bhanga stretch of the Barak River as National Waterway will result in unified development of the waterways for shipping and navigation and transportation of cargo to the North Eastern Region particularly in the states of Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.
The Government of India has so far declared five waterways as National Waterways. These are:- (i) Allahabad-Haldia stretch of the Ganga-BhagirathiHooghly river system (1620 km); (ii) Dhubri-Sadiya stretch of Brahmaputra River (891 km); (iii) Kottapuram-Kollam stretch of West Coast Canal along with Udyogmandal and Champakara Canals (205 km); (iv) Kakinada-Puducherry stretch of the canal along with designated stretches of Godavari and Krishna Rivers (1078 km); and (v) designated stretches of East Coast Canal, Brahmani River and Mahanadi Delta (588 km). The Lakhipur-Bhanga stretch of the Barak River would be the sixth National Waterway.
range of electric vehicles, which would result in liquid fuel savings of 2.2 - 2.5 million tonnes by 2020. This will also result in substantial lowering of vehicular emissions and decrease in carbon di-oxide emissions by 1.3% to 1.5% in 2020 as compared to a status quo scenario. However with respect to the barriers in this sector government is aiming to adopt following measures which include - providing initial impetus through demand support measures that facilitate faster consumer acceptance of these expensive newer vehicles. In addition, the government will also facilitate automotive R&D and put in place charging infrastructure. NMEM is amongst the most significant interventions of the Government that promises to transform the automotive paradigm of the future by lessening the dependence on fossil fuels, increasing energy efficiency of vehicles and by providing the means to achieve ultimate objective of cleaner transportation that is compatible with sustainable renewable energy generation. This Intervention will also help encourage the Indian Automotive Industry to shift to newer, cleaner technologies so that it builds its future competitive advantage around environmentally sustainable products, high end technologies, innovation and knowledge. The implementation and roll out of the NEMMP 2020 will be done through various specific schemes, interventions, policies that are currently under formulation and will be considered by the Government in the near future.
Pursuing two degrees simultaneously may become a reality in the near future. The University Grants Commission (UGC) is thinking of introducing a system under which students enrolled in a regular degree course can pursue an additional degree at the same time under open, distance, or part-time basis from the same or different university. The UGC had constituted an expert committee under Prof Furqan Qamar, vice-chancellor, Central University of Himachal Pradesh to look into the feasibility of such a course. The panel has also suggested that similar rule should apply if a student doing a regular course wanted to do a certificate, diploma, advanced diploma or PG diploma programme as an additional course simultaneously either in regular or open and distance mode in the same or other institutions. The committee, however, suggested that the views of the vice-chancellors of all universities in the country should be taken before taking a final decision on implementation of dual degree in the country. The dual degree programme is very common in western countries and in India, IITs already offer such dual degree programmes. To implement it, universities will have to make statutory provisions.
National Electric Mobility Mission Plan Launched
The Hon'ble Prime Minister has unveiled the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020. The Plan seeks to support the creation of necessary eco system for promoting electric mobility, a frontier technology, so as to make it a self-sustaining business in the future. The National Electric Mobility Mission Plan envisages new sales of 6-7 million units of a
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UGC plans two degrees at a time
Indian Civil and Administrative Service (Central) Association suggestions for dealing crimes against women
The Indian Civil and Administrative Service (Central) Association submitted their suggestions and recommendations to the J S Verma committee, constituted to suggest changes in the law to deal with growing incidents of crime against women. The association's recommendations include adding a separate section in the IPC to define aggravated rape, including gangrape and violent assault with the intention to cause bodily harm, as well as acid attacks; amending the law to ensure rape proved to be committed by a juvenile attracts the same punishment "after the convict attains majority"; and defining honour killing and punishing it with death.
It has, however, opposed castration of rapists as punishment, terming it as "repugnant to a civilised society". The association has supported a Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems but suggested access to a database, while available to all citizens, should be through due process on individual request. It should not be publicly available. Specifically, the idea of keeping a public naming-and-shaming database of rape convicts or other criminals is strongly rejected by them because it will be a source of undeserved punishment to family members of such convicts. The association's other suggestions to the Verma panel include: make marital rape a punishable offence and rape gender neutral; punish public remarks derogatory to women at par with a statement derogatory to SCs and STs; make gram panchayats responsible for reporting crimes against women in their jurisdiction and tie their funding to their performance in this area. Giving directives on behaviour of individuals by khaps and similar extra legal bodies should be made punishable if these are illegal or contravene fundamental rights.
Government has launched LPG portability
Government raises assistance to rural poor for housing
The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal of the Ministry of Rural Development to provide a quality and affordable house to the rural poor keeping in view the steep increase in cost of materials.
The Government has raised the amount of assistance from Rs 45,000 to Rs 70,000 for construction of a dwelling unit in Indira Awaas Yojana. For hilly and other difficult areas, the grants for constructing houses have been increased from Rs 48,500 crore to Rs 75,000. There will also be a provision now of loan up to Rs 20,000 - up from Rs 10,000 - with four per cent interest for buying land for the house. The IAY is a flagship scheme of the Ministry of Rural Development and aims at addressing rural housing issues by providing grant for construction / upgradation of dwelling units of BPL families especially giving priority to Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes, freed bonded labourers and physically challenged persons with financial assistance of Rs. 45,000/ - in plain areas and Rs. 48,500/- in hilly / difficult areas.
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The Government of India has launched a scheme offering portability for LPG connections. This means if a customer is not satisfied with his present distributor, he has the choice to shift his connection to another dealer. However, unlike mobile services where you could change the service provider or the mobile company, an LPG consumer will have the option to change the dealer within the same distribution company but not the oil company. For example, a consumer of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will have the option to choose from other IOC dealers but will not be able to switch to dealers of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) or Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). The pilot project has been launched in Chandigarh. The service would be extended to 25 more districts in the next fiscal. This will help in providing better services to 13.5 crore customers and end the monopolistic practices of the cooking gas distributors GOI has also launched new IT/web-enabled initiative, 'Lakshya' to enable consumers book and track refills online as well on mobile phone. It would enhance transparency in distribution of cylinders. Under the new initiative, customers can rate their distributors on service and anybody found wanting could possibly face termination of dealership. Now each distributor is being automatically rated from 5 stars to no star on a graded scale using transaction data. The distributor who supplies 85 per cent of cylinders booked in less than two days is rated 5 stars and the distributor who supplies 85 per cent of cylinders beyond 10 days is rated with no star. Others are rated in between according to their delivery pattern. The rating will help consumers select distributorships once portability is available.
IIT education gets costlier
The IITs has approved a hike in tuition fee for undergraduate students from Rs 50,000 to Rs 90,000 per year with effect from this year. However, education at IITs will remain free for students from the Scheduled Caste and Tribes. The move was seen necessary for the IITs to become self-sustainable like the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The fee structure for the premier institutes will now be reviewed every year. The IITs have started to receive research grants from the industry, which is helping the institutes garner more funds and is also seen as beneficial for
the industry. It is estimated that only 20 per cent of the IITs' funds is generated from student fees, while the rest is financed by the Government. Recurring cost on each student at IIT is about Rs 2.5 lakh a year, while the student pays Rs 50,000. It was also decided at the meeting that 25 per cent of the students from economically backward segment (where parental income is less than Rs 4.5 lakh per annum) would be provided with 100 per cent scholarships. Members of Council of IITs stressed that easy loan facility will be available to students and no student, who has qualified JEE, is denied entry into IITs due to financial constraints. Further, it was decided to not only make IITs more research-oriented but also include external peer review for quality improvement.
programmes to cut carbon footprint, and also carry out regular green audit.
GOI delaying proposal of laws against leaders accused of rape
The other key decisions taken by the Council include increasing the number of doctoral students, enhancing teacher capacity and developing strong industry-academia linkages. The Council has also decided to create a framework by which students will be able to pursue doctoral studies at IIT without giving the GATE exam, if they fall in their marks fall in the top percentile.
Further, IITs will also include green technologyrelated courses in the curriculum, implement
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The government appears to have slowed down on the proposal to disqualify candidates with criminal charges, such as rape and murder, framed by courts from contesting Parliament and assembly elections. Even after consulting with the state governments, NGOs and the election commission more than 16 months ago, the law ministry's draft to amend the six-decade-old People's Representation Act is gathering dust. The ministry covered all the offences that carried a jail term of more than five years and also sought to debar those facing corruption charges. But this provision was not to apply in cases where "charges were framed in less than a year from the date of filing nominations for elections". The draft bill allows those who feel that charges have been wrongly framed to move the high court concerned, "which will refer the matter to a special tribunal for disposal within 15 days".
INTERNATIONAL
Syrian President outlines new peace plan
Syrian President Bashar Assad has outlined a new peace initiative that includes a national reconciliation conference and a new government and constitution but demanded regional and Western countries stop funding and arming rebels first. Assad ignored international demands for him to step down and proposed to hold a dialogue with those "who have not betrayed Syria." This effort will help retain talented professionals who are valued by U.S. employers and who seek to contribute to US economy. Calls for relaxing the restrictions placed on H4 visa holders have come amidst growing expectations that President Barack Obama may address the complex issue of comprehensive immigration reform during his second term in office. While opposition to reform has primarily been rooted in concerns over further loss in American jobs to new immigrants, proponents have made the case that fewer work restrictions for H-4 dependent spouses, for example, might encourage "professionals with high demand skills to remain in the country and help spur the innovation and growth of U.S. companies," and the DHS appeared to support this view in its notes. What is H-1B visa?
He called for a national reconciliation conference, and the drawing up of a National Charter that reinforces Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity, rejects interference in its domestic affairs, and abandons terror. The National Charter will then be submitted to a popular referendum.
Members of the Syrian opposition, however, have rejected Assad's proposal.
Palestinian Authority is now 'State of Palestine'
The Palestinian president has ordered his government to officially change the name of the Palestinian Authority to "State of Palestine." The move follows the November decision by the United Nations to upgrade the Palestinians' status to that of a "non-member observer state."
According to a presidential decree, the 'State of Palestine' will be used instead of the PNA in all official correspondence passports, ID cards, drivers' licences, stamps and by all Palestinian embassies in countries which recognize Palestine.
U.S. may allow H-4 visa holders to work
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that it was proposing to provide employment authorisation to H-4 visa holders, who are spouse-dependents of principal H-1B "nonimmigrant" visa holders. The DHS has however clarified that it planned to extend employment authorization only to those within the H4 population who "have begun the process of seeking lawful permanent resident status through employment and have extended their authorized period of admission" in the U.S.
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What is H-4 visa?
The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H). It allows US employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. If a foreign worker in H-1B status quits or is dismissed from the sponsoring employer, the worker must either apply for and be granted a change of status to another nonimmigrant status, find another employer (subject to application for adjustment of status and/or change of visa), or leave the US.
An H-4 visa is a visa issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to immediate family members (spouse and children under 21 years of age) of the H-1B visa holders. H-4 visa holders can hold a driver's license, open bank accounts, and get an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number for US tax purposes.
Sri Lankan Parliament impeaches Chief Justice
Sri Lankan Parliament voted overwhelmingly to impeach the country's first woman Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, deepening a standoff between the judiciary and the government.
The PSC report, on which the impeachment motion was debated, had probed allegations of misconduct by the top judge, but it was earlier quashed by The Court of Appeal. Parliament, nevertheless, went ahead with the debate. After a two-day debate, which saw charges and countercharges being levelled on a host of issues, Parliament voted on the motion moved by the Leader of the House, Nimal Siripala de Silva. In Sri Lanka, the Speaker can entertain a motion of impeachment against a sitting Chief Justice if demanded by one-third of the 225 members. The motion is required to be passed by a simple majority -113 votes. In Ms. Bandaranayake's case, as many as 117 MPs had signed the impeachment motion and handed it over to the Speaker.
Saudi women appointed in Shura Council for first time
Saudi King Abdullah appointed 30 women to the previously all-male consultative Shura Council in decrees, marking a historic first as he pushes reforms in the ultra-conservative kingdom. The decrees give women a 20-per-cent quota in the Shura Council, a body appointed by the king to advise him on policy and legislation. One decree amended an article in the council's statute to give women representation on the body while the other named the 150 members, among them 30 women. The new appointees were chosen based on their academic and administrative achievements. King Abdullah took the decisions following consultations with religious leaders in the kingdom, where women are subjected to many restrictions and are not allowed to mix with men. They stipulate that men and women will be segregated inside the council, with a special area designated for females who will enter through a separate door so as not to mix with their male colleagues. King Abdullah had been carefully treading towards change, introducing municipal elections for the first time in Saudi Arabia in 2005. In September 2011 he granted women the right to cast ballots and run as candidates in the next local vote, set for 2015.
Despite the impeachment, Ms. Bandaranayake is still some distance away from being thrown out. The President has to make a formal proclamation to this effect. Also, since the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) report itself is void, the judiciary cannot accept the impeachment. In effect, Ms. Bandaranayake can continue as CJ till the executive implements the orders of the legislature.
This impeachment calls into question issues about the separation of powers in Sri Lanka and the impact of its absence on democratic institutions.
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[10] Weekly Current Affairs 7th January to 13th January, 2013
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ECONOMY
Crisil sees 6.7% growth in 2013-14
The SAT was set up under Section 15K of the SEBI Act, 1992 to adjudicate upon the appeals against the decisions of SEBI. The SEBI Act 1992, inter-alia, under Section 15M specifies that a person shall not be qualified for appointment as the Presiding Officer of Securities Appellate Tribunal, unless he is a sitting or retired Judge of the Supreme Court or a sitting or retired Chief Justice of a High Court. The existing prescribed qualifications made selection to the post of PO, SAT difficult. As a result, filling up the post of PO, SAT had been pending for quite some time. After the decision now, it would be easier to fill up the vacancy, without diluting the expertise or experience required for the post. India is expected to grow at a higher rate of 6.7 per cent in 2013-14 on the back of a pick-up in the agriculture sector, lower interest rates and higher government spending. Whereas Indian economy will grow at an estimated 5.5 per cent this fiscal. According to the report, a normal monsoon would boost agricultural GDP growth to an above-trend rate of 3.5 per cent in 2013-14, also gaining from a lower base of 2012-13.
In addition to increased growth, the agency has also predicted a reduction in wholesale price inflation (WPI), despite higher consumption growth, to around 7 per cent from the current 7.7 per cent projected for 2012-13. The major factors pointing towards lower WPI are improved agricultural output, a stronger rupee and lower crude oil prices. However the likely upward revision of fuel prices and persistent excess demand for food articles are likely to limit the further decline in WPI inflation.
With easing of inflation, the agency expects the Reserve Bank of India to cut interest rates by 75-100 basis points this month, thereby lowering retail lending rates and boosting demand in interestsensitive sectors. Further, improved external demand, as a result of global growth, could raise India's exports especially in the IT/ITes sector. Therefore, the services sector will remain healthy at 8 per cent in the next fiscal.
Amendment to Section 15M of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Act, 1992
The Cabinet has approved the proposal of the Department of Economic Affairs for amendment to Section 15M of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Act, 1992, to enlarge the field of selection for the post of Presiding Officer (PO) of the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), by including sitting or retired judge of a High Court with a minimum seven years of service, as a Judge of a High Court as one of the qualifications.
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TAPI pipeline: India, fellow promoters to float SPV
Struggling to get the TAPI gas pipeline underway, its four squabbling promoters have decided to float a special purpose vehicle, pumping in $5 million equity each, to keep the transnational project alive until a multinational corporation takes charge. While Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan were of the view that the four promoters could build and operate the pipeline on their own, India has been steadfast that the project could be started only if a multinational leads it. The multinational leadership can act as a stabilizing factor as pipeline security remains the biggest concern as it passes through Afghanistan and Balochistan in Pakistan, both unstable areas. Besides the complex and difficult relationships among the participating nations, none of the nominee companies of the four countries has the financial and managerial capability to execute the project The four countries will float a Dubai-based SPV, which would scout for a consortium leader as well as a credible financier while the US government does its bit to veer around Turkmen law to get upstream equity for its multinational. Global majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron have put a pre-condition of a share in the upstream Turkmenistan gas field to lead the project and to
commit a lion's share of the $9 billion required to construct the 1,680 km pipeline from Turkmenistan, crossing Afghanistan and Pakistan, to India. However, Turkmenistan has refused as its national laws do not permit foreign equity in oil and gas fields on land. It agreed to grant service contracts to the overseas investors but that did not impress the global majors unwilling to take financial and operational risks for a less profitable construction and service contract. The TAPI pipeline will run from the Turkmenistan gas fields to Afghanistan. It will start from the Dauletabad gas fields and run into Afghanistan alongside the highway running from Heart to Kandahar and then via Quetta and Multan in Pakistan. The final destination of the pipeline will be Fazilka near the India-Pakistan border.
It will have a capacity to carry 90 million metric standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd) of gas for a 30-year period and is likely to become operational by 2018. India and Pakistan would get 38 mmscmd each, while the remaining 14 mmscmd will be supplied to Afghanistan.
The economic benefits of the TAPI Gas Pipeline will be immense for the energystarved economies such as India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The flow of natural gas will bring in industrial and economic development. This will not only enhance prosperity through employment generation, but more importantly, also provide socio-political stabilization in this region.
Pharma companies to adopt tough ethical norms
The pharma industry has decided to adopt strict guidelines to bring in transparency in clinical drug trials, and break the nexus between companies and doctors by adopting stringent MCI (Medical Council of India) guidelines which ban all gifts to doctors. The "Code of Pharmaceutical Practices" adopted recently bans all trials conducted for "disguised promotion" of medicines, while laying down that companies need to disclose all trials conducted in the country. A new code drawn up recently by the MNC-led industry body, Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) seeks to ensure that companies' interactions with HCPs and other stakeholders such as medical institutions and patient organizations, are appropriate and transparent.
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In India, there is lack of transparency in conducting clinical trials for drugs, with a view that the rules were not being followed. Recently, the Supreme Court rapped the government asking it to regulate "illegal" drug trials. Globally, the pharma industry has been under fire due to its aggressive marketing and unethical promotion of drugs and the nexus it enjoys with healthcare professionals. In the US, certain legislations have already been adopted to break this nexus, while in India, the Medical Council of India, earlier brought in stringent guidelines. Though the OPPI code is stringent and plugs certain gaps, it is not mandatory on companies. Also, a majority of the pharma industry - represented by domestic companies -has still not finalized its code. The Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), which represents the domestic companies' interests, is working on a code which will be transparent, practical and include all relevant disclosures from drug companies. After being flooded with complaints about the pharma-doctor nexus and unethical promotions, the government initiated an exercise to bring in a uniform code for drug companies four years back. But, nothing has been finalized and only a draft exists. Experts say that the code for pharma companies needs to be made mandatory, otherwise it is not effective. The OPPI code has been adopted from the code of ethics of Geneva-based IFPMA (International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations) of which OPPI is a member. One of the significant guidelines incorporated says that no pharmaceutical product shall be promoted for use until the requisite approval for marketing for such use has been given. This plugs the gap on clinical trials of off-label use of medicines-- a practice which drug companies have been increasingly resorting to, over recent years.
EGoM recommends cut in CDMA spectrum price
An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) has recommended reducing minimum price for sale of spectrum used by CDMA mobile operators by up to 50 per cent in the second round of auction planned to begin on March 11, 2013 to raise a minimum of Rs 45,000 crore. A 50 per cent reduction would mean that the companies will have to pay Rs 9,100 crore for 5 MHz pan-India CDMA spectrum. This will address the complaints of various CDMA operators, who raised
the issue of higher base price. With this cut, the base price of GSM spectrum will become more than the price of CDMA spectrum, which was earlier 1.3 times higher than that of GSM spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band. The pan-India base price of GSM spectrum was Rs 14,000 crore, and at Rs 18,200 crore for CDMA spectrum. The Cabinet had also announced reduction in the base price for 2G spectrum by 30 per cent for Delhi, Mumbai, Karnataka and Rajasthan circles, which did not receive any bids in the November auctions. Earlier, telecom operators were given 4.4 Mhz of spectrum with licence at price of Rs 1,658 crore for pan-India operations and later they were entitled to get 1.8 Mhz spectrum on fulfillment of certain subscriber base criteria.
2012, and also increased shareholding of the government in PSBs to 58 percent".
New investment policy for urea to check spurt in gas prices
The new investment policy announced by the Union Government may result in substantial urea capacity addition in the next three to four years. The policy benchmarks realization of urea for new projects to import parity prices, subject to floating floor and ceiling prices, which are in turn linked to gas prices. As per the policy, the floor prices of urea increase are in line with the gas price of $14 (about Rs 770) million British thermal units (mBtu). If the gas price crosses $14/mBtu, urea producers are to be reimbursed the entire gas cost. This ensures new projects are protected from a sharp spike in gas prices. The new policy is in line with the demand of the industry to do away with the gas price ceiling of $14 mBtu in the earlier proposed policy. Further, it provides a downside risk protection through a costplus mechanism and upside benefit through import parity price (IPP)-linked pricing mechanism for new projects. India currently consumes 29 million tonnes of urea, while the domestic production stands at 22 million tonnes leading to import of about seven million tonnes. The policy may help creation of incremental capacities to the extent of 8-10 million tonnes a year over five years, although it may not eliminate urea imports altogether. The policy is favourable for various stakeholders. While the industry would benefit through implicit pass-through of gas prices, the Union Government would benefit through reduction of subsidy outflows, as reliance on imports would reduce and international prices may also correct due to lower demand from India. Further, lower subsidy receivables should also lead to an improvement in the working capital cycle of the urea players, which should lead to a decline in the interest costs of these companies.
Cabinet approves capital infusion in PSU banks
The Union Cabinet has approved a capital infusion package of Rs 12,517 crore for about 10 public sector banks.
According to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), the move will enable the banks to maintain a minimum tier-1 CRAR (capital to risk weighted assets ratio) at comfortable level under international bank capital adequacy standard norm BASEL-III. This will ensure compliance to the regulatory norms on capital adequacy and will cater to the credit needs of productive sectors of the economy, as well as, to withstand the impact of stress in the economy. This additional availability of credit will cater to the credit needs of our economy and will also benefit employment oriented sectors, especially agriculture, micro and small enterprises, export, entrepreneurs."
Earlier the government has infused about Rs 20,117 crore in public sector banks during 2010-11, and Rs 12,000 crore in 2011-12. According to the Economic Survey for 2011-12, the capital infusion had enabled PSBs to "maintain a minimum tier 1 CRAR at eight percent on 31st March,
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INDIA AND THE WORLD

Visa-on-arrival at Attari for senior citizens
The visa-on-arrival facility at the Attari-Wagah check post to Pakistani nationals over 65 years of age will begin from January 15. Under the new liberalized visa regime, the senior citizen will be able to make two visits in a calendar year for 45 days each with a gap of two months. But the Pakistani nationals would not be allowed to stay in Kerala, Jammu & Kashmir, restricted and prohibited areas (that include parts of Rajasthan, Manipur, Sikkim, Uttaranchal, Nagaland, Himachal Pradesh and others). In all, the visitors would be able to visit five places. The visa would also not be applicable for travel by air or sea. The visa fee has been revised to Rs. 100 or $2. The move comes as a step towards actualizing the September 2012 agreement inked by the then External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik after the conclusion of the Foreign Minister-level engagement at the end of the second round of the resumed dialogue. payment of salaries had also been reported. The government was pursuing the bilateral cooperation initiatives for diversifying the overseas destination base for Indian workers with developed countries.
IFC proposed to invest $25 mn in India 2020 Fund
The new visa regime - first major overhaul since 1974 - is expected to ease travel restrictions for business persons and will introduce a new category of group tourism, expected to be implemented soon.
Welfare initiatives for expatriates
India had signed Memorandums of Understanding on manpower with the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, and Malaysia for the protection and welfare of the expatriate Indian workers. The government had also created the Indian Community Welfare Fund enabling the Heads of the Missions to provide on-site relief to the distressed workers. The Indian Diaspora in West Asia, which constituted mostly of workers, faced issues related to contractual disputes with recruiters. Cases of employers holding back the passports and nonWeekly Current Affairs 7th January to 13th January, 2013
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Global development institution IFC is proposing an equity investment of up to $25 million in 'India 2020' fund that aims to provide capital and strategic assistance to SMEs in the country. The investment has been proposed in the 'India 2020 Fund II', has a target fund size of $125 million; which is a successor to India 2020 Fund I. The earlier fund with a size of $100 million had earned an estimated gross internal rate of return of 30%. India 2020 Fund-II aims to invest in sectors that benefit from and promote consumer demand and purchasing power like healthcare and education, as well as rural consumption and agribusiness. The India 2020 Fund-II will invest nearly $5-15 million per investment for acquiring minority stakes in its target entities. Its investment focus will be on high growth businesses with a track record of product and process innovation and which are well positioned to bring about transformation in their respective sectors. MUSE Capital Advisors Limited, a private limited liability company, will act as the investment manager of the fund. The fund will be a Mauritius-registered company and will operate primarily through one or more subsidiaries formed in the Republic of Mauritius, which will acquire, own and operate the portfolio of investments. The proposed support will further catalyze interest in equity funding for capital constrained Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) looking for growth equity to scale up.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution which offers investment, advisory, and asset management services to encourage private sector development in developing countries. The objectives are: a) Mobilizing other sources of finance for private enterprise development b) Promoting open and competitive markets in developing countries c) Supporting companies and other private sector partners where there is a gap d) Helping generate productive jobs and deliver essential services to the poor and the vulnerable
facilitate common access to technologies developed or under development in the BRICS countries. The meeting has adopted Delhi Communique, which will see concrete plans on issues like integrated management of non-communicable prevention, coordination and financing of research and development for medical products, strengthening health surveillance and drug discovery and development along with emphasizes on the child survival through progressive reduction in the maternal mortality, infant mortality, neo-natal mortality and under-five mortality, to achieve Millennium Development Goals. This is the second meeting of BRICS health ministers following the first at Beijing in July 2011. The Beijing Declaration emphasised the need for technology transfer as a means to empower developing countries, and the importance of generic medicines in realizing the right to health. It also emphasised the fostering of cooperation among BRICS countries to make available and improve medical technology. It was agreed to establish a technical working group to discuss specific proposals. The following are the Agreed Action Plans of BRICS Health Ministers Meet on strengthening Health Surveillance System:a) The Member countries will nominate their respective Nodal officers to jointly form a Technical Working Group (TWG). This TWG will exchange information regarding the prevailing systems and institutional mechanisms through meetings and/or other means. b) Best practices and models will be identified along with the potential areas of mutual benefit and collaboration among member countries. Visit to Member countries will be undertaken as necessary. c) A plan of collaboration will emerge pursuant to the deliberations. This can include, inter alia, detection and notification mechanisms, standard operating procedures, risk assessment processes, response to public health emergencies and disaster, collaboration on identified areas / diseases. d) A report will be placed before the next meeting of the Health Ministers of BRICS countries.
BRICS countries agreed to strengthen cooperation in health sector
Health officials of the BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - during the 2nd BRICS Health Ministers' Meeting - has come to the conclusion that multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health problem in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) due to its high prevalence and incidence mostly among the marginalized and vulnerable sections of society, thus agreed to strengthen cooperation in areas of manufacturing affordable health products and developing advanced health technologies. The health ministers during the meet also resolved to reduce the prevalence of TB through innovation for new drugs/vaccine, diagnostics and promotion of consortia of tuberculosis researchers to collaborate on clinical trials of drugs and strengthening access to affordable medicines and delivery of quality care.
The Ministers also agreed to adopt and improve systems for notification of TB patients, availability of anti-TB drugs at facilities by improving supplier performance, procurement systems and logistics and management of HIV-associated tuberculosis in the primary health care. They resolved to share experience and expertise in the areas of surveillance, existing and new strategies to prevent the spread of HIV, and in rapid scale up of affordable treatment. Importantly, the nations committed to strengthen cooperation to combat malaria through enhanced diagnostics, research and development and to
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Kilogramme has put on weight
The official kilogramme - a cylinder-shaped hunk of metal that defines the fundamental unit of mass - has itself gained weight. Scientists have found that due to surface contamination the original kilogramme is likely to be tens of microgrammes heavier than it was when the first standard was set in 1875. As a result, each country that has one of these standard masses has a slightly different definition of the kilogramme, which could throw off science experiments or international trade. collaborations and therefore new models would need to be developed involving global alliances. g) Youthful leadership in science sector is a key to the objective of shaping the future of India through science. Leadership pipeline for science is of high priority. h) Mobile telephony and other products of the ICT revolution need to be mobilized for conveying the needed information on weather, market prices, problems relating to health on the basis of a reaching the unreached approach.
100th Session of Indian Science Congress
The 100th Session of Indian Science Congress concluded with a call to bring forward the youth to work for the promotion of science as the youth leadership is a key to the objective of shaping the future of India. Important recommendations are:
a) Special effort are needed to attract talent and develop Human Resource for science, technology and innovation in a mission b) Special drive to readjust governance processes in the university systems for rejuvenation of research in academic sector by implementation of recommendations of several committees which have made excellent recommendations needed. c) Strengthening of Public and Private Partnerships in Research and Development sector and create a policy environment for increasing significantly the investment of the private sector into R&D. d) Enhance the public outreach of science through effective communication with a focus on Public and political understanding of science and the ramifications of new and emerging technologies of relevance to social problems. e) Interconnect various arms of Indian science sector and link discovery processes in science to problem solving responsibilities of the research and development activities of the country. f) Indian science sector needs to develop a suitable strategy and road map, Climate change and other global issues would require worldwide
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Floating ice on Saturn's moon Titan
Nasa scientists have discovered blocks of hydrocarbon ice in seas and lakes on Saturn's moon Titan that may host exotic forms of life. The formation of floating hydrocarbon ice will provide an opportunity for interesting chemistry along the boundary between liquid and solid, a boundary that may have been important in the origin of terrestrial life. Titan is the only other body besides Earth in our solar system with stable bodies of liquid on its surface. While our planet's cycle of precipitation and evaporation involves water, Titan's cycle involves hydrocarbons like ethane and methane. Ethane and methane are organic molecules, which scientists think can be building blocks for the more complex chemistry from which life arose.
461 new planets, billions of Earth-size planets in Milky Way: Stud
Nasa's Kepler space telescope has uncovered another 461 potential new planets, most of which are the size of Earth or a few times larger. The announcement brings Kepler's head count to 2740 candidate new worlds, 105 of which have been confirmed. The new targets include what appears to be a planet about 1.5 times bigger than Earth circling its sun-like parent star in a 242-day orbit - a distance where liquid water, believed to be necessary for life, could exist on its surface.
In related research, astronomers have determined that about one in six sun-like stars have Earth-sized planets circling their parent stars closer than Mercury's 88-day day orbit around the sun. The goal of the Kepler mission, which began in 2009, is to determine how many stars in the Milky Way galaxy have an Earth-sized planet orbiting in so-called habitable zones, where water can exist on its surface. The Kepler telescope works by tracking slight decreases in the amount of light coming from 160 000 target stars caused by a planet or planets passing by, or transiting, relative to the telescope's point of view. Earth-sized planets located about where Earth orbits the sun would take 365 days to circle their parent star. Those located closer, in Mercury-like 88day orbits, transit more frequently. Scientists need at least two and preferably three or more cycles to determine whether an apparent transit is real or some other phenomena.
Organisation (ISRO) is a "technology demonstrator" project aiming to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission. ISRO will scale experimental payload to less than 15 kg as against 25 kg planned originally. The Mars Orbiter Mission will carry five experimental payloads with a total weight of 14.49 kg. The Methane Sensor for Mars, which will be capable of scanning the entire Martian disc within six minutes, will weigh 3.59 kg. Earlier missions to Mars had detected Methane in the thin Martian atmosphere, but the discovery is yet to be corroborated. Methane is known to be released by some microbes as part of their digestive process. Another instrument -Thermal Infrared Spectrometer - weighing 4 kg will be used to map the surface composition of Mars. The Mars Colour Camera has a mass of 1.4 kg, while the Lyman-alpha photometer, weighing 1.5 kg, will measure atomic hydrogen in the Martian atmosphere. The Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA) which will study the Martian atmosphere weighs about 4 kg. The Mars orbiter will go around the planet once in three days. The Mars mission will propel India to the elite club of five nations comprising the US, Russia, Europe, China and Japan which have launched similar missions.
The Kepler roster also boosts the number of multiplanet systems. Of the 2740 objects, 299 are in dualplanet systems, 112 are in triplets, 44 are part of fourplanet systems, 11 systems have five planets and one system has six planets.
Mars Orbiter Mission payloads revealed
The Mangalyaan project to be launched in November 2013 by the Indian Space Research
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2 - MARKERS
President confers the Honorary Rank of General of the Indian Army on General of Nepal
The ship will enhance the Indian Coast Guard's capability to undertake operations to further Maritime Safety and Security and Coastal Security on the Eastern Seaboard. With the commissioning of ICGS Rajkamal, the force level of ICG has gone up to 77 ships and boats and with the planned inductions the force level would be doubling by 2018.
Over his 39 years of illustrious career, General Rana has distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious service in succession of positions of great importance and responsibility to the Army, culminating as various coveted staff appointments.
General Rana throughout his exemplary career has demonstrated dynamic leadership, outstanding professionalism and also has been a key advocate of subsisting modernization process of the Nepalese Army. He is decorated with the prestigious 'Suprabal Jana Sewa Shree' along with many other decorations, medals and insignias.
Commissioning of inshore Patrol Vessel (IPV)ICGS Rajkamal
Indian Coast Guard Ship 'ICGS-Rajkamal', designed and built by M/s Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, Kolkata, was commissioned at Chennai.
The 50 meter indigenous IPV, displaces 300 tonnes and can achieve a maximum speed of 34 knots, with an endurance of 1500 nautical miles at an economical speed of 16 knots. Equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry and advanced communication and navigational equipment, it makes an ideal platform for undertaking multifarious close-coast missions such as surveillance, interdiction, Search and Rescue, and medical evacuation. The special features of the ship include an Integrated Bridge Management System (IBMS), Integrated Machinery Control System (IMCS) and an integrated gun mount with indigenous Fire Control system (FCS).
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The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee conferred the Honorary Rank of the Indian Army on Suprabal Jana Sewa Shree General Gaurav Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, Chief of the Army Staff, Nepalese Army, for his commendable military prowess and immeasurable contribution to further fostering the long and friendly association with India.
Kargil gets first civil air connectivity
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has launched the first ever civil aviation service between Kargil and Jammu. The service has been launched by Mantra. Kargil is one the world's coldest towns, frozen under a minus 20 degree Celsius temperature.. The Indian Air Force has been operating an AN32 aircraft three times a week in the Jammu-Kargil sector and once a week between Srinagar and Kargil. It carries 40 to 45 passengers. However, the service has been highly erratic, with passengers often complaining of cancellation of flights on flimsy grounds. Yet it is a cheaper service; the rate per passenger between Jammu and Kargil stands fixed at Rs. 1,450 and at Rs. 1,100 between Srinagar and Kargil. Mantra Airlines has fixed a stupendous Rs. 10,000 per passenger in the Jammu-Kargil sector.
Indian-origin politician to be Singapore's first woman speaker
Indian-origin politician Halimah Yacob (58) is set to become the first woman Speaker of Singapore's Parliament replacing Michael Palmer. Ms. Halimah, a former labour lawyer, is a Member of Parliament from the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and has extensive experience in the labour movement, social work and pre-school education.
2013 UNESCO International Jos Mart Prize
The United Nations has awarded the Jos Mart Prize to a Brazilian Dominican friar, Frei Betto, for his "exceptional contribution" to building a universal
culture of peace, social justice and human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Frei Betto is one of the exponents of Liberation Theology and was a key player in the Government of Brazilian President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva from 2003 to 2004, as Coordinator of the Social Mobilization Project in the Zero Hunger Programme. The UNESCO International Jos Mart Prize was created in November 1994 by the UN agency's Executive Board at the initiative of the Government of Cuba. According to UNESCO, it rewards outstanding contributions by organizations and individuals to the cause of Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration, based on respect for cultural traditions and humanist values. It was also established to raise awareness of equity and human rights, particularly among decision-makers.
Obaidullah Sindhi and Maulana Mahmood Hasan were two important leaders of this movement. The plot was uncovered by Punjab CID with the capture of letters from Ubaidullah Sindhi, one of the Deobandi leaders then in Afghanistan, to Mahmud al Hasan another leaders then in Persia. The letters were written in Silk cloth, hence known as silk letter movement.
What are census medals?
What was Silk Letter Movement?
'Silk Letter Movement', constitute a glorious chapter of India's history of freedom struggle. The movement was a plan to mobilise the support of the governments of Afghanistan and Turkey in organising a revolt within India to overthrow the British rule. It was organized by Deobandi leaders.
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The President of India confers the Census Medals for extraordinary performance at the Census procedures. Ever since the holding of the first Census of India after Independence, it has been the tradition with the Census Organization to award Silver and Bronze medals and Certificate(s) of Honour from the President of India to various Census functionaries, viz., Enumerators, Supervisors, Charge Officers etc. in recognition of their outstanding zeal, high quality of work and devotion to duty during the Census taking. The unique feature of Census 2011 is that Schedules for preparation of National Population Register (NPR) were also canvassed along with House-listing Schedules.
EDITORIALS
Crime And Punishment
Revisit the legislation that allows juveniles to escape the consequences of their actions The gang rape in Delhi has - finally - galvanised the entire country to demand greater protection from the sexual violence that impacts innumerable women every day. The horrific nature of this crime has shocked the entire nation; people are on the streets demanding stricter laws for dealing with crimes involving sexual violence. juveniles who had somehow failed to raise the claim of their juvenility at the stage of trial or at the stage of appeal for some reasons. The courts accepted their plea even after the disposal of their appeals. The effect of the Act was so widespread that hundreds of trials were transferred from normal courts to juvenile courts. With the intervention of various high courts and the Supreme Court, hundreds of juveniles were released on bail and the sentences passed against them were set aside. The sole objective of the legislation is to give children who have gone astray a chance to realise their mistake, rehabilitate themselves, rebuild their lives and become useful citizens of society instead of degenerating into hardened criminals. This kind of benefit should be given to a child who is mentally immature and does not have a sense of criminal responsibility. Using these criteria, the enhancement of the age of a juvenile from 16 years to 18 years in 2000 was without any basis. The growth of a child is a continuous process. The changes which start around puberty reach a level at the age of 16 where their prefrontal cortex (a part of the brain) is developed to an extent that it helps them to inhibit impulses and to plan and organise their behaviour to reach a goal. They are in a position to decide what is right and wrong. Parliament should consider amending this Act and reducing the age of a juvenile to be less than 18 years. Instead of prescribing a minimum age, what should be considered is the criminal bent of mind and the accused's intention to commit the offence. The amended legislation could create age groups starting from 10 years and above and impose punishment after considering the mental growth of a juvenile and his capacity to understand criminal responsibility. Juveniles could he held accountable for the offences committed by them but dealt with separately from the adults. In Australia, the statutory minimum age of criminal responsibility is now 10 years. Between the
One of the accused in this particular case - who, according to reports, is said to have been the most brutal of all the attackers - is a juvenile and thus, shall be tried as per the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000. If his age is determined to be less than 18 years at the time of commission of offence, he will be tried by a juvenile court and, if convicted, can only receive a sentence of up to three years. We need to relook at the provisions of the Act and ask whether enhancing the age to qualify as a juvenile from 16 years to 18 years was justified. The Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 was enacted to deal with offences committed by juveniles (a boy of less than 16 years and girl of less than 18 years) in a manner which was different from normal laws applicable to adults.
The Parliament created the Act to achieve the constitutional goals contemplated in Article 15(3), 39 (e) and (f), 45 and 47. They impose on the state a responsibility to ensure that all the needs of children are met and that their basic human rights are protected completely. Thus, the Juvenile Justice Act was rehabilitatory in nature and not adversarial. In 2000, Parliament brought a new Act enhancing the age of juvenile males to be at par with females at 18 years. Parliament later amended the Act and framed rules in 2007, clarifying that its benefits would be extended to all juveniles up to the age of 18 years with retrospective effect. The Supreme Court also extended the benefits of the new Act to those
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ages of 10 and 14 years, a further rebuttable presumption operates to deem a child between the ages of 10 and 14 incapable of committing a criminal act. Only if the prosecution can rebut this presumption, by showing that the accused child was able at the relevant time to adequately distinguish between right and wrong can a contested trial result in conviction. From 14 to 18 years, young offenders may be held fully responsible for their criminal acts but are subject to a different range of criminal sanctions than adults committing the same offences. In India, under the present set-up, a 17-and-ahalf-year-old rapist and killer can go scotfree. It is difficult to see how he would have become wiser in the next six months. His being 17 and a half is only a technicality; what needs to be done is to assess his mental criminal responsibility and not his age. The law was framed to protect juveniles, but should be used judiciously and not mechanically. Society needs to be protected too. Source: Times of India
dwindling capital flows, and a conventionallydefined current account deficit of more than 4%, the sustainability of the current account deficit is a matter of serious concern for all stakeholders of the Indian economy. The current account deficit has been cushioned by two outliers: workers' remittances and software services. India's adjusted current account deficit (current account minus workers' remittances) stands at 8% of GDP, indicating a high absorption capacity through the external sector. This should have facilitated higher GDP growth. However, the predominance of gold imports (3% of GDP) had a dampening effect on the contribution of imports to growth. A misplaced comfort has been derived as workers' remittances have shown counter-cyclical trends. With global business cycles becoming prolonged, the wherewithal of these counter-cyclical influences is likely to fade away. So, the solution lies in improving India's export competitiveness. Enhancing export competitiveness: The issue is to enhance competitiveness in terms of expansion of the country's goods and non-software services exports on a sustained basis. Evidence suggests there have been a structural shift in both commodity composition as well as product and market diversification in India's merchandise exports. The revealed comparative advantage for India (India's exports of commodity 'a' to world exports of commodity 'a'/share of commodity 'a' in world exports) is higher in chemicals, agricultural products, mining products, iron and steel and textiles. There has been an improvement in India's net barter terms of trade (export price index as ratio to import price index) due to diversification of India's exports from low value to high-value services and manufacturing exports. This, however, has not improved the trade balance (currently -10% of GDP) because the volume of imports has been rising faster than the volume of exports. Also, a depreciation of the real effective exchange rate has not helped because of the low elasticity of demand for exports and even lower elasticity of demand for imports. A true indicator of export competitiveness in these commodity groups is, therefore, a high value of exports combined with a high volume.
Enhance Export Competitiveness
India's external sector position is worsening. This is evident in the vulnerability indicators. Particularly, the short term (residual maturity) debt-to-total debt is 43%, ratio of short-term debt-to reserves is 28%, reserve cover of imports is seven months and the ratio of reserves-to-total debt is 83%. In addition, net international investment position is 12% of GDP. Thus, over the years, these indicators that had an 'L'-shaped trend have currently taken a 'U' shape, leading to a need for appropriate policy interventions.
Factors of vulnerability: The root cause of vulnerability is an unsustainable current account deficit emanating from a large trade deficit backed by inelastic oil imports. Sustainability of the current account is defined as the ability to finance the current account on a continuous basis without resulting in any external payments difficulties. In this context, the RBI report suggests that as long as the GDP growth varies between 7% and 9%, inflation is around 5%, interest rate on external liabilities is 23.5% and capital flows range 4-4.5% and three/fifth of the flows being non-debt creating inflows, India is in a comfortable and sustainable current account position. These imposing conditions are far-fetched in the current scenario. With a massive slowdown in growth, high and stubborn inflation and
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Data for recent years indicates that the commodity structure of India's exports has begun to shift towards higher technology-intensive manufactures. Krugman's index of structural similarity shows there is divergence between India's exports and the manufacturing base of developed countries, indicating a potential for India's exports to meet the demand of these economies if given essential support. But there are structural bottlenecks in India's manufacturing sector related to labour market regulation, infrastructure and land legislation. Thus, India's export competitiveness in merchandise exports is largely a function of an elimination of these hurdles. In case of service trade, India's growth in services exports is more than double the growth of world service exports. Compared to a share of India's merchandise trade of 1.5%, in total world trade, India's share in world services trade is 3.3%. With respect to the composition of India's services exports, however, there has been an increase in the share of modern services like software and business services as compared to traditional services like travel, insurance and transport. This is because of the availability of a skilled workforce, relevant infrastructure development like telecommunication services and tax benefits in SEZs. A greater focus now on traditional services through similar policy thrusts in these service categories will help facilitate enhanced export competitiveness. Empirical studies by scholars suggest the bulk of India's service exports are concentrated in the US, UK and continental Europe, and only 9% goes to the rest of the world. There is scope to diversify to other destinations and reduce the vulnerability of India's exports to business cycles in the advanced economies. From the perspective of enhancing further strengths in India's balance of payments, two important points are worth consideration as suggested by the former RBI governor, Dr Reddy. One, "improvements in infrastructure assume critical importance for maintaining and improving our competitiveness. We can no longer view external sector competitiveness in isolation from the domestic economy". And, two, "the benchmark for our competitiveness in the future is not our past but the emerging best in the field globally". Source: Economic Times
2010. That is the day when the law's main parts will take effect, including the mandate to buy insurance and the expansion of Medicaid, the health programme for the poor. But recent years have been rather hectic. Republicans hoped to gut "Obamacare" first in court, then by electing a Republican president. But Mr Obama is still in the White House. Obamacare, as even the president now calls it, is still law. And January 1st 2014 is still the date when its main parts must go into effect. The next 12 months will be busy. Even without controversy, implementation would be complex. The law tries to reform a sector that accounts for nearly one-fifth of America's GDP. Its 906 pages invite even more pages of regulation from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). But implementation will be much harder than Democrats imagined. Bickering has consumed precious time. HHS has delayed issuing essential regulations. Most important, many state governors remain uncooperative. The big question is how the reality of reform will differ from the Democrats' vision of it. The huge law contains many provisions, but its main goal is to expand health insurance. Beginning in 2014, insurers can no longer refuse coverage to the sick. The cost of insuring them will be paid out of insurance fees from cheap, healthy consumers-the law requires everyone to buy insurance or pay a penalty. The law also sought to extend Medicaid to all those earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level ($15,415 for one adult in 2012). From 2014, those with incomes of 100-400% of the poverty level will qualify for subsidies on new state health exchanges, where individuals can shop for insurance. The law's opponents hoped the Supreme Court would scrap all this. It did not, except one piece. States may choose whether to expand Medicaid. Some measures have already taken effect. HHS has started to reward hospitals for providing good care, rather than lots of it. But some employers are contesting the law's requirement that insurance should cover contraception, and the future of two main provisions, the health exchanges and the Medicaid expansion, is blurry. The exchanges must be ready by October 2013, so consumers can choose insurance beginning in 2014. Some states, most led by Democrats, have prepared diligently. HHS has doled out $1.8 billion to help. Many Republican governors have done nothing. But
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The 12-month countdown
JANUARY 1st 2014 seemed far away when Barack Obama signed his health-care law back in
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even enthusiastic states will struggle to meet the deadline. HHS waited until after the election to propose important rules, such as the types of insurance that may be sold. The final regulations are still to come. Republican governors who sat on their hands during the law's first years are now wagging their fingers at HHS for being slow. Many want nothing to do with the exchanges, anyway. "For any state who's running an exchange, it is 'state' in name only," scoffed Scott Walker, Wisconsin's governor, in November. Opposition to Obamacare is impeding even some Democratic governors. In Missouri voters passed a ballot measure to prevent their governor from moving forward. Democrats in Washington had hoped that each state would build its own exchange. On December 17th HHS said that only 18 states had applied to do so. Of these, just five are led by Republicans. The remaining states will have exchanges either wholly or partly run by the federal government. HHS is scurrying to prepare. A lawsuit in Oklahoma seeks to scuttle this effort, claiming that a legislative glitch prohibits subsidies on the federal exchanges. But if the suit fails, as seems likely, conservatives will have achieved an odd result: the federal government will have a greater role in health care.
All this uncertainty is difficult for state bureaucrats, not to mention hospitals and insurers. During negotiations over reform, hospitals accepted lower payment rates in exchange for the promise of more insured patients. If states don't expand Medicaid, this is a bum deal. Most aggrieved, however, are the patients the law is supposed to benefit. Those with incomes below 100% of the poverty line will not qualify for subsidies on the exchanges. If states do not expand Medicaid, 11.5m poor adults will be left without insurance. The exchanges raise more questions. Will employers stop sponsoring insurance for their workers, leaving them to the exchanges? The insurance lobby says the law's strict requirements will raise prices-for example, a limit on fees for the old will drive up fees for the young. But how expensive will insurance become? HHS says it may delay some requirements, to prevent a spike in prices. But which restrictions would it postpone? And if young consumers pay a penalty, rather than buy insurance, will prices go up for everyone else? By this time next year, at least some of these questions will have answers. Source: The Economist
Medicaid is an even bigger source of uncertainty. In January state legislatures will meet for the first time since the Supreme Court ruling. They must decide whether to expand Medicaid for 2014. Obamacare promises to pay for 100% of costs from 2014 to 2016, inching down to 90% in 2020 and after. This is a good deal for states, according to scholars at the Urban Institute. An extra 21.3m people would enroll in Medicaid by 2022. The expansion itself would require states to spend an extra $8.2 billion from 2013 to 2022, compared with an $800 billion jump in spending by the federal government. Savings from a drop in uncompensated care might even save some states money. At present the uninsured receive "free" treatment at hospitals, with states picking up part of the bill. But states are still wary. Federal funding is not reliable. Mr Obama's own budget suggested cutting the federal share of Medicaid spending. In the midst of talks over the fiscal cliff, HHS said that idea had been scrapped. But Medicaid cuts may loom in future.
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'Cash transfers can help make India less unequal, but are not a magic bullet'
The Union Government has launched the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) programme to give benefits like scholarships, pensions, NREGA wages, etc. directly to the bank or post office accounts of beneficiaries. There are also talks of direct transfer of subsidies for food, fertilizer and kerosene at a later stage. Will the scheme work? Cash transfer can be a good way of helping the poor in many circumstances. Indeed, many schemes that are not directly cash transfer schemes also work mainly through cash transfer, such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme, which certainly has helped the poor through creating jobs and generating cash income for a great many poor people in rural India. Cash is easy to handle and can be, in many cases, easily monitored. It cannot be sensible to be generically against cash transfer schemes, in a country with a lot of poverty and a commitment to use public money to make the very poor a bit less poor. However, the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) programme is a particular scheme of cash transfer,
and we have to ask what it may be displacing and whether the losers will not be plunged into more poverty. It is not the modality of cash transfer that is the only issue, but also how much, and for whom, and also, instead of what. If, for example, it is instead of subsidised food, we have to make sure that the people who depend on cheaper food will have enough cash to buy the unsubsidised food. There is also another issue - that of the distributional effects of different kinds of benefits within the family. There is a good deal of empirical evidence to suggest that direct access to food tends to favour children rather than only the adults, and also girls rather than only the boys, working against biased social priorities, common in the subcontinent, favouring adults over children, and boys over girls, which is a long-standing problem in Indian society. If the cash transfer is not additional to food subsidies, and is given "instead of" food subsidies, it would be important to make sure that the money given would be used for nutritional purposes and, equally importantly, that it would be divided within the family in a way that addresses the manifest problems of undernourishment and deprivation of young girls. Further, even if it is made sure that cash transfers will work in a way that meets these difficulties, there may still be a serious problem of transition, especially if there is a time lag in opening an account in a bank, or in a post office, to receive the cash transferred. If, meanwhile, the subsidized food disappears, the poor who fail to open an account adequately fast, for one reason or another, will lose doubly through not having the cash yet, and through the fact that others will have the cash to buy food which would keep the food prices high. The transition problem need not be impossible to handle, but attention will have to be paid to that, bearing in mind that many of the poorer Indians lead a life of hand-to-mouth existence, and any delay in the period of transition may plunge some people into extreme hardship. All this is in addition to the long-run problems of the modality of cash transfer, including distributional issues, as well as the adequacy of the amounts of cash transferred. Cash transfer can be a very useful system to supplement other ways of making India a less unequal society, but it is not a magic bullet, and its pros and cons have to be assessed and scrutinized with an open mind.
The Government's decision to allow FDI in multibrand retail is being hotly debated in the country. While the Congress favours it saying it would give a much-needed boost to the economy and help farmers, the BJP and its allies are against it saying it would badly hurt small retailers and farmers. What precautions does the government need to take while allowing FDI in multi-brand retail? The first thing to note is that FDI is neither an evil in itself nor a boon in every form. The case for it depends on its actual impact, and that in turn will depend on the choice of field, the amount of money that might come this way, and how it would influence the priorities of economic policies in India. It is not a question of having some abstract principle of "no FDI" - nor one of "any FDI of any kind, anywhere," irrespective of the impact of any particular FDI on the lives of the people involved. So the issue absolutely is not one of having a generic attitude of being against FDI or being in favour of FDI. It is not like favouring "motherhood" or opposing "Satanism." I can see many areas in which FDI has done good work - and can do more - and other areas in which its effect may be far from beneficial. As far as multi-brand retail is concerned, it is a difficult field, and it is a pity that the broader issue of the attitude to FDI has taken the particular form of asking whether one is in favour of, or against, Walmart and other large foreign retail firms becoming a dominant part of the Indian retail distribution. This change would certainly help marketing many types of products and would tend to be favoured by, I would expect, farmers and others seeking a large retail outlet. On the other hand, it is very likely that many smaller outlets, like local grocer shops will be hit adversely by the large competition from organised - and sometimes predatory - retail giants. When there are both arguments that are "pro" and some that are "con" about a particular policy change, a good policymaker has to take into account both kinds of effects and evaluate whether the overall impact benefits or harms the Indian people. That is not an easy issue to resolve, but of course all planning and all policymaking involve such evaluation. I don't have a strong view in favour of some fixed conclusion on this particular subject, but I do have a firm conviction that the subject demands public reasoning and critical scrutiny. The issue cannot be resolved by taking a generally "pro" or "anti" attitude
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about FDI in general. A really serious scrutiny is needed rather than just saying "I am in favour of FDI in retail distribution" or "I am against it." Recent months have seen widespread anticorruption demonstrations. How should corruption be tackled? It is wonderful that people are taking the issue of corruption seriously. That is a very positive achievement. The fact that people have been coming out in the streets protesting and recognising this to be a problem is very important because along with that can come a better understanding of how bad things are in India, and out of that can come the search for a better identification of how corruption can be stopped or checked. Corruption need not be an inescapable part of Indian life, and we should not accept it on some fatalistic ground that this is the way things are in our country. If you have to give money in order to get something to which you are really entitled, then that certainly calls for protest and exposure of the crooks, not for any kind of quiet acceptance. However, street protest is one thing, and street justice is quite another. The punitive system has to work through our judicial system. There couldn't be someone who is above the law, above the courts someone whom even the Indian Supreme Court cannot touch. It is a question of how the anticorruption measures can be integrated into the democratic legal structure of India.
Delivery lies in the detail
Chhattisgarh's new law refers to most food security issues in broad terms and is short on specifics Targeting and improving food security is essential for Chhattisgarh, a state that has one of the highest hunger indices in the country. That is why it is good news that the CSI-Nihilent award for effective implementation of Centralised Online Real-time Electronic (Core) PDS (Public Distribution System), based on smart cards, was given to the Chhattisgarh state government. It is a worthwhile natural transition to build on recent improvements in the performance of its PDS and take it to the next level by enacting the Chhattisgarh Food Security Act, 2012. The act identifies targeted groups to improve nutritional status, such as children, pregnant women and lactating mothers, destitutes, migrants, the homeless and particularly vulnerable social groups. It mentions its modus operandi and the financial responsibility of the state is laid out. But though the act addresses most relevant issues, they are referred to in very broad terms, without much detail. As a result, the act appears to be aspirational, rather than a guarantee of efficient and successful implementation. The key challenges for food distribution programmes in India have been ensuring that the supply is of adequate quality and nutritional level. This act refers to food standards generally, but does not provide any detail of the nutritional levels to be met. Nor does it elaborate the quality of the provisions that would be provided. The state government proposes mechanisms for internal grievance redressal. The reforms suggested include efficient methods of delivery to fair price shops; use of technology to improve transparency and prevention of leakages and diversion of resources; and leveraging the "aadhaar" card for efficient identification of target groups. The act provides for the establishment of vigilance committees to ensure transparency. However, the processes required to ensure transparency and implementation are not clear. While entitlements are specified in the legislation, it is important to make sure that the people being targeted are aware of their entitlements in order for them to access what is on offer. Information regarding the programmes needs to be clearly
The remedy of corruption must involve, first, making the institutions and decisional practices such that they do not encourage - or tolerate - corruption. There is also a need for making the practical morality of day-to-day work more responsive to the ethical demands of social living - there is no reason why corruption should generate less stigma and less public shame in India than in other countries where such behaviour is far less common. Informational availability is very important to fight corruption, and there is much greater opportunity to make use of Indian democratic means, including the "Right to Information" to bring about the kind of change that would be effective (rather than only satisfy the desire "to punish the guilty"). There is a very strong case for paying much more attention to the possibilities of institutional change and also to steps towards attitudinal reorientation. We need more than just a system of punishment. Source: The Hindu
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communicated through media, counselling and other methods. This will also help empower the individuals eligible for the schemes to claim what is due to them and perhaps also enable them to rebuff attempts by intermediaries to deprive them of said benefits. The responsibility of identifying and administering is being assigned to local bodies. Collaboration between local communities and local bodies will ensure better implementation of the programmes. Chhattisgarh has successfully used technology in the past to improve performance, and scaling up technical approaches can enhance performance further. Voluntary participation by community leaders, civil society, student volunteers and religious groups in design and implementation will enable better performance. This is because, where the person responsible for implementation is corrupt, the hierarchical system creates a model of malpractices that become a norm across various ranks. It also disallows those located under corrupt governance to rectify the system. An explanation often given is that when people are poorly paid, they are tempted into misappropriation. Empowering people through information and communication, providing fair wages and creating greater awareness about corruption could help reduce malpractice. Strong political will and administrative commitment for efficient implementation, greater monitoring and evaluation and regular reform can help improve the performance of the PDS. Ensuring efficient implementation of the PDS and prevention of misuse of public funds is crucial to ensure that the needy have access to food.
recent record of success in implementation of the PDS can be sustained and enhanced to ensure effective implementation of the mechanisms proposed by the act. Regions such as Chhattisgarh, which are now trying to tackle and overcome their poor development indicators, can learn from best practices and successes in other states in India. Tamil Nadu has had experience of programmes for food security for at least 25 years. This state has, over the years, learned to improve its performance through technological interventions, innovation and effective delivery mechanisms, monitoring and responsibly involving multiple bodies at the local level. The Tamil Nadu model can provide a template to ensure that the aspiration of the Chhattisgarh Food Security Act is successfully implemented in all its aspects. Source: Indian Express
Chhattisgarh is taking responsibility for better implementation of the PDS, and this shows strong leadership, which is commendable. The state is working closely with local bodies to achieve greater successes. Responsible governance with greater collaboration between the Centre and state for managing resources will enhance performance and help fulfil common goals. While the act has been passed, the date(s) for when the various provisions will be enacted has not yet been specified. Introducing acts using elections as a timeline is not necessarily bad policy if it is followed up by ensuring efficient and sustainable delivery of the provisions. The state can ensure that its hunger index is reduced and improve the nutritional levels of its people if its
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Cash transfers: Food for thought
Direct cash transfers are a priority in food and fertilisers, yet the status quo in these sectors continues. The 'Direct Cash Transfer' (DCT) of funds into bank accounts of beneficiaries began this month in 20 districts. It will cover the entire country by April 2014. But food and fertiliser have been kept out of its ambit. There are complex issues to be sorted out, the Finance Minister has said, without really giving an indication as to when the rollout in these critical areas will actually take place. Payments are estimated to be Rs 3,20,000 crore annually. The scheme is being bandied as a revolutionary reform that will bring transparency, enhance reach, empower poor, improve fiscal deficit and reduce corruption. The implementation if done in a manner as contemplated - correct identification of beneficiaries, inclusion of all deserving persons, timely reach - shall unambiguously yield the intended results. The raison d'etre of DCT is to reach subsidy only to the 'poor'. Under the existing dispensation for disbursing food, fertiliser and oil subsidy, the nonpoor too get 'unintended' benefit, and on an unprecedented scale. A major slice of these subsidies is also filling the coffers of manufacturers/traders/input suppliers. DCT is intended to stop this, too.
Fertiliser Subsidy Reform The existing scheme for giving fertiliser subsidy viz., control on MRP at low level and compensating producers for excess of cost over this has led to serious distortions in prices and imbalance in nutrient use ratio. The Government is well aware of the deleterious consequences for crop yield, soil health and environment. Punjab, Haryana, hitherto grain bowls of the country, could soon turn into 'dry patches' if these trends are not checked. Therefore, the extant subsidy dispensation must be dismantled. The Expenditure Reforms Commission (ERC) had recommended this way back in 2000. What is preventing us from doing it even now?
on food subsidy. Farmers will get better prices. Consumers will get quality food. And, exports will be boosted. But, the Government's decision to keep 'food subsidy' out of the DCT ambit has dashed these hopes. Reacting to reports as to what would happen to PDS under DCT dispensation, it says 'PDS will stay'. What does this connote? Tens of thousands of ration shops spread all over are the bedrock of the food supply chain to meet food needs of millions. No one will disagree that these shall stay. But, Government's intention goes much beyond that! Under Food Security Bill (FSB), it seeks to entitle 75 per cent of rural populace and 50 per cent of urban population to specified quantities of food grains at 'throwaway' price. This is illogical and untenable. You cannot have direct cash transfer and yet, give food at subsidised price. The Delhi Government has begun DCT for those not covered by the PDS/BPL and the very poor under 'Antyodaya'. This will ruin the exchequer. FSB is the 'flagship' programme of UPA II. Having gone ahead, it would be embarrassing to retreat. But, it is better to face it upfront rather than making the country pay a huge price. What Government seeks to achieve through FSB can be suitably enmeshed into DCT. It may seek to make food available to the poor in every nook and corner of the country. But, ration shops will have to 'stand on their own' without any subsidy support. Aadhaar Misuse
Then, lack of technology to reach out benefits directly to millions of poor could be an argument for not moving forward. But, in today's context, this does not hold water as the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is giving all that is needed. Subsidy Burden
FCI et al hold double the stocks required for PDS and strategic reserves. This colossal waste/ inefficiencies result in proliferating food subsidy under a protective regime that 'fully' reimburses excess of cost incurred over its collection from selling at low price. This regime is also a major stumbling block in the way of reforms viz., putting a 'cap' on how much FCI should procure; permitting private sector in procurement; dismantling of APMC; and removal of State-level taxes. Charge must be given to DCT. This will enable the poor to buy their food at market price. They need not have to go to a Government authorised/ration shop. They can buy from any outlet of their choice. We should aspire for all stakeholders from public, private, and cooperatives sectors freely getting into buying and selling of food grains, optimising cost and making these available to consumers at best prices. The benefits will be phenomenal. Wastages will be drastically reduced. Government will save hugely
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The number of Aadhaar cards issued thus far is around 20 crore., The penetration varies widely among States viz., above 50 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and a low of 5 per cent in UP. The Government should put its machinery into a proactive mode to ensure that all persons are issued Aadhaar cards. The card should have 'credible' information on income and other relevant details. Without this, the scheme will be a flop show. Since ownership of a card 'automatically' entitles a person to flow of funds into his account, vested interests are bound to proliferate. Those deserving may be left out and undeserving (or even fictitious) may get cards.
The State must have safeguards to prevent all this. There are millions (mostly poor) who do not have a bank account. In vast stretches, there are no bank branches. Filling this void is going to be a mammoth task. All relevant players viz., banking correspondent (BC), self-help groups (SHGs) etc., will have to be mobilised for this. The hurried launch (only 16 per cent coverage and less than 5 per cent in some States makes a mockery of the scheme). Exclusion of 'food and
fertilisers', most critical areas craving for reforms, shows that 'political expediency' has overpowered economic logic. A 'half-baked' attempt on reform such as DCT that is intended to be a game-changer and put Indian economy on a trajectory of healthy and inclusive growth can boomerang. The Government should put this in place only after it has made 'fool proof' arrangements. Source: Business Line
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NATIONAL
Visa for surrogacy made tougher
In a first-of-its kind step towards regulating the practice of surrogacy in India, the Union home ministry has issued stringent guidelines for visas being issued to foreigners seeking to rent a womb in India. The diktat indicates that gay couples and single foreigners will no longer be eligible to have an Indian surrogate bear their child as only a foreign "man and woman" who have been married for a period of two years will be granted visas. The Union ministry of home affairs had noticed that some foreign nationals visited India for surrogacy on tourist visas thus the ministry has issued a circular that such foreigners would be eligible to enter India only on "medical" visas, and only if they fulfilled certain criteria.
Health Ministry's healing touch to nonBPL poor
The home ministry has laid down a host of conditions that need to be met if foreign nationals are to be issued a visa for surrogacy. Foreign couples, for instance, would need to furnish a letter from their country's foreign ministry or embassy in India certifying that their country recognizes surrogacy. The letter needs to contain an assurance that the child or children born to the Indian surrogate mother would be allowed to enter the country as a biological child of the couple. This is particularly significant, as many babies born out of cross-border surrogacy in recent years have been trapped in legal tangles between the home country and India. A Norwegian woman who had twins borne by an Indian surrogate in 2009 was stranded for over two years as Norway refused to accept her as the biological mother of her child. Many countries, like France, Germany, Italy and Norway, do not recognize surrogacy. The home ministry's circular seems to signal some form of streamlining in the sector. A few months ago, the ICMR reached out to fertility clinics encouraging them to apply for registration. The ministry's guidelines also mandate that the treatment of foreign nationals should be undertaken only at registered ART clinics recognized by the ICMR.
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Health Ministry has reduced the eligibility criterion for poor people who do not fall under the Below the Poverty Line (BPL) category to avail themselves of the Health Minister's Discretionary Grant (HMDG). The annual income has been raised from Rs. 75,000 to 1,00,000. The Union Ministry has also expanded the list of diseases for treatment of which financial help is given. Under the HMDG scheme, a maximum assistance of Rs. 50,000 was given to the poor and needy as part of the expenditure incurred on hospitalisation for major surgical interventions and treatment of major diseases including heart ailments, kidney transplant, hip and knee replacement, cancer, AIDS, hepatitis and tumour. As per the existing guidelines, assistance is granted up to Rs. 20,000 if the cost of treatment is Rs. 50,000; up to Rs. 40,000 if the cost is above Rs. 50,000 and up to Rs. 50,000 if it is above Rs. 1,00,000. As per the new guidelines, approved by Health and Family Welfare Ministry the entitlement will now be Rs. 50,000 if the estimated cost of treatment is Rs. 1,00,000; Rs. 75,000 (above Rs. 1,00,000 and up to 1,50,000) and Rs 1,00,000 (above Rs 1,50,000). The new areas covered under the scheme are urology, nephrology, gastroenterology, liver transplant and surgery for portal hypertension, cases of complicated diabetes which require onetime treatment such as amputation or renal transplant. BPL families are covered under the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi (RAN), where financial assistance is provided for treating life-threatening diseases and medical aid is received in government hospitals. The financial assistance is released in the form of a "one-time grant".
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Food against cash transfers
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Food has recommended a mandatory coverage of 67 per cent of the country's population for subsidized rice, wheat and millets at Rs. 3, 2 and Rs. 1 per kg,
respectively under the National Food Security Bill with a reduced and uniform monthly entitlement of 5 kg per person. Whereas the UPA government's ambitious Bill proposes coverage of 75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban population at 2011 census figures. Significantly, the panel has opposed cash transfers in lieu of foodgrains till such time that all areas, including rural, remote, hilly, difficult and isolated ones, have banking infrastructure and accessibility to banks. At present, a below poverty line (BPL) beneficiary gets 7 kg of wheat at Rs. 4.15 or rice at Rs 5.65 per kg per month, while an above poverty line candidate gets 3 kg per month at half of the minimum support price of the grain. The committee has taken into account average foodgrains procurement level of 60.2 million tonnes in the last five years to reach the conclusion that it would not be feasible to maintain a distribution level of 7 kg per person in priority category and 3 kg per person in the general category as provided in the government Bill. The Food Subsidy Bill for providing 60 to 62 million tonnes foodgrains at reduced rates was estimated at Rs. 1.12 lakh crore including welfare schemes.
according to people's vulnerabilities. According to new guidelines the urban poor will now be identified on the basis of social, economic and occupational vulnerabilities. The move comes as the ministry is finding it difficult to identify beneficiaries in metropolises and other cities, where few families earn below the BPL cutoff while many of them live in vulnerable conditions. It has also been noticed that income certificates are forged or are being procured after bribing officials. As of now, families earning below Rs 4,824 a month are put in the bracket of urban poor. Under the mechanism, families will be divided into two groups - those automatically included the other automatically excluded -- in the poverty bracket. Those automatically included in the poverty bracket will be the homeless and jobless. Automatically excluded will be families with a pakka house, motor vehicle or electronic appliances such as air-conditioner or refrigerator. Based on data from the caste census, families will be graded and assigned points according to their needs. If a family scores very high on the housing vulnerability index, it would be given priority under slum upgradation schemes and Rajiv Awas Yojana. The new formula will help in identifying poor in terms of vulnerabilities and government schemes will target the vulnerable group. It will result in better targeting.
The States, on whom lies the responsibility of reaching foodgrains to the beneficiaries, will identify the beneficiaries from the eligible people in the ongoing Socio-Economic Caste Census "as per the guidelines framed by the Centre and in consultation with the Centre in a fair, transparent and logical manner." The new census has so far covered 68 per cent population. For cost sharing between the Centre and the States, the committee has recommended that based on the financial position of the States, they may be divided into Category A (performing State which should bear all costs), Category B (qualifying for 50 per cent central aid for one-time capital expenditure) and Category C (for 75 per cent onetime assistance for creation of infrastructure). However, the recurring expenses will have to be borne by the States. The panel suggested that the States should bear the cost of transportation, handling and the commission given to ration dealers or pass it on to the beneficiaries.
Ministry of Housing And Urban Poverty Alleviation came up with new benchmark to identify Urban poor
As the socio-economic census is going on across the country, the ministry is working on a mechanism according to which urban poor will be defined
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Cabinet approved the continuation of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission till 31st March, 2014
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the continuation of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to sanction new projects and capacity building activities till 31st March, 2014 under Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) and Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) components of JNNURM. New Urban infrastructure projects in States / UTs would be approved till 31st March, 2014, and taking up new capacity building activities in Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and States has also been approved. The proposal would enable provisioning of creation of urban infrastructure, particularly in small and medium towns, in all States and UTs. These projects would be subsumed in the next phase of the JNNURM for the 12th Five Year Plan.
New Bill to regulate Real Estate sector: coming soon
account so that resources are not diverted and buyers are not left in the lurch. A real estate regulator in every state will make it mandatory for private developers to register all projects before sale of property and only after getting all necessary clearances, addressing a major concern of buyers about incomplete or fraudulent land acquisition. Realty players will have to disclose project details and contractual obligations to ensure transparent, fair and ethical business practices. There can be a model agreement which is expected to reduce ambiguities in real estate transactions that not many buyers are familiar with. According to the bill's provisions, failure to declare status of clearances will invite up to a maximum three years' imprisonment or fine that can amount to 10% of project cost.
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, which the government plans to bring to Parliament in the Budget session, has been framed under provisions dealing with property transactions in the concurrent list of the Constitution that applies to states, making the proposed legislation more than a model law. According to the draft - Builders will sell residential property on the basis of carpet area instead of ambiguous terms like "super built-up area" and a regulator will ensure housing projects declare the status of important civic clearances.
In a bid to try and make sure developers stick to timelines, the proposed law states that realty players will have to park 70% of funds in a particular bank
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INTERNATIONAL
Myanmar Parliament calls for ceasefire with Kachin rebels Pakistani government and Tahir ul-Qadri strike deal to end protest
Myanmar's military has declared ceasefire with ethnic Kachin rebels in the country's north. Twenty months of fighting between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Myanmar's military has displaced tens of thousands of people and raised doubts about the sincerity of reforms aimed at ending decades of ethnic tensions in Myanmar. Tension with ethnic minorities fighting for greater autonomy in Myanmar is considered one of the biggest major long-term challenges for reformist President Thein Sein, who inherited power in 2011 from the army, which ruled for almost half a century. The Kachin, like Myanmar's other ethnic minorities, have long sought greater autonomy from the central government. They are the only major ethnic rebel group that has not reached a truce with Thein Sein's administration. A five-point agreement which was signed by Qadri, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and the members of the government negotiating team, envisages a key role for the cleric's party, Pakistan Awami Tehreek, in electoral reforms and the appointment of a caretaker premier. According to the agreement, the treasury benches, in complete consensus with Pakistan Awami Tehreek, will propose names of two honest and impartial persons for appointment as caretaker Prime Minister. The National Assembly or lower house of parliament will also be dissolved before it completes its term on 16th March so that the polls can take place within 90 days. The agreement further proposed that the electoral reforms will focus on Qadri's demand for enforcement of Articles 62, 63 and 218 (3) of the Constitution, the Representation of Peoples' Act and a Supreme Court judgement for free and fair polls. A month will be given for scrutiny of nomination papers for "pre-clearance" of candidates under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution by the Election Commission. No candidate will be allowed to start his campaign until he gets pre-clearance from the poll panel. The two sides also agreed to withdraw all cases registered against each other during Qadri's protest and to ensure there are "no acts of victimisation and vendetta".
A cease-fire that held for nearly two decades broke down in June 2011 after the Kachin refused to abandon a strategic base near a hydropower plant that is a joint venture with a Chinese company. The conflict has forced about 100,000 Kachin from their homes since then, and many are in camps near the Kachin headquarters in Laiza near the Chinese border.
The recent fighting flared up after the Kachin rejected a government demand that they stop attacking convoys delivering supplies to the army base at Lajayang. The guerrillas contended that the convoys carried ammunition that could be used to attack their own nearby Laiza headquarters. The government then launched its offensive to clear the road to its base. The Kachin encompass a number of ethnic groups speaking almost a dozen distinct languages belonging to the Tibeto-Burman linguistic family who inhabit the same region in the northern part of Burma on the border with China, mainly in Kachin State. More than half of the Kachin people identify themselves as Christians - while significant minorities follow Buddhism and some also adhere to animism. Kachin state is also known as the land of jades and gold.
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Obama proposes sweeping gun control measures
In a bold and potentially historic attempt to stem the increase in mass gun violence, President Barack Obama has unveiled the sweeping gun control measures. The proposal, which comes at the end of a monthlong review process spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden, is broken down into four key subsections:
law enforcement, the availability of dangerous firearms and ammunition, school safety and mental health. The president recommended requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales; reinstating the assault weapons ban; restoring a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines; eliminating armor-piercing bullets; providing mental health services in schools; allocating funds to hire more police officers; and instituting a federal gun trafficking statute, among other policies. The cost of the package would be roughly $500 million, some of which could come from already budgeted funds. The proposal also includes: $4 billion dollars to help keep 15,000 police officers on the street, removing restrictions that require ATF to authorize importation of weapons simply because of their age, appointing a permanent head of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency, asking the CDC to study the entertainment industry's impact on gun violence, and encouraging mental health professionals to report patients whom they fear may be violent.
expanding background check laws to include private sales of guns and all ammunition purchases, boosting the state's power to take firearms from the mentally ill and increasing penalties for gun-related crime. The bill includes an immediate ban on semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and pistols with a "military-style feature," such as a flash suppressor or a bayonet mount. Guns that fall into that category but were purchased before Tuesday were grandfathered in, though their owners must register their firearms with the state or sell them out of state within one year. Magazines would be limited to a maximum capacity of seven bullets, down from the current 10. Ten-capacity magazines purchased before Tuesday will remain legal, but would become illegal if more than seven bullets are loaded into it. The legislation would also include the "Webster provision," a mandatory life-without-parole sentence for anyone found to have killed a first responder.
The recommendations will require congressional approval thus the proposal will be supplemented with 23 executive actions. Those actions include requiring federal agencies to hand over relevant data for a background check system; providing law enforcement officials, first responders and school officials with better training for active shooting situations; directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence; and many more.
New York became first state to tighten gun laws after Newtown
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a package of tougher gun measures into law immediately bolstering New York's ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines while giving the state more power to confiscate weapons from the mentally ill. The new law made New York the first state to enact tighter restrictions on guns after the Dec. 14, 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. It came after a month of negotiations in which Cuomo applied increasing pressure - both publicly and privately - on legislative leaders to reach an agreement. The gun-control package makes changes and additions to a broad swath of state law, ranging from
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Governments at UN forum agree on legallybinding treaty to curb mercury pollution
Over 140 governments during a meet at a United Nations forum in Geneva have agreed to a global, legally-binding treaty to address mercury, a notorious heavy metal with significant health and environmental effects. The Minamata Convention on Mercury - named after a city in Japan where serious health damage occurred as a result of mercury pollution in the mid20th Century - provides controls and reductions across a range of products, processes and industries where mercury is used, released or emitted. These products include: medical equipment such as thermometers and energy-saving light bulbs to the mining, cement and coal-fired power sectors. UNEP noted that mercury and its various compounds have a range of serious health impacts, including brain and neurological damage especially among the young. Others include kidney damage and damage to the digestive system. Victims can suffer memory loss and language impairment alongside many other well documented problems. Among the provisions of the treaty, governments have agreed on a range of mercury-containing products whose production, export and import will be banned by 2020. These include batteries, except
for 'button cell' batteries used in implantable medical devices; switches and relays; certain types of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs); mercury in cold cathode fluorescent lamps and external electrode fluorescent lamps; and soaps and cosmetics. Certain kinds of non-electronic medical devices such as thermometers and blood pressure devices are also included for phase-out by 2020. The treaty will also address the direct mining of mercury, export and import of the metal and safe storage of waste mercury. Pinpointing populations at risk, boosting medical care and better training of health care professionals in identifying and treating mercury-related effects will also form part of the new agreement.
IAEA's Parchin visit only after deal on nuclear tech: Iran
Iran has virtually denied a high-level delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to its Parchin military complex, stating that it would open up the facility for inspections once a deal on its "nuclear rights" is achieved. The IAEA suspects, based on satellite imagery, that the facility may have been used for testing explosives used to trigger a nuclear explosion. Iran continues to deny that Parchin has been used for any nuclear related activity. Iran has been insisting that as a signatory to the Nucler Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has a right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, including uranium enrichment. On the contrary, the West, led by the United States has been insisting that Iran should halt all enrichment activity, and "come clean" by demonstrating that its past and present nuclear activities have not been related to the development of atomic weapons.
Governments also approved exceptions for some large measuring devices where currently there are no mercury-free alternatives. In addition, vaccines where mercury is used as a preservative have been excluded from the treaty as have products used in religious or traditional activities.
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ECONOMY
Big industries may soon have to file 'water returns'
In a move to curb the unbridled use of water and check pollution, the Government plans to introduce a system under which big industries will have to file 'water returns', on the lines of income-tax returns. Besides, the Government is also mulling the introduction of differential rates of water pricing for different categories of industrial users. The annual water returns would include key parameters such as utilisation per unit produce, effluent discharge details, rainwater harvested, water reuse details and fresh water consumption, according to the 12th Plan (2012-17) document. The document, which has been approved by the National Development Council (NDC), and is the broad policy for the five-year period, emphasizes that the filing of water returns be made mandatory for big industries and businesses. India sold airwaves in November after a court order to revoke several cellular carriers' permits and redistribute airwaves through open bidding. That auction brought no bidders for CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) airwaves, while only some spectrum for the more popular GSM services was sold. For that auction, the government set a reserve price of CDMA airwaves at 36.4 billion rupees per megahertz for all of India's 22 telecommunication zones, or 30 percent higher than that of GSM airwaves. CDMA operators need a minimum of 2.5 megahertz of spectrum to provide services. Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd, set to lose its permits in all but one of India's 22 telecommunication zones, was among the carriers that did not participate in the November auction, saying the price was too high. The government wants to use revenue from phone bandwidth auctions and stake sales in staterun companies to check its yawning fiscal deficit. It raised less than a quarter of its 400 billion rupee target in the November auction. The reserve price for the 1,800 Mhz and 900 Mhz spectrum bands have already been reduced by 30 per cent. These two bands are used by GSM operators. The Government had not received bids in the four circles of Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Maharashtra for the 1,800 Mhz band. All these bands will be put on the block in the auction from which the Government is expecting to raise Rs 25,000 crore.
The document also underlines the need for promoting reuse and recycling of waste-water in industry through regulations and incentives within a national framework of water returns. It also talks about setting industry-specific standards for promoting rain-water harvesting in industry, both within and beyond the fence through incentives and regulation.
The policy seeks to create an equity-based and efficiency-based water pricing regime for industry. According to the document, the current pricing regime is undervalued and creating a clear policy framework would help overcome wide variations in tariff structure.
Cabinet halves CDMA spectrum price
The cabinet has approved a 50 percent cut in the auction reserve price for airwaves used by phone carriers on the CDMA platform, a move that may encourage the local unit of Russia's Sistema (SSAq.L) to participate in the sale to continue working in the country.
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National Investment Fund gets nod to buy PSU shares
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has authorized the National Investment Fund (NIF) to buy shares of public sector undertakings (PSUs), including banks and insurance companies. As per the string of approvals given by the CCEA at its meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - the disinvestment proceeds with effect from the fiscal year 2013-14 will be credited to the existing "public account" under the head National Investment Fund (NIF), and they would remain there until withdrawn/invested for the approved purposes.
The NIF will be used for the following purposes: a) Subscribing to the shares being issued by the Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) including Public Sector Banks (PSBs) and Public Sector Insurance Companies, on rights basis so as to ensure that 51 percent ownership of the Government is not diluted. b) Preferential allotment of shares of the CPSE to promoters as per Securities and Exchange Board of India SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2009 so that Government shareholding does not go down below 51 percent, in all cases where the CPSE is going to raise fresh equity to meet its capex programme. c) Recapitaliztion of PSBs and Public Sector Insurance Companies. Fund managers now managing the NIF will stand discharged of their responsibility from the date the funds and the interest income are transferred to the NIF. Set up in 2005, the NIF is being hitherto managed by three fund managers UTI Asset Management Company, SBI Funds Management Company and LIC Mutual Fund Asset Management Company.
GAAR to be implemented in 2016: GOI
The finance minister P Chidambaram has announced that the controversial amendment on tax avoidance norms; the general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR), which created a lot of uncertainty among foreign investors, will now be implemented from April 1, 2016. The changes announced by Chidambaram broadly follow the Parthasarathi Shome committee recommendations. The committee was set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as FIIs voiced their concerns on the tax laws. Under the final draft - GAAR will be applied only in cases of tax avoidance. Further the anti-avoidance rules will kick in only where the tax department is convinced that avoiding taxes was the main reason for coming through a tax haven or an arrangement. The current provision is that the rules will operate even if tax avoidance is only one of the main provisions. FIIs and participatory notes which do not apply for benefits under a double taxation avoidance agreements (DTAA) that India has with Mauritius will not come under GAAR. To make the adjudication of tax demands more acceptable to investors an independent Approving Panel shall be formed which will consist of a Chairperson who is or has been a Judge of a High Court; one Member of the Indian Revenue Service not below the rank of Chief Commissioner of Income-tax; and one Member who shall be an academic or scholar having special knowledge of matters such as direct taxes, business accounts and international trade practices. The directions issued by the Approving Panel shall be binding on the assessee as well as the Income-tax authorities. While all investments made before August 30, 2010, will be grandfathered, meaning they will not attract provisions of GAAR, Monday's press release stated that an assessing officer will have to issue a show-cause notice before raising a tax demand under GAAR. The investors will get an opportunity to prove that the arrangement they have made is not impermissible. Also, all the authorities will have to complete the action under GAAR within a specific time frame. Further, the provisions will apply only on arrangements having tax benefit of Rs 3 crore or above.
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Essentially, while about 75 per cent of the income from NIF is being used to fund select social sector programmes, the balance amount is utilised to meet the capital investment requirements of profitable PSUs and revival of sick state-owned units. However, following the global meltdown and its impact on the domestic economy, the government, in November, 2009, decided to utilise the disinvestment proceeds only for social sector spending. The National Investment Fund was constituted by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 27th January 2005. The objectives structure and administrative arrangements, investment strategy were notified in November, 2005, and the NIF started functioning from October, 2007. As on 31st August 2012 the corpus in the NIF consisted of Rs.1814.45 crore, comprising the disinvestment proceeds of Power Grid Corporation of India and the Rural Electrification Corporation Limited done during 2007-08. This corpus is presently invested through three Public Sector fund managers (SBI, LIC and UTI Mutual Funds).
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The decisions taken by the government will become law only after the amendment of the Income Tax Act. Though the GAAR provisions will over ride DTAAs, with countries like Singapore with which India has specific anti-avoidance rules (SAAR), the GAAR provisions will not apply.
UN report projects 6.1 % growth for India in 2013
The UN, in its report titled 'World economic situation and prospects 2013' (WESP), has trimmed the growth forecast for India from 7.2% estimated in June 2012 to 6.1% in 2013. The WESP noted that India's economy, representing almost three quarters of the South Asian region's GDP (gross domestic product), slowed markedly in the past years with annual growth declining from more than 9 per cent in 2010 to 5.5 per cent in 2012, the slowest pace in 10 years. The slowdown reflected weaker consumption and investment demand as a result of persistent inflation, high nominal interest rates, large fiscal deficits and political gridlock and these factors "will likely continue to impact economic growth in the next two years even as a moderate recovery is expected." Moreover, the body also foresees the accelerated inclination towards tapping India as an investment hub to bring a positive response over monetary policy and improve business confidence. Meanwhile, the report stated that economic growth in South Asia fell to its lowest in 10 years in 2012. After growing by 5.8% in 2011 South Asia's gross domestic product expanded by only 4.4% in 2012. Going forward, economic growth in the region is projected to accelerate to 5% in 2013 and 5.7% in 2014, led by a gradual recovery in India.
First BRICS Heads of the Revenue Meeting held
They have identified seven areas of tax policy and tax administration for extending their mutual cooperation which includes:
a) contribute to development of International Standards on International Taxation and Transfer Pricing taking into account the aspirations of developing countries in general and BRICS Countries in particular; b) strengthening the enforcement processes by taking appropriate actions for non-compliance and putting more resources on international cooperation; c) sharing of best practices and capacity building; d) sharing of anti-tax evasion and non-compliance practices, including abuse of treaty benefits and shifting of profits by way of complex multilayered structures; e) development of a BRICS mechanism to facilitate countering abusive tax avoidance transactions, arrangements, shelters and schemes; f) promotion of effective exchange of information; g) Any other issues of common interests and concerns related to taxation.
The communiqu expresses the concerns of BRICS Countries at the erosion of the tax base by practices that involve abuse of tax treaty benefits, incomplete disclosure of information and fraudulent claims and makes a commitment to address these concerns by preventing the base erosion and profit shifting through mutual cooperation. The communiqu recognizes the importance of the economic and commercial links amongst BRICS Countries and the need to contribute to the strengthening of these links.
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The Heads of the Revenue of the BRICS Countries i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, asserted their continued commitment to promote closer coordination and cooperation in the area of tax administration.
IRDA standardization to benefit health cover buyers
In a move that will reduce disputes and enable customer make better choices, the insurance regulator has decided to standardize definitions, forms and processes in health insurance. According to a circular issued by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), "all insurers hospitals" will mean medical institutions with at least 10 inpatient beds, "all policies" will mean the same thing when they talk about covering critical illness and healthcare providers can follow the same procedure when dealing with 23 companies. The circular comes at a time when IRDA is under pressure to resolve difference among hospitals and insurers following a public interest litigation which has sought court intervention on cashless claim settlement. This will address structural issues in the industry such as the lack of trust between hospitals and insures. It will reduce mis-selling by agents who try
to arbitrage between different definitions of the same cover.
Government cleans up rules regarding taxing IT companies
After the controversial general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR), the finance ministry sought to clear the air on taxation of software companies through a set of clarifications, including allowing Indian companies to claim tax breaks on software development at clients' offices overseas. The clarifications would come as a huge relief for several Indian IT giants - such as Infosys and Wipro - as in the past, tax authorities had denied benefits for software development done by staff deputed to work abroad, even if all conditions, including receipt of foreign exchange, were met. The income tax department turned down the benefit on the ground that these were "body shopping transactions", as the work was not undertaken in India, and refused to
treat it as software exports. But a series of recommendations by an expert committee headed by former CBDT chairman N Rangachary has now prompted the finance ministry to classify them as deemed exports and clearly say that "tax benefits would not be denied". While tax holiday benefits under sections 10A (for eligible units in software technology parks) and 10B (for export oriented units) expired on March 31, 2012, this clarification will help software companies that are fighting legal battles. This is a good move for the software industry. Many disputes had arisen on account of lack of clarity, leading to endless litigation. The circular will put all this to rest. The definition clarifies that manpower services with regards to the IT industry are eligible for deductions. It also clarifies that research and development centres engaged in engineering and design are eligible for deductions.
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INDIA AND THE WORLD

India, Vietnam sign MoU on micro, small & medium enterprises
Air Forces of the two countries and also agreed upon a plan of bilateral military exchanges for 2013 including a joint military exercise. The two sides also reviewed the ongoing measures to maintain peace and tranquility on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Anti-terrorism exercises aimed at improving the relations between the two militaries were held at Kunming (China) in 2007 and Belgaum in 2008 and later stopped after China began issuing stapled visas, (on a separate paper) to residents of Jammu and Kashmir since 2009. Under this policy China declined visa to Lt-General BS Jaswal on the ground that he was commanding forces in the "disputed and sensitive" region of Jammu and Kashmir, which lead to India halting its military ties with China. Beijing subsequently rolled back the policy paving the way for resumption of ties.
India and Vietnam has signed an MoU aimed at building capacity for developing institutional framework and identifying thrust areas and opportunities for micro, small and medium enterprises. The MoU will focus on building capacity for developing policy and institutional framework through exchange of experts for the development of MSMEs, and conducting industrial surveys and feasibility studies to identify thrust areas and opportunities for development of MSMEs in Vietnam.
It also envisages promotion of partnership projects and institutional cooperation between the two countries, organising exhibitions and trade fairs for marketing the products of MSMEs, exchange of business missions to initiate transfer of technology and business alliance, and providing training for improvement of managerial and technical skills for MSMEs. The MoU is part of India's efforts to further strengthen economic ties with Vietnam.
The two countries have set a trade and investment target of $7billion by 2015.
A Joint Committee comprising representatives from the Ministry of Planning and Investment (Vietnam) and Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (India) would monitor the implementation of the MoU.
India and China hold Third Annual Defence Dialogue
Defence Secretary Shri Shashikant Sharma and the Chinese Deputy Chief of General Staff General Qi Jianguo hold the Third India-China Annual Defence Dialogue in Beijing. The two sides discussed bilateral, regional and international issues of common interests including the situation in the Asia-Pacific region and in the India-China border areas. The two sides agreed to expand and enhance bilateral exchanges covering the Armies, Navies and
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PM talks tough on Pakistan
India hardened its stand against Pakistan by stating that 'business with Pakistan cannot as usual' in the aftermath of the beheading of an Indian soldier on the Line of Control in which two Indian soldiers were killed. The Government has also suspended 'Visa on Arrival' for senior Pakistani citizens. India cited "technical reasons" for putting on hold the muchawaited travel policy. The visa, which was expected to be granted to people in the prescribed age group crossing the Attari-Wagah border on foot, would be given for a maximum of 45 days of stay in one visit and the visa fee would be Rs 100 or $ 2. According to the pact, visa-on-arrival would not be given for stay in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, besides restrictive and prohibitive regions. Amritsar will only be used as transit point. At present, nearly 100 persons use the Attari-Wagah check post daily to cross the Indo-Pak border on foot with a good number being senior citizens. Further the Hockey Federation decided that nine Pakistani hockey players who were to take part in the Hockey India League tournament would be sent home as protests by radical outfits against their presence had allegedly raised security fears.
India contributes $1 million to UN Women fund
the feasibility of establishing a rail link between Feni (Bang;ladesh) and Belonia (India). Both the delegations also agreed to examine the feasibility of increasing the frequency of Maitree Express and introducing the system of return tickets. A Working Group comprising of Government officials from both countries has been formed. It will go into the total gamut issues relating to financial, operational, commercial and security issues including passenger comfort associated with the running of Maitree Express. The inter-ministerial bilateral meeting held alternately in Dhaka and New Delhi and provides a forum for discussion for important railway related issues.
India has made a $1million contribution to the core voluntary budget of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women for the financial year 2012-2013. The contribution constitutes the third installment of India's multi-year pledge to provide $5 million as core predictable funding to UN Women's resources and takes its total contribution so far to UN Women to $3 million. India is one of the founding members of the Executive Board of the UN Women and is currently serving on the board. The United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The main roles of UN Women are:
To support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms. To help Member States to implement these standards, standing ready to provide suitable technical and financial support to those countries that request it, and to forge effective partnerships with civil society. To hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress.
Inter-Governmental Railway meeting between India and Bangladesh held
India and Bangladesh conducted InterGovernmental Railway meet to discuss issues related to technical, operational and financial matters - such as improvement in running of Maitree Express, streamlining of inter-country freight train operations, upgrading infrastructure and establishing more rail connectivity points to enhance people-to-people contact between the two countries. With a view to increasing people-to-people contact between India and Bangladesh, it was decided to expedite the projects for opening rail links between Akhaura (Bangladesh) - Agartala (India), Chilahati (Bangladesh) - Haldibari (India), Shahbazpur (Bangladesh) - Mahishashan (India) and Birol (Bangladesh) - Radhikapur (India) and also examine
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India and US join hands to improve agricultural productivity and innovation in African countries
As part of the India-U.S. Strategic Partnership, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed during President Obama's visit to India in November 2010 to use the expertise of both countries in agricultural capacity-building to extend food security to interested third countries. Pursuant to this, India and the United States inaugurated the first triangular India-U.S.-Africa partnership in agricultural training at the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Hyderabad for 30 trainees from three African countries - Kenya, Liberia and Malawi. The three-year triangular partnership program aims to improve the agricultural productivity, strengthen agricultural value chains, and support market institutions in Kenya, Liberia, and Malawi. Agriculture professionals from Kenya, Malawi, and Liberia: will be trained in agricultural extension practices, agri-business, and agricultural marketing. The training will include classroom sessions, group work, field trips, and interaction with industry experts. After their training, these professionals will go home with new knowledge, skills, and potential innovations to address their domestic challenges in food and nutrition security. Nowadays, the biggest challenge globally is that one in eight people worldwide go hungry - that is around 870 million people. Another big challenge was the under-nutrition and the need to provide right micro-nutrients to ensure that people sustain a healthy lifestyle.

13.2bn-yr-old star most ancient in the universe
ozone with iodide on the sea surface could account for 75% of observed iodine oxide levels over the tropical Atlantic Ocean.
It contains some heavy elements thus belongs to the second generation of stars to be created following the Big Bang. The first generation of stars contained hardly any elements heavier than helium.
Gas released from oceans behind ozone destruction
Researchers at the Universities of York and Leeds found that the gas released from the oceans on Earth may play a significant role in the destruction of ozone layer. The principal source of iodine oxide can be explained by emissions of hypoiodous acid (HOI) a gas not yet considered as being released from the ocean - along with a contribution from molecular iodine (I2). Since the 1970s when methyl iodide (CH3I) was discovered as ubiquitous in the ocean, the presence of iodine in the atmosphere has been understood to arise mainly from emissions of organic compounds from phytoplankton - microscopic marine plants. The new research showed that reactive iodine, along with bromine, in the atmosphere is responsible for the destruction of vast amounts of ozone - around 50% more than predicted - in the lower atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. The scientists quantified gaseous emissions of inorganic iodine following the reaction of iodide with ozone in a series of experiments. They showed that the reaction of
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Scientists have identified a star, at least 13.2 billion years-old. The Big Bang is calculated by scientists to have taken place about 13.77 billion years ago and the star, known as HD 140283, was among the earliest stars to form and it is just 186 light years away from Earth. Observations from the Hubble Telescope helped experts fix the distance of the star from the Earth with unprecedented accuracy which allowed them to make more accurate measurements of how brightly it shines. Once its brightness was established they were able to work out how rapidly its hydrogen is being exhausted and so determine its age.
MoEF sets deadline to declare eco sensitive zones around national parks, sanctuaries
A decade after the National Board for Wildlife envisaged declaring areas within 10 km of the boundary of national parks and sanctuaries as ecosensitive zones, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has given one last opportunity to all the States to submit site-specific proposals by February 15. A letter from the MoEF Secretary has also been issued to Chief Secretaries of all the States and Union Territories in this regard. In case, the State/Union Territory governments fail to submit the proposals within the deadline, the activities that have been prohibited as per the MoEF guidelines would stand prohibited within 10 km of the boundary of National Parks and Sanctuaries. As per the guidelines, commercial mining, setting up of industries causing pollution, commercial use of firewood, establishment of all hydroelectric projects, use or production of any hazardous substances, tourism activities like flying over the national park area by any aircraft or hot-air balloons and discharge of effluents and solid waste in natural water bodies or terrestrial area are prohibited. The need for site-specific proposals has arisen as many of the existing protected areas have already undergone tremendous development in close vicinity to their boundaries with some like Guindy National Park lying in the urban set up. Likewise, the eco-sensitive zones could extend beyond 10 km width in cases of sensitive corridors for connectivity of ecologically important patches crucial for landscape linkage.
Multiple-target missiles to redefine warfare
The technology demonstration of an ambitious project to fire hi-tech precision-guided munitions (PGMs) from a mother missile at various targets
simultaneously will be completed in a year by scientists of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). PGMs are miniaturized missiles with small seekers, actuators and on-board computers and will be integrated with tactical missiles having a range of 100-200 km. The major advantage of PGMs is that collateral damage could be avoided while attacking multiple targets in a war scenario with sub-metre accuracy. A series of trials using a Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) to simulate the speed of the mother missile while ejecting the PGMs will be conducted at Balasore, Orissa, from March this year. Initially, the RPV will be tested using two seekers-IIR (Imaging Infra-Red) and mmW ( millimetric wave) to track the target. Subsequently, the tests would be conducted with RPV for separation of munitions. The technology demonstration of the launch of a single PGM with multiple seekers from the RPV will be completed in a year. One of the main reasons for using an RPV was to reduce costs as it could be re-used.
with these very small - kilometres across - flux ropes. Scientists determined that the flux ropes on Venus form from solar particles on the side of the planet facing away from the Sun, in the magnetotail. It seems to be associated with a process known as reconnection, which is magnetic field lines joining up together and forming a new magnetic configuration.
2012 among top 10 warmest years on record: NASA
Magnetic 'ropes' discovered in Venus' atmosphere
The European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft have spotted enormous magnetic entities called flux ropes - stretching for hundreds of kilometres in Venus's upper atmosphere, above the poles.
Flux ropes have been seen before around other planets, including Earth. They transport superheated plasma gas from one side of the "rope" to the other. On Earth, flux ropes form near the face of the planet opposite the Sun. The stream of charged particles known as the solar wind flows around the planet and creates a "magnetotail" of charged particles on the other side. Venus stands apart from most other planets in the solar system, however, because it has no magnetic field. When Venus' atmosphere has a higher pressure than the incoming solar wind field, the ionosphere is considered "unmagnetised," meaning that it's free of all but the smallest magnetic field structures. The ionosphere of Venus stays unmagnetised most of the time, until the solar wind reaches a higher pressure than the surrounding atmosphere and magnetizes it. In these conditions, relatively small flux ropes can form due to the higher speed of the solar wind rolling over the slower ionosphere. The ionosphere is filled
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According to the NASA scientists, 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880. The average temperature in 2012 was about 14.6 degree Celsius, which is 0.6 C warmer than the mid-20th century baseline. With the exception of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis that compares temperatures around the globe in 2012 to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, the first year in the GISS temperature record. By 1960, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was about 315 parts per million. Today, it exceeds 390 parts per million. Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperature from year to year, but the continued increase in greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere assures a long-term rise in global temperatures.
After cancer, India starts stroke registry
After its successful operation of cancer registries for the last 20 years, the government has taken the plunge to start a stroke registry at Bangalore National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research. Registries for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes would be started in the future. It is pertinent to note that chronic diseases like cancer, stroke, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are growing at an alarming rate in India, and the number of people who either die or suffer from morbidity is quite high. It has been estimated that
the combined annual cost to India of stroke, coronary heart disease, and diabetes will be about $54bn by 2015, about six times the $8.7bn lost through these diseases in 2005. Despite knowing that a number of people suffer from stroke, precise information on prevalence and incidence is lacking. The registry has been started with the sole intent of providing this vital information. The Centre has two major objectives: "To generate reliable data on the magnitude and incidence of stroke, and to know the patterns of care in patients
with stroke". These objectives are expected to "generate researchable data bases and thereby lay a strong foundation for epidemiological, clinical and control research in stroke. The registration is only for all newly diagnosed patients with stroke diagnosed on or after January 1, 2013. It is also restricted to those patients who are registered and/or diagnosed/treated in that respective institution/individual specialist. For purposes of calculation of incidence rates, only those patients who are residents of the registry area for at least one year is required.
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2 - MARKERS
Krishi Karman Awards
Ten States have been selected for the newly instituted 'Krishi Karman' awards for best performance towards raising production of food grains. Three awards are being given for total food grain production and four awards for production of rice, wheat, coarse cereals and pulses - the crops that constitute the food grain basket. Krishi Karman awards are the first-ever awards being given to States for their effort and contribution towards raising the country's food grain production. Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are the joint winners of the Krishi Karman award in the category of States with overall food grain production of more than 10 million tonnes recorded in the last five years. Assam and Orissa get the award in the category of States with overall food grain production of between one and 10 million tonnes. The 17 shortlisted States made detailed presentations before the Selection Committee and finally ten States were selected for the awards.
Jeevan Raksha Padak
Tripura is the sole winner in the category of States with overall food grain production of less than one million tonnes.
In the second set of four awards, being given for individual crops and crop groups, the award for rice goes to Chhattisgarh, wheat to Haryana, pulses to Maharashtra and Rajasthan, and coarse cereals to Karnataka. Each award winning State gets a trophy, a citation and cash award. The cash award (for each State) is Rs. 2 crore for total food grain production and Rs. 1 crore for each of the four crops included in food grains.
A selection committee headed by Secretary (Agriculture and Cooperation) assessed the performance of States against objective criteria that took into account production outcomes, implementation of crop production programs and innovative approaches adopted for effective service delivery. Initial screening for the selection of best performing States was done based on the 3rd advance production estimates and the reported performance of the States against the set parameters.
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Jeevan Raksha Padak series of awards are given to a person for meritorious act of humane nature in saving the life of a person. The award is given in three categories, namely, Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak, Uttam Jeevan Raksha Padak, and Jeevan Raksha Padak. Persons of either sex in all walks of life are eligible for these awards. The award can also be conferred posthumously. The decoration of the award (medal, certificate signed by the Home Minister and demand draft for lump sum monetary allowance) is presented to the awardee in due course by the respective State Government to which the awardee belongs. The lump sum monetary allowance is given at the rate of 1,00,000, Rs.60,000, and Rs. 40,000 to the Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak, Uttam Jeevan Raksha Padak and Jeevan Raksha Padak awardee respectively.
Weather Services of IMD on Mobile"
India Meteorology Department (IMD) has launched a mobile application through which current weather observations and four-day forecasts for weather stations in the four metros - Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai can be accessed on near real time basis through mobile phones. A team of experts at IMD have developed an application called "Indian-weather" that can be downloaded free of cost from Google Play, available on android-based smart phones and tablets. Once downloaded, the application will enable the user to access the current weather observations along with four-day forecasts from meteorological stations in the four metros. Value added services like weather bulletins, alerts, and agro-meteorological advisories would be added over the coming months based on feedback from users.
India's First Technology Innovation Centre
The Apparel Training & Design Centre (ATDC) in collaboration with Juki India, launched India's first Technology Innovation Research Centre at the ATDC-Training of Trainers' Academy, Gurgaon to demonstrate technologies in apparel manufacturing and undertake applied research. The ATDC-JUKI TECH Innovation Centre is an important initiative to strengthen the Apparel Industry, especially the SMEs, to adopt new technologies for increasing productivity, efficiency and quality for better price realisation and better global competitiveness. The ATDC-JUKI TECH Innovation Centre will be a platform where industry and academia can focus on showcasing and demonstrating leading edge technology and carrying out applied 'Research' which is a key word in SMART (Skills for Manufacturing of Apparel through Research and Training). Applied 'Research' combined with technology training can become a potent force to catalyse
advancement of apparel production techniques and praxis, that would be relevant for India's apparel manufacturing environment.
Indian researcher Alzheimer's drug
bags
award
for
London-based Indian researcher Mahaveer Golechha has been selected for a 'Young Investigator Scholarship Award' for his work on a drug to cure Alzheimer's. He has been recognized for his outstanding research on 'naringin', a bioflavonoid found in grape fruits and citrus fruits. In his study, he found that naringin possesses significant "anti-Alzheimer activity" and will form the basis of further research to develop as a cure for the degenerative disease in old age, which worsens as it progresses. "Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that generally affects the elderly population. Till date the treatment was symptomatic but naringin will act at pathological level and have lesser side effects.
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EDITORIALS
Time for The Gene Revolution
If we are to feed an ever-growing population and save India from starving, we must embrace GM crops In October 2012, a Technical Expert Committee (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court (SC) of India recommended a 10-year ban on field trials of genetically engineered (GM) food crops. Admirers of Indian agriculture's colossal achievements were shocked and saddened by the news. and Borlaug received the 1970 Nobel peace prize in recognition of his success. Although Borlaug died in 2009, his work is not over; in October 2011 the world's population reached seven billion, some 1.2 billion of whom are hungry. Each year nine million people die because of hunger and malnutrition (one every 3.5 seconds); five million are children. The task of feeding the world will be even more difficult in years to come. By 2050 the world's population will exceed nine billion, and combined environmental crises mean that we must produce much more food on less land with less water, fewer agrochemicals and less fossil fuel, while still maintaining biodiversity. Meanwhile, farming must adapt to changing climate zones and weather patterns. To do all this we must heed Borlaug's plea to deploy the full range of cutting-edge techniques to produce higher yielding, higher quality, lower input and lower environmental impact crops. Borlaug highlighted gene manipulation approaches that are delivering results faster and more precisely than the classical crop breeding techniques. The TEC recommendations would prevent these approaches from being brought to the service of the people of India. Clive James has illustrated the benefits that GM crops have already delivered to India. He noted that GM (Bt) Cotton has brought spectacular benefits to India's farmers and to the nation's economy. Seven million small farmers planted 10.6 million hectares of Bt cotton in 2011. Average cotton yield and production increased from 13.6 million bales in 2002 to 35.5 million bales in 2011. Bt cotton contributed $9.4 billion to the farm economy from 2002 to 2010 and $2.5 billion in 2010 alone. India could and should continue to lead the way forward so that the 'Gene Revolution' can deliver the full benefits of higher yield, higher quality, lower input, lower environmental impact crops that humanity so urgently needs. Borlaug spent his last years campaigning to protect agricultural innovations like GM from being
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The committee ignored copious data on the safety and efficacy of GM crops in coming to this blinkered recommendation which is not in the best interests of the people. It prevents the provision of a safety net for the ever increasing population. However, there is some hope since, on November 9, the SC declined to accept the recommendations of the TEC, pending receipt of a more comprehensive report. Knowledge of the nightmare period in India which led up to the publication of Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb leads one to be profoundly shocked by the TEC recommendations. In that book Ehrlich wrote, "The battle to save humanity is overIn the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programmes embarked upon now." Ehrlich insisted that India couldn't possibly feed 200 million more people by 1980. That Ehrlich was wrong was largely due to the efforts of three men. Norman Borlaug was concerned about population growth too, but he decided that the best way to stop people starving would be to help them to produce more food. Now famous as the father of the Green Revolution, Borlaug worked with M S Swaminathan, with vigorous support from the then minister for food and agriculture C Subramaniam, to breed high-yielding cereal crops and deliver other innovations which enabled India to dramatically increase agricultural productivity. From 1960 to 2000 the Green Revolution increased India's wheat yields more than threefold. The Green Revolution saved the lives of one billion people who would otherwise have starved,
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derailed by activists who oppose genetic engineering for ideological reasons. In 2004 he warned that success for the anti-GM lobby would be catastrophic: "If the naysayers manage to stop agricultural biotechnology, they will precipitate the famines and the crisis of global biodiversity they have been predicting." Today, i am deeply distressed that in spite of the unqualified success of, for example, GM cotton here in India, anti-biotechnology groups have continued to make outrageous claims in their war on the use of the technology. They have falsely linked GM crops to health problems and to supposed economic failures, wilfully ignoring the fact that the safety of each GM product is rigorously scrutinised throughout its development period.
Global movement In 1988, India joined the global movement for polio eradication - at a time when we had not even succeeded in bringing polio under control. Control status required at least 95 per cent reduction. In 1978, India launched the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) with BCG and DPT vaccines. The oral polio vaccine (OPV) was introduced the next year. Natural polioviruses are called 'wild' to distinguish them from vaccine polioviruses that constitute OPV. Vaccine viruses are 'attenuated' from wild viruses - which means they have lost most of their 'virulence,' the ability to cause paralysis and the ability to spread fast among children. These two are the dreaded qualities of wild polioviruses. By 1988, diphtheria, whooping cough and neonatal tetanus had declined to control levels as a result of EPI's efforts. But polio did not come under control - showing that OPV was not as effective in India as in the West or in China. There, just three or four doses protected all children. In India, we had to give many more doses for equal effect. From 1994, India began nationwide OPV campaigns (called pulse immunisation) - two per year - to give additional doses to all under-five children irrespective of the number of doses already given. That resulted in effectively controlling polio by 2000. One of the three types of polioviruses, wild type 2, was even eradicated by October 1999 when the average number of OPV doses had reached six per child. The type 2 component of OPV was not only more effective against that type, but it also inhibited the effect of types 1 and 3. That left India with the struggle to eradicate wild types 1 and 3 using a blunt weapon, the trivalent OPV (tOPV), containing types 1, 2 and 3, which is necessary to attack all three viruses simultaneously. In the Gangetic plain States, particularly Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, 9-10 pulse immunisation campaigns were conducted annually from 2004 to 2010. We then developed OPV containing just type 1 to make the tool sharper against the type 1 wild virus. That is called 'monovalent OPV' (mOPV-1). Eventually, India made 'bivalent OPV' (bOPV) with types 1 and 3. Remember, we did not have wild type 2 virus since 1999. With new tools and covering almost100 per cent children in their homes, while travelling, in brick-kiln and sugarcane fields where temporary migrant labour set up homes, wild polioviruses had no place to hide. We succeeded in stopping the transmission of type 3 in 2010 and type
Indian activists and some civil servants are ignoring the hugely successful experience with GM crops worldwide. James has noted that the 94-fold increase from 1.69 million hectares in 1996 to 158.8 million hectares in 2011 makes GM crops the fastestadopted crop technology in recent history. During the period from 1996 to 2011, millions of farmers in 29 countries worldwide chose to plant and replant an accumulated acreage of more than 930.7 million hectares - a testimony to the fact that such crops deliver sustainable and substantial socio-economic and environmental benefits.
India's discriminatory treatment of genetic engineering conflicts with the broad, long-standing consensus that these newest techniques are essentially a refinement of earlier ones and that the transfer of a gene by molecular techniques does not, per se, confer incremental risk. On the contrary, the use of these newer and more precise techniques makes the final products even safer. Sanity must prevail. The TEC's recommendations must be rejected. Source: Times of India
Two years without polio
In the 1980s, only three decades ago, 200,000 to 400,000 children, all under 5 years, were afflicted with polio paralysis annually in India. That was a daily average of 500 to 1000 cases. By the age of six, eight among 1,000 children already had polio paralysis; two would have died. In other words, one per cent of infants born were destined to develop polio.
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1 in 2011. The last child with wild virus polio was detected in Howrah, West Bengal, with the onset of paralysis on January 13, 2011. Since then, only bOPV has been used for immunisation campaigns in U.P. and Bihar, while tOPV is used in routine EPI and national pulse immunisation campaigns twice each year. How sure are we that wild polioviruses have been totally banished? There is a solid body of evidence to show this. All hospitals and clinics that attend to sick children have been networked to report any illness that even remotely resembles polio. Such illness is called 'acute flaccid paralysis' (AFP). Stool samples from every child with AFP are collected and tested for the presence of polioviruses. Every poliovirus so detected is further tested to distinguish wild poliovirus from vaccine poliovirus. When a lot of OPV is given to children, many with AFP would have vaccine polioviruses. That is to be expected. Sewage samples are collected every week from several wards of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Patna. During 2011 and 2012, all sewage samples were consistently negative for wild polioviruses (but with plenty of vaccine viruses). In northern India, the last footholds of wild polioviruses, the second half of each year was the season of high wild virus transmission. We passed two 'high seasons' in 2011 and 2012 without a single case. India has truly succeeded, silencing the many prophets of failure. Highly contagious
more than we do. India spent about Rs 1000 crore every year since 2000. The rationale Many have questioned the wisdom of spending such large amounts on one childhood disease. Was polio worth eradicating? From a humanitarian viewpoint as well as human rights angle no child deserved to be paralysed by a preventable disease. We know the struggle we had to go through merely to keep polio under control. Eradication is the best form of control. Once affected with polio, many children are neglected, do not complete high school, take up simple jobs like bicycle repair, managing telephone booths, etc. The disability-determined productivity loss may be taken as about half of the gross domestic product per capita. That amounts to approximately Rs 50,000 per year; cumulated over 30 years of productive life, India was losing Rs. 15 lakhs per person - for a staggering Rs 45,000 crore per annum loss to the domestic economy from just one disease, polio, that affected 300,000 children each year. Controlling diseases that affect productivity is indeed a development activity. Eradicating polio is an investment. The absence of polio is both a measure of, and a means to, development. The National Polio Eradication Certification Committee will confirm eradication of wild viruses and review the secure containment of laboratory storage of wild poliovirus strains or specimens likely to contain them before certifying India free of wild viruses. The Committee will wait for three years from the last virus detection before certification procedures, expected after January 2014. Thereafter, India will use only bOPV; later that will also be withdrawn, globally, synchronously. These rules of polio eradication 'end game' have been drawn up by the World Health Organisation and were endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 2012. In order not to create any polio immunity vacuum, the inactivated poliovirus vaccine will be introduced and sustained for at least five years. Polio eradication will then mean 'no infection with any poliovirus, wild or vaccine.' Source: The Hindu
Wild polioviruses are highly contagious illustrated by some 50 episodes of international importations to countries that had once eliminated them using OPV. We had exported wild viruses to Nepal and Bangladesh in our neighbourhood, and to Bulgaria, Angola, China and Tajikistan, to name some distant ones. Now India is polio-free and vulnerable to importation from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria - the three countries that have not yet eliminated wild polioviruses. We cannot lower our guard and must continue pulse immunisations as though importation is imminent. India has five points of border-crossing with Pakistan: two in JammuKashmir, two in Punjab, and one in Rajasthan. At every point, individuals are given one dose of tOPV when they enter India. What was very remarkable was that India's money went into the lion's share of expenditure for polio eradication in the country, thus easing up global funds for use in other countries that needed them
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India too faces Cyber Pearl Harbour
Recently, the US Secretary of Defence Leon E Panetta warned that the US faces the possibility of a Cyber Pearl Harbour. According to him, the US
will be increasingly vulnerable to foreign computer hackers who could dismantle the nation's power grid, transportation system, financial networks and critical infrastructure. Mr Panetta was reacting to the increasing aggressiveness and technological advances by the nation's adversaries that officials identified as China, Russia, Iran and militant groups. He said an aggressor nation or extremist group could use malware to gain control of critical switches. Such attacks on computers controlling industrial systems and infrastructure are dangerous. According to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China remains 'the most threatening power in cyberspace' and presents the largest challenge to US supply chain integrity. US defence experts have drawn a scenario of Cyber Pearl Harbour that has 'cyber actors' launching several attacks on critical infrastructure in combination with physical attacks. The security concerns highlighted by Panetta and the Security Review Commission stem from the discovery of the Stuxnet malware in 2010, designed to sabotage Iranian nuclear facilities. Taking note of the threat posed by hidden malware (Trojan Horse) to critical infrastructure, a US Senate Security Committee has recommended blacklisting of Huawei & ZTE, two Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers.
The original version had also stated that all core network elements could only be installed after certification in India. However, that has been further diluted to say that government would accept global certification of network equipment. Perhaps, policymakers are not aware that there are no global certification centres that could certify a telecom system as safe i.e. free of hidden malware. Core network elements such as Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) employ tens of millions of lines of source code. They are among the most complex industrial software ever developed. Cyber security standards and policies have evolved since 1994 and their main focus is detection of malware on webbased clients and servers employing operating systems such as Windows. However, there is no such standard for telecom security certification. This is because of the complexity of telecom software and the fact that they employ specially developed operating system as well as programming languages. Ericsson, for example, has developed a programming language called PLEX and telecomoriented Software Development Environment (SDE). The SDE has a set of tools such as Compilers, Debuggers, among others that are proprietary products. The International Telecommunication Union has also developed a special programming language called CHILL and a Specification Development Language (SDL) for telecom systems. These are not used in cyberspace. So, setting up a Generic Certification Centre for Telecom here is not a feasible proposition. Had it been so, countries such as the US, Australia and Canada would not have banned imports from Chinese MNCs. Since we have an unresolved border dispute with China, our stakes are even higher than that of the US. The possibility of a second round of war between India and China cannot be excluded as long as the boundary dispute remains unresolved. There is a greater chance of India facing a Cyber Pearl Harbour than the US. Trojan Horses like Stuxnet could be hidden in voluminous telecom software written in low-level programming languages, that is difficult to debug in any certification centre. If a high-level intelligence committee of the US has found that the telecom gear supplied by Chinese companies pose a danger to US critical infrastructure, the same applies with greater force to India. Trojan Horse could be activated at the time of war by either a remotely sent man machine command, or triggered
The Congressional study, with inputs from FBI and other security agencies, fears that Chinese products could contain Trojan Horses, posing a grave threat to the country.
Even in India, Chinese hackers backed by government agencies have been active in numerous attacks including one on our Eastern Naval Command computer system in 2012, and that of the National Security Adviser in 2010. These attacks should be taken as a wake-up call by our policymakers. The Telecom Security Policy in India has been in the works since 2011. The first draft had proposed that at least 50% of the core equipment should be made in the country. However, under pressure from Chinese MNCs and others, the norm was relaxed. The 50% clause has been dropped in the latest version of the draft, that has not yet been made public. It merely states that India will progressively develop indigenous capacity to manufacture telecom hardware and software being inducted into the network.
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by a timestamp. In India, the telecom operators have outsourced even operations and maintenance to MNCs (including Chinese). So the threat is real. The draft Telecom Security Policy must be put in public domain and comments invited from all the stakeholders as was done in case of NTP 2012. Even the cyber security policy, placed in the public domain last year, is yet to be finalised. There should be synergy between these two policies that could be called the Infocom Security Policy 2013. We must ensure that the country does not face a Cyber Pearl Harbour type of attack on our critical infrastructure. Source: Economic Times
of priorities for Britain's current Presidency of the G8, and despite his party's increasingly Eurosceptic stance. "This is long overdue. I think there is certainly enough political will to see this through," says Sony Kapoor, managing director of European think tank Re-Define. Indeed, given that an estimated 1.8 billion worth of goods and services are traded every day between the US and Europe, its rather surprising its taken so long to get to this point. "There was no progress because of the complexity of the issues and no strong political consensus on either side of the Atlantic to push things through," says Fred Irwin, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany. Major Spin-Offs
It has been five years since the European Union and India launched negotiations on a free trade agreement in goods, services and investment, and still a deal seems far away, with the two sides struggling to resolve a number of issues, including on investment in the retail and services sector. The repeated urgings of politicians on both sides for an agreement at the earliest possible date seem increasingly futile.
While focus on that deal may have waned - in the interim, the EU has already concluded a free trade agreement with South Korea and completed talks on one with Singapore likely to be signed this year - the prospect of another mega-trade deal is gaining prominence, this time with the US. Talk about an EU-US trade deal has been doing the rounds for several decades, though the focus of both sides on developing trade relations with Asia has meant it has been largely a back story. However, over the past year, it has been picking up pace. Last year, an interim report by a US-EU High Level Working Group called for a "comprehensive" deal covering a wide range of issues - from the elimination of all duties on bilateral trade to improving the compatibility of regulations and standards and increasing access to government procurement opportunities.
The report was swiftly welcomed by the US government and European Commission, which described a potential FTA as a "bold initiative" to expand trade and investment and make a significant contribution to a strategy to strengthen growth and create jobs. A final report is expected later this month. British Prime Minister David Cameron has included the start of negotiations on a US-EU FTA on his list
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EU-US trade pact on the cards
The stalling of the Doha Round negotiations, and the lack of other opportunities of quite the scale that a trans-Atlantic partnership would have, is increasing interest, particularly in Europe; Germany, the UK, Spain and Greece among the countries to have expressed their support for a deal. The estimated economic boost to both sides from such a deal is significant, and even though existing tariffs are relatively low by international standards, the sheer volumes involved could provide a considerable boost to both economies. According to a paper by the European Centre for International Political Economy, the elimination of tariffs (currently in the region of 5 to 7 per cent) on goods and services could boost European GDP by an estimated $69 billion a year, and that of the US by up to $182 billion. However, to many of its proponents, it is the other elements that the FTA could encompass, such as regulation, procurement, common standards and investment protection, where its true value would lie, providing a significant for both economies. "For example a pharmaceutical company that got approval for a product in Europe could automatically get it in the US - a huge cost reduction," suggests Irwin, who likens the deal likely to emerge more to a "partnership" than a pure trade agreement. The comprehensive nature of what is being pushed for is likely to slow things down, and could complicate things particularly from the US side. "Tariff elimination will be the least of the issues," says Irwin, pointing to matters that continue to divide the two powers, such as a long-standing EU
ban on US poultry (in the US it is treated with chlorides to reduce pathogens, which the EU frowns upon). "The Americans have shown less political will - they are willing to negotiate but have focused on the small details," he says. Other matters such as rules governing the protection of investments, and environmental standards could prove divisive, argues Kapoor. Roadblocks to Deal Differences exist between the two sides on a host of issues - from genetically modified food to restrictions on FDI in certain sensitive sectors. The difficulties of coordinating policies was recently highlighted by the controversial anti-piracy treaty, ACTA, which was rejected in the European Parliament, following vocal protests across the region. It has been signed by the US, among other nations.
Britain strongly involved in Europe, rather than one on its periphery. Past periods of economic hardship have often been accompanied by protectionist steps by countries across the world - and this recent bout is no exception (a report by the European Commission published last May noted 123 trade restrictive measures introduced globally by its 31 main trading partners). A comprehensive free trade agreement between the world's two largest economies would not only provide the economic stimulus that both regions sorely need, but also send a message that there was at least one lesson the two regions at the heart of the crisis have taken heed of. Source: Business Line
Late last year, a US coalition of 60 food and agricultural organisations expressed their concerns about the FTA, including about comments made in the EU Parliament about limits on the use of words such as "Parmesan" outside the area where the cheese is produced. "We cannot help but be sceptical that the EU is prepared to undertake a US-style comprehensive negotiation and to include the agricultural sector," wrote the group in a note to US Trade Representative, Ron Kirk. In Europe, for the moment, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, though concerns about the impact of increased competition on the region's workforce could increasingly become an issue, as negotiations progress.
Perhaps, the most significant developments for such a deal emerging are the increasingly positive and interested tone with which the US administration seems to be approaching Europe. In November, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged the existing differences on trade policy but called for more work. "If we get this right an agreement that opens markets and liberalises trade it would shore up our global competitiveness for the next century." The country's eagerness to have an enduring and close relationship with Europe was highlighted last week, when the US assistant secretary for European Affairs Philip Gordon, in an interview with the Financial Times, expressed his nation's concern about the British government's increasingly anti-European and pro-referendum posturing, suggesting that the country was far eager to have a relationship with a
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No real business plan
The nationwide outrage at the beheading of Lance Naik Hemraj and the mutilation of the body of Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh is symptomatic of a collective and deep sense of angst across the country. The brutal streets of the national capital region (NCR) and the treacherous heights of the LoC are increasingly becoming a metaphor for a State that is unable to provide security to its citizens. Security, in its fundamental sense, is freedom from fear. Today, large sections of both urban and rural India are terrified at the prospect of what the future may unfold. And because emotions are running high, it is important for the prime minister to build a national consensus on critical issues before another incident overwhelms us all. What is needed, above all, is clarity of mind and sobriety of action based on distilling the lessons of our contemporary experience and past history. Nowhere is this clearer than in our Pakistan policy, steeped today in national confusion. Consider this. At the height of the Kargil war, on June 3, 1999, the Pakistan International Airlines flight from Delhi to Lahore and then to Islamabad carried two unusual emissaries of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. On board were joint secretary of the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran division of the ministry of external affairs, Vivek Katju, and chairman of the Observer Research Foundation, Rishi Kumar Mishra. Katju, a brilliant Kashmiri Pandit diplomat and a known hardliner on Pakistan, was later blamed by Pervez Musharraf for sabotaging the Agra Summit of 2001. Mishra - a fountainhead
of Brahmanical wisdom, a confidante of Vajpayee and his ace principal secretary, Brajesh Mishra, as well as many former PMs - had been part of the back-channel established by Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif at the Lahore Summit; his Pakistani counterpart was the experienced but rather fragile former Pakistani foreign secretary Niaz Niak. This unusual Mishra-Katju couple delivered to a shocked Nawaz Sharif, a tape intercepted by the Research and Analysis Wing of a conversation between General Musharraf and his chief-of-staff, Lt-Gen Aziz Khan: incontrovertible evidence of the Pakistani army's involvement in Kargil. Subsequently, Mishra remained in continuous dialogue with Naik to explore ways to find an amicable resolution to the war through bilateral means, and Katju would get a sense of the conversation as he escorted Naik from Delhi airport, on at least one occasion, to the Imperial Hotel. Kargil would have been settled bilaterally, as it almost was (the Mishra-Naik plan had Nawaz Sharif stopping briefly in New Delhi on his return from China
towards the end of June, meeting Vajpayee and issuing a joint communiqu leading to a Pakistani withdrawal) if Nawaz Sharif had shown greater sagacity and foresight. Instead, Sharif had to travel to Washington on July 4, to be arm-twisted by US President Bill Clinton to declare a unilateral withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the LoC as well as call for a ceasefire and a restoration of the Lahore Summit peace process - precisely the terms that Mishra had communicated to Naik in a non-paper partially drafted by Vajpayee himself. This episode, buried in the saga of lost opportunities, is important, however, for at least one reason. It illustrates how even at a moment of Pakistan's greatest perfidy, there was a range of options, instruments, out-of-the box thinking and creativity that were brought into play by the Indian political leadership. Not since the Bangladesh war had the Indian military force, intelligence and diplomacy worked in such flawless synergy in the pursuit of a clear objective. Contrast this with today and the manner in which television, rather than
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South Block, seems to be setting the national agenda on Pakistan and tapping the palpable anger on the streets of India. Foreign policy, it is said, is too important to be left to diplomats. And India's Pakistan policy is far too important to be left to TV anchors, with their wars over TRPs and their penchant to appeal, often, to the lowest common denominator of public opinion. Indeed strident debates in the Indian media - frightening in their Manichaean simplicity - reflect a total lack of appreciation of the intricacies of the Gordian knot of bilateral relations. The reality is, as our TV anchors must understand and appreciate, that Pakistan is not as much a foreign policy issue as it is part of a larger sub-continental tragedy of unsettled communal relations. That's why the conflict between India and Pakistan may be easy to describe in terms of events and episodes, but it is painfully difficult to understand. When a street mechanic outside Agra describes a nearby Muslim colony as 'chhota' Pakistan, you know that this relationship is about more than just borders and border skirmishes. In reality, the India-Pakistan relationship is - and has been - about everything that matters: history, memory, prejudice, territory, identity, religion, sovereignty, ideology, insecurity, trust, betrayal and much more, in a very desi way. The tragedy is that while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh understands Pakistan perhaps
better than most scholars in the country, he has been unable to sell his goal of a grand reconciliation with Pakistan to a nation simmering with anger over multiple issues. And Pakistan, unfortunately, destroys its own case by instigating outrageous acts that seem to be almost designed to alienate Indian public opinion. Today, there is no Indian strategic policy towards our most troublesome neighbour, only tactics. No long-term goals, only endless 'debates' over shortterm gains and losses. No national consensus over Pakistan, only national confusion. We, as a nation, are not even clear about the kind of Pakistan that we want in the future: a stable and prosperous country; or a fragile and failing State; or disintegrated multiple Pakistans. While it may not be possible, as Singh stated, to have "business as usual" with Pakistan, can we at least have a longterm 'business' plan? With the Americans marching out of Afghanistan next year, it is important to evoke the Pakistani academic Pervez Hoodbhoy's wise words: "Pakistan's State is already fractured by multiple violent ethnic and religious conflicts. Disintegration into molecular civil war with fiefdoms and warlords is a terrible possibility. India will find, too late, that it has created a South Asian nuclear Somalia for a neighbour." Source: Hindustan Times
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[ 2 ] Weekly Current Affairs 21st January to 27th January, 2013
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India to have common emergency response number soon
for imprisonment to rapists ranging from seven years to life. c) The panel sought amendments to Section 100 of the Indian Penal Code dealing with the right of private defence, which extends to causing death. d) The committee rejected the suggestion of chemical castration of rapists as it considered handing down such a punishment would violate human rights and that mutilation of the body is not permitted under the Constitution. e) The committee has also touched upon marital rape and safety of women in conflict zones suggesting a review of the Armed Forces Special Protection Act (AFSPA) that can be used by the forces for exploiting women in areas of conflict. f) According to the report the judiciary has the primary responsibility of ensuring fundamental rights through constitutional remedies. The CJI can take suo motu cognizance; social activists should assist the court. The Chief Justice of the high court of every state should device appropriate machinery for administration and supervision of these juvenile homes in consultation with experts in the field. g) All marriages in the country -- irrespective of the personal laws under which such marriages are solemnised -- should mandatorily be registered in the presence of a magistrate and the magistrate will ensure that the marriage has been solemnised without any demand for dowry having been made and that the marriage has taken place with the full and free consent of both partners. h) Medical examination of victims of sexual assault which were prepared on the basis of the best practices advised by global experts in the field of gynaecology and psychology. i) Trafficking of minor children must be made a serious offence. Trafficking must be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years, but which may also extend to 10 years. j) There is also a suggestion to bar elected representatives from holding office or for
Weekly Current Affairs 21st January to 27th January, 2013
India is going to launch a single emergency response number on the lines of America's 911 which can be used for any emergency - police, fire or ambulance. It will be reached by all types of technologies be it landline, GSM or CDMA. Today, various states have separate emergency response numbers and in some states even police helpline 100 does not work properly; it has been observed that people call up emergency number, normally police helpline 100 and get diverted to other departments, which delays response time. Whereas, having a single emergency number will ensure that a person in distress does not gets diverted to other department or agencythe person manning the emergency number would take the call and then alert the department concerned, such as police, fire, medical or disaster management. It will also help fix responsibility if someone is found guilty of any kind of laxity The Ministry of Home Affairs has also been pushing for a single helpline number in its bid to prepare better for police, fire, medical and other kind of emergencies.
Justice Verma Committee report on reform in anti-rape laws
The Justice J S Verma committee which was set up to suggest ways to make rape laws stronger in the country (after the gruesome gang rape of a trainee physiotherapist in Delhi last month), submitted its report. Highlights of the report are: a) New offences have been created and stiffer punishment has been suggested. The new offences include disrobing a woman, voyeurism, stalking and trafficking. b) It has recommended enhancing the duration of punishment to up to 20 years in jail for rape leading to death or the victim being reduced to a vegetative state and life for gang rape. In case of gang rape leading to death, the person should be imprisoned for life. The present law provides
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candidates to file nomination for election if a court has taken cognizance of the charge-sheet filed by the investigating agency.
Government opens up northeast to foreign tourists
grants to NGOs and voluntary organisations between 2002-03 and 2008-09 - Rs. 4,757 crore by the Centre and Rs. 1,897 crore. Mr. Chakma noted that beyond blacklisting of NGOs there was no accountability, while field surveys found that bribes played a major role in approval of projects. The ACHR urged the Centre to ask all Ministries to do away with the current process of recommendations by the District Magistrates and the State governments, and invite applications through open call for proposals and consider projects on merits by independent evaluators. It urged the government to ask all departments to make information pertaining to grants to voluntary sector available under the RTI Act. According to the CAG report - 7,916 fund utilisation certificates from the grantees for grant worth Rs. 96.79 crore from 1981-2009 were not obtained under the scheme of Grants-in-Aid for voluntary agencies. The CAG also noted that the possibility of misutilisation of funds or fraud cannot be ruled out as majority of agencies who took grants neither came back to the National Afforestation and Eco-Development Board for the next installment after release of first installment nor did they furnish progress reports. The ACHR report recommended for setting up of 'National Grants-in-Aid Commission' through which all grants to the voluntary sector by all the Ministries should be routed for transparency and better monitoring of projects.
While travel in these north-eastern states will become easier, tourists will still have to register themselves with the Foreigners Registration Officer (FRO) of the district within 24 hours of arrival. The permit regime is being dismantled for a year.
Under the Foreigners (Protected Areas) Order 1958, all areas in the states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim and parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand are declared "protected areas" and foreign nationals need permission to visit these areas. This has long been a bone of contention for the travel industry, which feels the permits discourage tourist traffic to north-eastern destinations while states have taken the view that the red tape does not serve any significant purpose. Citizens of Myanmar visiting Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland beyond 16 km from the Indo-Myanmar border would continue to require prior approval of the MHA.
'Set up national panel to check misuse of government funds by NGOs': ACHR's report
ACHR's report - 'India's Funds to NGOs Squandered' - alleges that the Government of India's funding to the tune of hundreds of crores to voluntary organisations was a scam and in dire need of reform as the audit by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India (CAG) was infrequent, inadequate and does not include the NGOs. The report points out that as per replies received under the RTI Act, the Central Ministries and the State governments provided at least Rs. 6,654.35 crore as
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The home ministry has relaxed a morethan-50year-old rule to permit free movement of foreign tourists in the northeast states of Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland; with the exception of nationals from Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and Myanmar. The significant decision aimed at boosting tourism and opening up the northeast region which is rich in natural diversity and adventure tourism. The government and states are eyeing a substantial market with about 58,000 foreign tourists visiting the region last year, up by 18% from 2011. Estimates are that tourist arrivals can increase by 25% within a year following relaxation of rules.
Centre to offer lucrative stints for Indian scientists
The Planning Commission is working on a scheme to get top Indian scientists working abroad spend some time doing teaching and research in scientific and technical research institutions in the country. A salient feature of the proposed scheme was that instead of being offered a job through the normal recruitment routes, scientists would be selected by an expert committee consisting of top Indian and international scientists and invited by the government to work here for short periods. The selected scientists would be paid directly by the government through a special window and not by the institutions, where they would work. The remuneration is likely to be at least Rs. 55 lakh ($1,00,000). In addition, they would be offered fully furnished accommodation plus some relocation expenses and a certain amount as research grant. The scientists would also have the flexibility to
choose as to when they want to take up the proposal and also the length of time they want to spend here. Recently with the help of this type of scheme China was able to attract over 1,000 of its scientists working abroad to return to their homeland for varying periods of time for taking up teaching and research assignments. Australia too recently came out with a similar scheme that provided positions at three times the normal remuneration for top class Australian scientists working abroad. The Plan panel was envisaging the selection of 25 scientists under the scheme to begin with, as a pilot project. The proposal was to increase it in stages to 100 scientists. The scientists would be allowed to and hire up to two research scholars of their choice to work with them.
constructions as well as additions, modifications, extensions, or alteration of houses financed by the banks. Depending on the nature of the assets and the vulnerability of the location to any of the disasters, banks could insist on whether the resistant features have been incorporated in the structures at the design stage itself. The Indian Banks' Association and the National Housing Bank have approved the adoption of the guidelines.
Changes planned to quickly resolve water disputes
The Planning Commission was also looking at making the scheme a joint activity with top corporates. The plan was to let them also offer such scholarships and let the scientists be associated with their laboratories. The scheme is proposed to be called "National Jawaharlal Nehru Science Fellowship/ Professorships'' programme. It is expected to cost Rs. 15 crore a year, including perks, but injecting 25 top scientists into Indian institutions would have many positives in terms of impact on research and motivation of younger scientists.
As an adjunct, the Plan panel is also looking at the possibility of a similar scheme at Assistant Professor-level for younger less established scientists.
Disaster resilience norms may become mandatory
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has directed all scheduled and commercial banks as well as other lending institutions to adopt the disaster resilience norms of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and insist on the loan applicant to comply with the disaster resistant features laid down by the authority before sanctioning a loan.
It has also been found earlier that the structural design of many of the proposed buildings and structures are not completed before submitting an application for a loan and no system is in place in the banks to ensure that disaster prevention systems have been incorporated in the assets proposed to be created during the design process or at least before the construction begins. In order to ensure that the physical assets created through financing remain safe, the guidelines may be made applicable to new
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The Centre has proposed crucial changes in the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 to quickly resolve water sharing disputes between basin States and to give a tribunal's award the force of an order/ decree of the Supreme Court. It has proposed to appoint an agency to maintain a data bank at the national level for each river basin. For the first time, the Union Water Resources Ministry unfolded its draft amendments to the Act that provides for a single tribunal in place of multiple tribunals to adjudicate on inter-State water disputes in a fixed time-frame of two years, which may be extended by one year. It is proposed that the single tribunal shall have eight members, including a chairperson and vicechairperson, and initially the members of the existing tribunals who are below (the new upper age limit of) 70 years would constitute the tribunal. The tribunal shall comprise three benches and once a dispute is referred to it, the chairman shall assign it to a Bench. If there is a vacancy on a Bench then, a member of another shall hear the matter till the vacancy is filled. In other words, disputes shall not be kept pending and allowed to go unresolved on account of a vacancy.
CCEA approves modification of Udaan scheme in J&K
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the modification in the Scheme 'Special Industry Initiative for Jammu & Kashmir' (Udaan) to make it more flexible and relevant. The Centre, disappointed by that just 139 J&K youth were trained under Udaan since its launch in March last year, that too with a nil placement record, has been forced to redraw the scheme to suit the corporate players better. Corporates like TCS, HCL, Wipro and Future Group, which had signed up to
train software engineers and other J&K professionals under Udaan - a scheme piloted by the home ministry as part of the Centre's skill development initiative for J&K - have been slow in delivering on the committed volumes, blaming procedural impediments and the ongoing recession. In the changed programme, within the overall central assistance of Rs.750 crore, the flexibility to appropriate the budget among different expense heads will be allowed. Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) have now been allowed to participate in the scheme and will meet the expenses under their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) head. It allows inclusion of three year engineering diploma holders in the scheme, reimbursement of fixed training cost after minimum three months employment, instead of one year employment, provision of medical/ accident insurance, etc. Under the scheme, 40,000 youth will be trained in five years. Companies which show interest in the
scheme and enter into the agreement with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), will screen and select students from the State. After assessing the skill gap of the trainees, a training module, its duration and nature of training will be designed by the companies. Trainees will be relocated to the training facility. After completion of the training, they will be interviewed for a job with the company and will be placed as far as possible. The scheme targets youth who are educated, but do not have marketable skills. It includes graduates, postgraduates, three year engineering diploma holders and youth with professional degrees. This talent pool in the absence of job opportunities becomes highly alienated and their potential in turning around the state economy is wasted. The scheme will facilitate gainful employment to the youth of Jammu & Kashmir. By providing them jobs, the scheme proposes to channelize their energies into creative pursuits.
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INTERNATIONAL
UN and partners launch global campaign to reduce food waste
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and partners have launched a campaign - 'Think, Eat, Save. Reduce Your Foodprint' - which seeks to accelerate action to eliminate wasteful practices and help countries share successful initiatives on these issues. It specifically targets food wasted by consumers, retailers and the hospitality industry which can take simple actions to dramatically reduce some 1.3 million tonnes of food waste every year. clubs, the private sector, city mayors and world leaders to reach its food potential. It will also provide simple tips in its website that will allow users to make food waste pledges, and a platform for those running campaigns to exchange ideas and create a global culture of sustainable consumption of food.
Global Employment Trends 2013
About one-third of all food produced globally, worth around $1 trillion, gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems. Food loss occurs mostly at the production stages - harvesting, processing and distribution - while food waste typically takes place at the retailer and consumer end of the food supply chain. In a world of seven billion people, set to grow to nine billion by 2050, wasting food makes no sense - economically, environmentally and ethically. To bring about the vision of a truly sustainable world, people need a transformation in the way of production and consumption of natural resources.
In developing countries - roughly 95 per cent of food loss and waste in developing countries are due to unintentional losses at early stages of the food supply chain as a result of limitations in harvesting techniques, storage, packaging and marketing systems. In the developed world, however, food waste occurs because consumers are quick to throw away food due to over-buying, inappropriate storage, and preparing meals that are too large, while food manufacturers are retailers produce waste because of inefficient practices, confusion over date labels and quality standards that overemphasize appearance. In Europe and North America, the average waste per consumer is between 95 and 115 kilograms per year, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, south and Southeast Asia each throw away only six to 11 kilograms annually. The campaign will seek to involve families, supermarkets, hotel chains, schools, sports and social
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The Global Employment Trends report released by the ILO for the year 2013 examines the crisis in labour markets of both advanced economies and developing economies. According to United Nation's agency's report unemployment is on the rise again as economies around the world lose jobs and the fragile recovery is threatened by "incoherent monetary policy" in the US and Europe. About 6% of the world's workforce was without a job in 2012. The number of jobless people around the world rose by 4m in 2012 to 197m. Young people were the worst affected: nearly 13% of those under 24 were unemployed. Some 35% of all young unemployed people have been out of work for six months or longer in advanced economies, up from 28.5% in 2007. This is a massive waste of the lives of young people and their talents and extraordinarily damaging to the people themselves and their societies even if stability were not to be affected. The situation is being exacerbated by "incoherent monetary policy," in the world's largest economies (the G20). In comparison with the crisis years of 2008 and 2009, the stance of monetary and fiscal policies in G20 countries has lost coherence, thereby increasing uncertainty and limiting policy effectiveness to support the recovery. The global economy is expected to show a modest gain in 2013, with output up 3.6% compared to 3.3% in 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund. But this fragile recovery is threatened by political uncertainty on both sides of the Atlantic that threatens recovery worldwide. In the US, the recovery is being challenged by negotiations over the debt ceiling, and spending cuts associated with the fiscal cliff. In Europe, a modest
recovery is dependent on the ability of political leaders to "establish credible policies to promote fiscal integration of Euro-area economies". Incoherence between monetary and fiscal policies adopted in different countries and a piecemeal approach to financial sector and sovereign debt problems, in particular in the euro area, have led to uncertainty weighing on the global outlook. Investment has not yet recovered to pre-crisis levels in many countries. The indecision of policymakers in several countries has led to uncertainty about future conditions, and reinforced corporate tendencies to increase cash holdings or pay dividends rather than expand capacity and hire new workers. The world's advanced economies were the epicenter for the financial crisis and have been the hardest hit, accounting for half of the total increase in unemployment of 28 million since the onset of the crisis.
High gender imbalance in China
According to the recently released census data by the National Bureau of Statistics, the gender ratio was 117.7 newborn boys for every 100 girls in 2012. More than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses by 2020, if the trend continues. A natural gender ratio at birth should be somewhere between 103 and 107 boys to every 100 girls. Due to the higher mortality rate of boys, the ratio will balance off by the time each generation reaches an age to have their own children. The report stated that the China's gender imbalance had widened after ultrasound examinations were widely available in the 1980s. The ratio reached a record 120.56 in 2008. In 2011, the government had punished 13,000 people following a campaign to monitor selective abortions, she said. The government has announced a target to bring down the imbalance to 115, from the current 117, by 2015. The widening gender imbalance, coupled with concerns over China's ageing labour force, has renewed calls for the government to relax family planning policies. Enforced in the early 1980s, and known widely as the 'one-child policy' although the rules are more complex, the measures have been seen as a major reason behind the fast-widening gender imbalance. The growing imbalance means that forced prostitution and human trafficking has become "rampant" in some parts of the country. While analysts admit there is definitely a pronounced gender imbalance in China, they also say that exact information is difficult to obtain because some families are thought to avoid registering female babies in order to make it easier for them to have a second child.
But developing economies are now being hit by the double dip in some of the world's advanced economies. Advanced economies lost another 1m jobs in 2012, while 3m were lost in other regions, especially hard hit were East Asia, south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Russia begins biggest post soviet era naval exercise in the Mediterranean and Black seas
Russia has launched its largest naval exercises in decades in the Mediterranean and Black Seas near the territorial waters of Syria amid the ongoing crisis in the Arab country. The drills "are held in line with the Russian Armed Forces' 2013 combat training plan and focus on interoperability of task forces from several fleets while on a mission in a far-off maritime zone. The maneuvers will continue until January 29 and comprise more than 60 drills, including antisubmarine warfare missions, missile and artillery firing practices.
Russia's Black Sea, Northern and Baltic fleets, strategic bombers, tactical aircraft, air defense units, paratroopers and naval infantry will take part in the naval exercises. The task forces have four large landing ships and a variety of auxiliary vessels in their composition which enable the Russian forces to carry out simulated beach landing and convoy escort missions. Some of naval maneuvers are expected to be conducted in the eastern part of the Mediterranean near the territorial waters of Syria where foreignbacked terrorists have stepped up their campaign against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
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United States lifts ban on women from war front roles
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed an order at a Pentagon news conference rescinding the rule that prevented women from serving in direct combat jobs. 152 women in uniform had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The move breaks another glass ceiling in the U.S. armed forces, two years after the Pentagon scrapped its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.
President Barack Obama expressed strong support for the new policy, as did top civilian and military officials. The decision could open 237,000 positions to women in America's armed forces and expand opportunities for career advancement. But acceptance into the newly opened jobs will be based on gender neutral performance standards. The goal behind this policy is to "open everything" to women. Service chiefs will have to ask for exceptions if they want to keep some positions closed, and any exception would have to be approved by the defense secretary. According to the new policy, gender-neutral performance standards will be developed for all the new jobs opening to women, but whether that means the physical requirements become more or less rigorous remains to be seen. Some jobs may open as soon as this year, while assessments for others, such as special operations forces, may take longer. The services will have until January 2016 to make a case to that some positions should remain closed to women, said a senior military official. Under the earlier, 1994 Pentagon policy, women were prohibited from being assigned to ground combat units below the brigade level. Women serve in combat roles for the armed forces of a few developed nations, including Canada and Israel, but officials say demand from women for such jobs in NATO nations is very low. In 2010, Britain decided after a review that it would not change rules excluding women from infantry or combat teams.
U.N. to probe drone attacks conducted by US, Britain and Israel
Ben Emmerson QC, a British human rights lawyer is to lead a U.N. inquiry into the legality or otherwise of American, British and Israeli drone attacks and their impact on civilians in Pakistan, Afghanistan and several other countries. The inquiry, which will examine 25 attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Palestinian territories and Somalia, follows anger over the loss of innocent civilian lives. Critics have called them "extra-judicial'' killings. According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, American drone attacks in Pakistan since 2004 had killed up to 3,461 people, including nearly 900 civilians. One area of the inquiry is expected to examine is the deliberate targeting of rescuers and funeral-goers by the CIA in Pakistan, as revealed in an investigation by a British newspaper. The investigative committee will pay special attention to the so-called 'double tap' strikes, in which rescuers that come to help the initial victims of the strike are hit in a follow-up attack. Concerns have been voiced that this type of strike could constitute a war crime. The United Nations has launched the probe following pressure by Russia, China and Pakistan. The report, which will be ready for presentation to the General Assembly by autumn, will not lead to an "attribution of legal liability," but will allow allegations to be lodged against states which have violated international law.
[10] Weekly Current Affairs 21st January to 27th January, 2013
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ECONOMY
Moody's retains India's rating outlook
Global rating agency Moody's Investors Service has retained its "stable" outlook on India's sovereign rating, citing potential for growth, robust domestic savings rate and a dynamic private sector. Moody's rating balances its assessment of the country's credit strengths and weaknesses, relative to other rated sovereigns. (G-Secs) by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and long-term investors by $5 billion to $25 billion from $20 billion. Long-term investors include SEBIregistered sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), multilateral agencies, endowment funds, insurance funds, pension funds and foreign central banks. The RBI has also relaxed some investment rules by removing the maturity restrictions for first time foreign investors on dated G-Secs. Earlier it was mandated that the first time foreign investors of GSecs must buy securities with at least three-year residual maturity. But such investments will not be allowed in short-term paper like Treasury Bills. It has also hiked the investment limit in corporate bonds by these entities by $5 billion $50 billion from $45 billion. FIIs can now approach any Category-I dealer bank, authorized to deal in foreign exchange, for hedging their currency risk on the market value of their entire investment in equity and/or debt. As a measure of further relaxation, in the total corporate debt limit of $50 billion, the RBI stipulated a sub-limit of $25 billion each for infrastructure and other than infrastructure sector bonds. In addition, qualified foreign investors (QFIs) would continue to be eligible to invest in corporate debt securities (without any lock-in or residual maturity clause) and mutual fund debt schemes, subject to a total overall ceiling of $1 billion.
Retaining India's credit rating at the existing level, global agency Moody's has cautioned that a high fiscal deficit and debt ratios as well as supply constraints in the form of infrastructure, policy and administrative inefficiencies constrain the sovereign credit profile of India which could pull down the growth in the coming years. Moody's also expect Indian economy to grow by 5.4% in the current fiscal and 6% in 2013-14. Last fiscal, the economy grew by 6.5%.
It further said that while high commodity prices have raised the subsidy bill, government's measures to reduce fuel and fertilizer subsidies were too modest to compensate for high global commodity prices. The report has not taken into account the recent decision of the government to partially deregulate diesel and allow oil market companies to raise price by 45-50 paise every month. In the recent months, the government has taken series of reform measures to boost investor sentiment, including hiking FDI limit in retail, insurance among others besides easing overseas borrowings norms to stimulate infrastructure investment. Last week it also deferred the controversial General Anti Avoidance Rules by two year to April 2016.
Reserve Bank eases rules for FII investment in debt market
The Reserve Bank of India has made it easier for foreign institutional investors (FIIs) to invest in the domestic equity and debt markets. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has notified the enhanced limit of investing in government securities
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Import duty on gold and platinum raised
The Union Government has raised the import duty on gold and platinum from four per cent to six per cent with immediate effect in an urgent bid to curb imports of the precious metals and contain the widening current account deficit (CAD). The duties will be reviewed after sometime if there is a moderation in the quantity of gold that is imported into the country. The immediate fallout of the decision was an increase in the price of gold by Rs. 315 at Rs. 31,250 per 10 grams. Market analysts say gold prices could go up by about Rs. 700 per 10 g in the near term and render smuggling a viable proposition again owing to the increasing disparity in global and domestic prices.
In 2011-12, gold imports accounted for a massive $56.5 billion in foreign exchange - the second-highest item after crude oil in the import bill - and which is why the government had doubled the duty on gold imports to four per cent in the Budget for the current fiscal. The duty hike may have had a marginal impact as gold imports during the first nine months of 201314 is pegged at $38 billion and is one of the primary reasons for a widening gap in the balance of trade. In a twin-policy remedial package aimed at checking the runaway rise in gold imports which has been adversely impacting the CAD since last fiscal, the Government also announced its decision to link the Gold ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) with Gold Deposit schemes will help in increasing the physical availability of gold in the market as a part of the gold lying in stock will be brought into circulation to meet the demand of gems and jewellery trade. As an added measure of flexibility, the minimum quantity of gold that can be deposited into the Gold Deposit Scheme will stand reduced and the minimum tenure will also be brought down to six months from the period of three years at present.
of the 2 G licences led to more companies following suit with firm backing from their respective Governments. This adverse experience with BIPA, with an estimated $5 billion hanging in balance, could dampen the Foreign Office's enthusiasm for inking the pact with a large number of countries. Among the companies that have served notices under BIPA are: Devas Employees Mauritius [BIPA with Mauritius]; Sistema Joint Stock Financial Corporation [Russia]; Telenor Asia [Singapore]; Capital Global Limited and Kaif Investment Limited [both Mauritius based-investors in Loop Telecom Limited under BIPA with Mauritius]; Vodafone International [the Netherlands]; and, the Children's Investment Fund Management [the U.K. and Cyprus]. Following outcry by foreign investors and a showcause notice issued by Vodafone on the issue, the Government had, last year, constituted an interMinisterial Group (IMG) to look into the issue. The IMG had concluded that international taxation issues did not come under BIPA. The IMG had also concluded that in the Vodafone case, the issue was not covered under the India and the Netherlands BIPA. In fact, the feedback to the IMG from all the Ministries had indicated that taxation issues were not covered under BIPA. Fearing the Government could be flooded with more notices in future, the Ministries of Finance and Commerce & Industry felt it was time India carried out a review of the BIPA model text, and, therefore, decided to put on hold all negotiations pertaining to BIPA till a thorough review is carried out. Till date, India has signed BIPAs with 82 countries. Out of which, 72 treaties have been enforced. The first BIPA was signed in 1994 with the U.K. Besides, India has signed 17 Free Trade Agreements, Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement (CECA) and Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs).
Currently, there are two gold related schemes, namely - the Gold ETF and the Gold Deposit Scheme - that are intended to channelize gold holdings into institutional channels. The Gold ETF is provided by mutual funds. Units are sold to subscribers through 'authorized participants' and are traded on the exchange. The units are backed by physical gold held by the mutual fund. Money collected under any Gold ETF shall be invested by the mutual fund primarily (a minimum of 90 per cent) in gold or gold-related instruments notified by SEBI. The Gold Deposit Scheme is offered by a number of banks. Banks accept gold deposited by clients. The gold is on-lent by the banks to the gems and jewellery trade. At the end of the deposit period, the depositor is entitled to a return of physical gold or its equivalent in cash at the current market price of gold.
All BIPA negotiations has been put on hold
The Union Government has ordered a freeze of all Bilateral Investment Protection Agreements (BIPA) negotiations till a review of the model text is carried out and completed. This comes after spates of show-cause notices were received by the Government, served by foreign companies seeking to recover their investments under the BIPA. The spate of notices under BIPA began with the Vodafone case but the Supreme Court's cancellation
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Cabinet approves committee to probe WalMart's lobbying activities
The Cabinet has approved the constitution of a committee headed by a retired judge, which would probe whether US-based retail chain WalMart Stores was involved in lobbying activities in India to gain entry into the market. The judge was asked to give his report within three months. Last month, the government had decided on a probe into the matter, following media reports on
disclosures of WalMart before the US Senate regarding its lobbying activities. In November, WalMart had disclosed it spent $25 million on lobbying in the US over the past four years, including on issues related to "enhanced market access for investment in India". However, the US retailer has repeatedly denied any illegal activity. In September, the government had allowed 51 per cent foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail in India. In the winter session of Parliament, allegations WalMart had indulged in lobbying in India to gain entry into the market had stalled proceedings. WalMart had entered the Indian market in 2007. It operates 50:50 joint venture with Bharti Enterprises, which runs 17 modern wholesale stores and provides back-end logistical support to Bharti retail's Easyday stores. Under the Commission of Inquiry Act, the government would have to table the probe report, as well as the action report, before Parliament. The terms of reference of the Committee are as follows:-
survey is carried out every two years, and in 2010, India had a rank of 20 with a score of 60. A score between 34 and 66 is regarded as moderate and anything above that is considered strong. According to IBP, India's has achieved a good score, but has the potential to further expand budget transparency by introducing a number of measures. To improve budget transparency, the IBP suggests drafting and publishing a pre-budget statement. "A pre-budget statement is very much feasible and would help in getting information which can then be used to directly influence the actual budget. Introducing this will also substantially improve India's open budget index score. On the global level, the findings of the survey paint a bleak picture of budget transparency, participation and overall accountability. National budgets of 77 countries (which are home to half the world's population) fail to meet the basic standards of transparency. The governments of 21 countries do not even publish the executive budget proposal, which is the most critical document for understanding how the government plans to manage the country's finances. The worst performers include Bolivia, China, Equatorial Guinea, Qatar, newly democratic Myanmar and Zambia. Only six countries among those surveyed, New Zealand, South Africa, UK, Sweden, Norway and France, released extensive budget information.
a) To inquire into recent media reports on disclosures of Wal-mart before the US Senate regarding their lobbying activities and details. b) Whether Wal-Mart undertook any activities in India in contravention of any Indian law. c) Any other matter relevant or incidental to the above.
Global Open Budget Survey 2012
India enjoys a high rating when it comes to budget transparency practices. It ranks 14th among the 100 countries that were surveyed. Its open budget index score of 68 out of 100 is much higher than the average score of 43 for all countries covered in the Global Open Budget Survey 2012. The results of the survey were released by The International Budget Partnership (IBP). According to IBP, India's current score indicates that the government provides significant information on its budget and financial activities during the year, enabling Indian citizens to hold the government accountable for management of public money.
India continues to occupy the same rank as in 2010. However, its score, which is based on various parameters largely relating to availability of budget information, has increased slightly from 67 in 2010 to 68 in 2012, and is the highest in South Asia. The
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IMF predicts modest global growth in 2013
According to the IMF in an update to its World Economic Outlook (WEO), Global growth will strengthen gradually in 2013, as the constraints on economic activity start to ease in 2013. But the recovery is slow, and the report stressed that policies must address downside risks to bolster growth. The report stated that the policy actions have lowered acute crisis risks in the euro area and the United States. Further Japan's stimulus plans will help boost growth in the near term, pulling the country out of a short-lived recession. Effective policies have also helped support a modest growth pickup in some emerging market and developing economies. And recovery in the United States remains broadly on track. Global growth is projected to strengthen to 3.5 percent this year, from 3.2 percent in 2012-a downward revision of just 0.1 percentage point compared with the October 2012 WEO. If crisis risks do not materialize and financial conditions continue to improve, global growth could even be stronger than forecast. But downside risks remain
significant, including prolonged stagnation in the euro area and excessive short-term fiscal tightening in the United States. The report also observed that economic conditions improved slightly in the third quarter of 2012, driven by performance in emerging market economies and the United States. Financial conditions also improved, as borrowing costs for countries in the euro area periphery fell, and many stock markets around the world rose. But activity in the euro area periphery was even softer than expected, with some of that weakness spilling over to the euro area core. And Japan moved into recession in the second half of last year. The IMF downgraded its near-term forecast for the euro area, with the region now expected to contract slightly in 2013. The report observed that even though policy actions have reduced risks and improved financial conditions for governments and banks in the periphery economies, those had not yet translated into improved borrowing conditions for the private sector. Continuing uncertainty about the ultimate resolution of the global financial crisis, despite continued progress in policy reforms, could also dampen the region's prospects.
The report noted that the euro area continues to pose a large downside risk to the global outlook. While a sharp crisis has become less likely, "the risk of prolonged stagnation in the euro area would rise if the momentum for reform is not maintained. To head off this risk, the report stressed, adjustment programs by the periphery countries need to continue, and must be supported by the deployment of "firewalls" to prevent contagion as well as further steps toward banking union and fiscal integration. For the United States, the IMF stressed that "the priority is to avoid excessive fiscal consolidation in the short term, promptly raise the debt ceiling, and agree on a credible medium-term fiscal consolidation plan, focused on entitlement and tax reform." The report also emphasized the importance of a credible medium-term fiscal strategy in Japan. Without it, the IMF cautioned that "the stimulus package carries important risks. Specifically, the stimulus-induced recovery could prove short lived, and the debt outlook significantly worse." For emerging market and developing economies, the report underscored the need to rebuild policy room for maneuver. It noted that "the appropriate pace of rebuilding must balance external downside risks against risks of rising domestic imbalances."
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INDIA AND THE WORLD

Fourth meeting of ASEAN and India Tourism Ministers held at Vientiane Bilateral Co-Operation between India and Rawanda
The Ministers also supported the close collaboration of ASEAN and India to enhance air, sea and land connectivity within ASEAN and between ASEAN and India through ASEAN-India connectivity project.
The Ministers were also pleased with the implementation progress of the MOU in 2012 through a Familiarisation (FAM) trip of ten travel writers from ASEAN to India; visit of teachers/ faculty of hospitality institutes from India to ASEAN and vice-versa for developing teaching modules and establishing student exchange programmes between the association and the country; visit of ten travel writers from India to ASEAN; FAM trip of 20 tour operators from ASEAN to India during Buddhist Conclave; and exchange visit of tour operators and travel agents between ASEAN and India. To further promote tourism exchange between ASEAN and India, the Ministers agreed to launch the ASEAN-India tourism website www.indiaasean.org - as a platform to jointly promote tourism destinations, sharing basic information about ASEAN member states and India and a visitor guide.
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Dr. K. Chiranjeevi, Minister of State with Independent Charge for Tourism, Government of India has signed a protocol with Prof Dr Bosengkham Vongdara, Minister for Information, Culture and Tourism, Lao PDR, to amend the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ASEAN and India on strengthening tourism cooperation, at the fourth meeting of ASEAN and India Tourism Ministers, which was held in Vientiane, Lao PDR, in conjunction with the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2013. The protocol would further strengthen the tourism collaboration between ASEAN and Indian national tourism organisations, and thus safeguard the rights and interests of the parties with respect to national security, national and public interest or public order, protection of intellectual property rights, confidentiality and secrecy of documents, information and data.
India and Rawanda has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on bilateral co-operation in Water Resources Development and Management to realize the goal of achieving food security in the African nation and promote friendly bilateral relationship between the two countries. The MoU was signed by Union Water Resources Minister Harish Rawat and his Rwandan counterpart Agnea M Kalibata. It specifies various areas of co-operation with focus on planning, design and implementation of marshland and hillside irrigation, watershed management, water governance, and training and capacity building of farmers and functionaries in the water sector. The MOU also wants promotion of Joint Ventures between the private entrepreneurs of the two countries through mutual facilitation of investment procedures and for working out mechanisms and modalities for funding and technical assistance. The agreement also provides for a Joint Commission to follow up implementation of this MoU.
India suggested for winding up of UNMOGIP
India has suggested for winding up of the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) as its role has been overtaken by the Simla Agreement of 1972 between India and Pakistan whereas Pakistan has denied the Indian claim that the Simla Agreement of 1972 has overtaken the mandate of the UNMOGIP. Since the 1971 Agreement Indian position on this issue has been that the UNMOGIP's role was to supervise the ceasefire line, which was established in Jammu and Kashmir as a result of the Karachi Agreement of 1949. This line no longer existed and a new line came into existence on December 17, 1971 which was and is called the Line of Control (LoC). Following the Simla Agreement, the two countries resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations. The Line of Control was delineated in Jammu and Kashmir with the
approval of both governments. Thus, the UNMOGIP's role has been overtaken by these developments. Currently the strength of UNMOGIP is 39 military observers, 25 international civilian personnel, and 48 local civilian staff, and their facilities include 5 troops, 1 military observer, 2 international civilians and 3 local civilians.
What is extradition treaty? Extradition treaties are the Bilateral, and usually reciprocal, treaty between sovereign states which (upon request) provides for the surrender of person(s) accused of a crime under the laws of the requesting state. Extradition may be barred for offenses other than those punishable in the surrendering state, and (commonly) its courts must be convinced that a prima facie criminal case exists.
Extradition treaty between India and Bangladesh coming soon
Extradition treaty between India and Bangladesh would pave the way to deport jailed Assam ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia and other insurgents from the northeast, taking shelter in Bangladesh. The current Hasina Wajed government also expects India to chase and deport killers of Sheikh Mujib-uRahman, believed to be somewhere in India. India has been pressing for Chetia's deportation for long. The ULFA militant has been in a Dhaka jail following his arrest in 1997 on the charge of entering Bangladesh without valid documents. The treaty could not be signed during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Dhaka a couple of years ago. India and Bangladesh had earlier signed the Agreements on Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters, Transfer of Sentenced Persons and Combating International Terrorism, Organized Crime and Illicit Drug Trafficking during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to New Delhi in January 2010.
The two sides are also to ink a new visa regime, named revised travel arrangement, which proposes to remove restrictions on visits of businesspersons, students, patients, senior citizens above 65 years and children below 12 years. Under the liberalised visa regime proposals, businessmen would be given five-year multiple entry visa, those travelling for medical purposes would be given two-year multiple entry visa along with visa to three attendants of a patient, said a ministry source.
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Even as the agreements on Teesta or the land border continued being held up due to opposition by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Bharatiya Janata Party, the central government decided to open up new areas of security cooperation with Dhaka. The Union cabinet has approved the extradition treaty with Bangladesh which will be signed during home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde's visit to Dhaka. The much awaited treaty was approved after a minor modification as demanded by Bangladesh.
US sanctions against Iran may affect India's oil imports from Iran
India's oil imports from Iran could take a severe knock as a new set of US sanctions comes into force from February 6. India will no longer be able to route oil payments to Iran through the Turkish Halk Bank, a process which has been the norm over the past couple of years. Instead, India will have to pay for Iranian oil in local currency which will have to be kept in an Indian bank. India already pays 45% of its oil payments in rupees, which is kept in UCO Bank. After February 6, Iran will not be allowed to repatriate its foreign earnings except to buy goods from the country concerned. This could prove to be a problem all by itself, particularly as Iran now has over $5 billion in rupees in the bank. The new set of sanctions come about as a result of the amendments to the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 (ITRSHRA) by the US treasury department. For the first time, an American company can be penalized if its foreign subsidiary is found to be dealing with Iran government entities. This will extend the scope of the sanctions regime to even tertiary players in the international market. India has already reduced its oil imports from Iran, which now makes up just fewer than 10% of the import mix. India bought about 17 million tonnes in 2012, expected to come down to 14 million tonnes by end-March. India is also one of the few countries to get sanctions exemption by the US state department which is expected to be extended again. As the sanctions regime against Iran is extended to impact all its overseas earnings, it is bound to cast a longer shadow over Iran-India ties as well. By July 1, 2013 a further set of sanctions are expected to come into force - the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act (IFCPA), which will invite
US sanctions against any entity, US or non-American, that is involved in energy, shipping or ship-building sectors in Iran, or more importantly, is a port operator in Iran. The new sanctions might impact India's plan to develop the Chabahar port in Iran, which has big stakeholders, including Afghanistan, that expect to benefit from the port. India intends to develop the port with the Iranian rupee funds parked in an Indian bank. However, this might run into trouble if Iran is only allowed to import goods from India. Theoretically, this may positively impact Indian exports to Iran, but Tehran has been traditionally reticent about importing goods from India.
The Eighth meeting of the India-Sri Lanka Joint Commission was held in New Delhi. It was cochaired by Shri Salman Khurshid, Minister of External Affairs of India and Prof. G.L. Peiris, Minister of External Affairs of Sri Lanka. During the meet both sides comprehensively reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral relations, including trade, investment, development cooperation, science and technology, power, agriculture, health, people to people contacts, connectivity, culture and education, and expressed satisfaction at the substantive developments in bilateral relations since the 7th session of the Joint Commission held at Colombo on 26 November 2010.
The External Affairs Ministers of India and Sri Lanka signed the following Agreements: (i) Agreement on Combating International Terrorism and Illicit Drug Trafficking (ii) Revised Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement.
Recognising the need to build a special economic partnership framework to achieve the shared goals of poverty alleviation, job creation and economic development for the people of the two countries, the two sides decided to take several steps to further deepen trade, tourism and investment relations. In this regard, it was agreed to encourage closer economic and trade linkages between all stakeholders with a view to doubling bilateral trade to US $ 10 billion in the next three years. In this context it was also agreed to initiate a dialogue between the Commerce Secretary of India and the Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development of Sri Lanka at an early date to evolve a framework for a special economic partnership between the two countries.
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Eighth India-Sri Lanka Joint Commission Meeting
It was acknowledged that the substantial development assistance provided by the Government of India towards relief, resettlement and rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and livelihood generation and reconstruction efforts in the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka has had a positive impact on the ground. In this context, both sides welcomed the successful completion of the pilot project for construction of 1,000 houses for IDPs in the Northern Province in August 2012 and the launch of the next phase for construction/repair of remaining 49,000 houses on 2 October 2012. It was noted with satisfaction that substantial progress has been made in implementation of the projects like repair and construction of hospital and schools; setting up of Vocational Training Centres; organization of artificial limb refitment camps; provision of fishing equipment, tractors, bicycles, trishaws, agricultural equipment and seeds; restoration of the Northern Railway lines and the Southern Railway Corridor; rehabilitation of the Kankesanthurai Harbour; rehabilitation of the Palaly Airport; among others. Both sides noted the impressive growth of tourism traffic between the two countries both ways. India currently contributed the largest number of tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka and over 250,000 Sri Lankans visited India in 2011-2012. It was agreed that with a view to enhance connectivity, people to people exchanges and movement of goods and services, the two sides would meet at the earliest to explore the possibility of finalizing and signing a revised Air Services Agreement; work towards the resumption of ferry services between Talaimannar and Rameswaram for which the Joint Committee on Ferry Services would meet at the earliest; and hold the meeting of the Joint Working Group on Tourism in the first quarter to 2013 to identify potential areas of cooperation, including marketing and capacity-building. The two sides described the Sampur Power Project as a landmark initiative and directed the officials concerned on both sides to work towards its implementation so that the project goes on-stream by 2016, and to expeditiously complete the joint study on establishing power inter-grid connectivity. Both sides agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in the areas of New and Renewable energy, and in this context agreed to conclude a MoU on Cooperation in New and Renewable Energy; to cooperate in establishing three power plants of aggregate capacity of 15 MW using biomass fuel; and enhance cooperation in wind and solar energy sectors. It was
also agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in the fields of oil and gas; civil nuclear energy; science and technology; and space technology. The Joint Commission took note of the collaborative initiatives in the field of Information & Communication Technology; education; human resources development, training and capacity building, among others. In this context, both sides agreed to encourage the finalization of the MoU between the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and the Department of Open Distance Learning in Sri Lanka; organization of more 'Education Fairs' in Sri Lanka; setting up Provincial Centres for English Language Training; and finalization of the MoU for cooperation in connection with the "Ten Year Presidential Initiative to Steer Sri Lanka towards a Trilingual Society by 2020". Both sides agreed to enhance cooperation in the energy sector and to promote dialogue on security and defence issues of relevance to the bilateral relationship. The Joint Commission also noted that the trilateral cooperation mechanism between India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives was an important initiative to promote maritime security in the region.
& connectivity, civil aviation, information technology, science & technology, cultural, educational, consular and visa issues. The issue of the strategic gas pipeline project Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) was in focus during the meeting. Both sides agreed to take necessary steps for early realization of the project. The TAPI pipeline -- which would originate from Turkmenistan, and pass through Afghanistan and Pakistan before entering India -- will have a capacity to carry 90 million standard cubic metres a day (mscmd) gas for a 30-year period. It will come into operation in 2018. India and Pakistan would get 38 mscmd each, while the remaining 14 mscmd will be supplied to Afghanistan. The US is backing the TAPI pipeline as an alternative to the Iran-Pakistan-India line in its efforts to choke Tehran financially over its suspected nuclear weapon programme. Both sides also noted that there has been a significant increase in trade. The Indian side statistics revealed that the bilateral trade has recorded 67% growth and had risen to the level of US$ 60 million. The Turkmen side conveyed that as per their statistics, trade has increased three times in 2012 as compared to 2011. Turkmen minister informed of its intention to start flight services from Ashgabat to Goa in order to increase tourism and people to people links. The Commission further agreed to form a Joint Working Group on Trade & Economic Cooperation which was tasked to meet early and discuss the measures to increase the bilateral trade and identify new areas of cooperation. A Protocol of the 4th meeting of the IGC was also signed by the two co-chairs. The next meeting of the IGC would be held in Ashgabat in 2014 on a mutually convenient date.
Fourth Meeting of India-Turkmenistan Inter-Governmental Commission
The Fourth Meeting of India-Turkmenistan InterGovernmental Commission (IGC) on Trade, Economic, Scientific & Technological Cooperation held in New Delhi. The IGC discussions were held in a friendly and cordial atmosphere and marked by a spirit of mutual respect and understanding. Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed and Deputy Chairman of Cabinet of Ministers (DPM) and Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan, Rashid Meredov comprehensively reviewed the progress and current status of bilateral relations in areas such as energy, trade & economic cooperation, transport
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Formula to identify "inviolate" forest areas where mining will be banned
processes. Because the lifecycle of HIV/AIDS is so short (just a few days, if that) it can mutate quickly as it replicates, so this kind of therapy usually involves a complex combination of drugs--many of which carry undesirable side effects. This new gene therapy attempts to choke off HIV replication at the point the virus tries to infiltrate a healthy T cell, keeping that T cell healthy and denying the virus its chance to replicate--at least via that particular T cell. The virus usually gains access to the T cell by attaching itself to surface proteins known as CCR5 and CXCR4 (different strains of the virus target different surface proteins). Researchers have previously been able to deactivate the receptor protein CCR5 by developing a special protein that attaches to it and smashes its receptor gene, rendering it inactive for HIV's purposes. The Stanford team's technique does the same thing but also goes a step further. It uses the same protein to target the DNA that lends the CCR5 its receptor status. But rather than simply smashing that DNA, this protein breaks the DNA sequence and inserts a few new genes in there that are known to express resistance to HIV. This technique of placing certain genes within the genome is known as "stacking,".
A high-level Environment Ministry panel formed a formula to identify "inviolate" forest areas where mining and other harmful non-forestry activities will be completely banned. Inviolate zones will include: Wildlife sanctuaries, tiger reserves, national parks - as well as a buffer zone of one km around such protected areas compact patches of very dense forest, the last remnant of a forest type and forests very near perennial rivers. The formula calls for scoring of forest areas based on six principles: forest type, biological richness, wildlife value, forest cover, landscape integrity and hydrological value. The country will be divided into grids of one square kilometre each, which will be scored, mostly using existing data. An average score above 70, out of a possible 100, will also be declared inviolate.
The panel was formed in the wake of the demise of the "no-go zone" approach, conceptualised by the former Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, which identified dense forest areas in nine major coal fields where forest clearances would be denied. Following intense pressure from the mining industry and the Coal Ministry, a ministerial group headed by thenFinance Minister Pranab Mukherjee vetoed the idea. As far as the fate of mining blocks is concerned, report states that a block would be "considered inviolate if a majority of grids falling within a block have been labelled as inviolate."
New Gene Therapy Braces T Cells Against HIV
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and their collaborators elsewhere have opened up a new front in the war on HIV/AIDS. Using the tools of the geneticist to insert a series of HIV-resistant genes into T cells--the body's immune cells that are actively targeted by HIV and AIDS-researchers have found to be a potent means of fending off HIV cells that would otherwise inhabit and destroy the cells. HIV and AIDS are usually treated through a cocktail of antiretroviral drugs that essentially attack the viruses at various phases of their replication
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Indian contribution towards making the "Thirty Meter Telescope"
India is likely to make key parts, develop software and partly fund the development of the so-called Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), the largest of its kind that is being planned atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, one of the tallest mountains in the world. In addition, India will also make the sensors that will locate where one mirror is with respect to its neighbours so that a computer can calculate how to adjust them as well as the actuators, or devices that will use computer controls to physically move the telescope. The TMT will be the first of a generation of socalled extra-large telescopes that will be a significant leap over the current class of telescopes that are 810m in diameter. Others being planned include the Giant Magellan Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope. These telescopes will be at least 81 times more sensitive than the current class of telescopes available and therefore provide,
several times more quickly, much sharper images of distant galaxies. They are expected to provide deeper insight into the mysterious dark energy and dark matter-that is believed to make up at least 95% of our universe; the role of black holes in the evolution of galaxies and throw light on the origin and dynamics of the Milky Way. India is likely to contribute about 10% of the approximately $1.4-2 billion required to build the telescope, though this is yet to be cleared by the Indian government and nearly 70% of this would be in kind, in the form of hardware, materials and software.
With the commissioning of the state-of-the-art observing, monitoring/early warning and data visualization/information processing and communication technologies under the Phase-I of the modernization of IMD, several manual operations have been fully automated. All the manpower that was engaged earlier for such manual operations have been provided due orientation, training and skill development opportunities not only to attain appropriate operating skills of advanced technological platforms but also contribute efficiently to the quality enhancement through customization of sector specific warning and forecasting services. Commissioning of the High Performance Computing (HPC) system at the ESSO-National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) and ESSO-IMD has provided opportunity to assimilate satellite radiance data in to the global/regional forecast systems and to enhance the spatial resolution of the global forecast systems from about 50km grid scale to about 22km grid scale. In order to capture the characteristics of the severe weather in real time, state-of-the-art 24X7 monitoring system comprising 14-DWRs, located at Agartala, Chennai, Delhi-Airport, Delhi-Lodi Road, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Machilipatnam, Nagpur, Patna, Visakhapatnam, Lucknow, Patiala and Mohanbari is made functional. DWRs at Mumbai and Bhuj are undergoing site acceptance tests while it is under commissioning at Bhopal. DWRs commissioning is put on hold at Goa, Paradip and Karaikal for the want of clearances from the Ministry of Defence that is under the consideration of Committee of Secretaries (COS). The Government is also committed to set up and enhance gradually its observational network of DWRs, AWSs, ARGs, etc. for monitoring abnormal weather patterns and upgrading its forecasting capabilities, so that advance warning can be provided to National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Ministry of Home Affairs, and Ministry of Agriculture to tackle the impacts of the adverse and extreme weather phenomena.
Other than India, the project will include the US, Canada, Japan and China. Each of these countries will contribute between 10% and 20% of the project cost.
Nowcasting of Weather starts in India
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences has operationalised its location specific nowcasting weather services through Earth System Science Organization (ESSO)-IMD across the country. This includes the web based inputs. Under this service activity, that covers 117 urban centres currently on experimental basis; nowcast of severe weather (Thunderstorms; heavy rainfall from lows/ depressions over the land) in 3-6h range is issued. Origin, development/movement of severe weather phenomena are regularly monitored through all available observing systems (Automatic Weather Stations-AWSs; Automatic Rain Gauges-ARGs; Doppler Weather Radars-DWRs; Automatic Weather Observing Systems-AWOS; satellite derived wind vectors, temperature, moisture fields etc.) are assimilated to generate predictions (prepared both in text as well as in graphical form) on 3h time range. Web GIS rendering of the nowcast products is implemented for enhanced spatial representation of the severe weather intensities associated with warnings.
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2 - MARKERS
New High Courts constituted in NE
The Centre has constituted three new High Courts in the northeast - Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura - taking the total number of High Courts in the country from 21 to 24. The strength of judges in each High Court will be as follows: Tripura 4 (including the Chief Justice), and Meghalaya and Manipur: three each (including the Chief Justice). As per the recommendations of the Supreme Court collegium, Justice T. Meenakumari, judge of the Patna High Court, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, is being elevated as Chief Justice of Meghalaya. Justice Deepak Gupta, who hails from Himachal Pradesh, is being elevated as Chief Justice of Tripura, and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre, judge of the Chhattisgarh High Court, is being appointed CJ of Manipur. The Bill to establish separate High Courts in these three North-eastern States was approved by the Lok Sabha by amending the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971 and other related laws. Specific absorption rate (SAR) is a measure of the rate at which energy is absorbed by the body when exposed to a radio frequency(RF) electromagnetic field; although, it can also refer to absorption of other forms of energy by tissue, including ultrasound. It is defined as the power absorbed per mass of tissue and has units of watts per kilogram (W/kg). SAR is usually averaged either over the whole body, or over a small sample volume (typically 1 g or 10 g of tissue). The value cited is then the maximum level measured in the body part studied over the stated volume or mass. This lab will help in finding out the radiation levels of mobile phones and their impact on human body.
NGN, SAR lab inaugurated in New Delhi
A next generation network (NGN) and specific absorption rate (SAR) lab has been inaugurated in telecommunication engineering centre (TEC) in New Delhi. The TEC SAR lab has been commissioned at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore. This is the first lab in the country for independent audit of SAR value, selfcertified by mobile handset manufacturers and importers in India. The lab is capable of making SAR measurement for CDMA, GSM 2G and 3G mobile handsets in the frequency band of 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz. The lab will test one handset in a day. The lab is also capable of making measurement of SAR value against the International Commission on non-Ionising Radio Protection (ICNIRP) limit of 2 Watt per kg measured over 10 gram of tissue as well as the recently adopted 1.6 watt per kg measured over 1 gm of tissue. Earlier mobile handsets were tested in international lab.
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King of Bhutan : Chief Guest of the 64th Republic Day
Bhutan's King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck was the Chief Guest at the 64th Republic Day Celebrations, becoming the third emperor from the tiny kingdom to grace the event, signifying the importance that India attaches to its neighbour. The earlier chief guests were his father Jigme Singye Wangchuck and grandfather Jigme Dorji Wangchuck. While Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who abdicated the throne in 2006 in favour of his son, had the honour of being the Chief Guest at the Republic Day celebrations twice in 1984 and 2005, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck received the honour in 1954.
Padma Awards 2013
President has approved the conferment of 108 Padma Awards in 2013. These comprise 04 Padma Vibhushan, 24 Padma Bhushan and 80 Padma Shri Awards. 24 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 11 persons in the category of Foreigners, NRIs, PIOs and Posthumous awardees. Padma Awards, the country's highest civilian awards, are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. The Awards are given in various disciplines/ fields of activities, viz- art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc. 'Padma Vibhushan' is awarded for
exceptional and distinguished service; 'Padma Bhushan' for distinguished service of high order and 'Padma Shri' for distinguished service in any field. The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year. Padma Vibhushan has been awarded to: Shri Raghunath Mohapatra; Shri S. Haider Raza; Prof. Yash Pal and Prof. Roddam Narasimha. Along with these late Superstar Rajesh Khanna and noted satirist Jaspal Bhatti, Actress Sharmila Tagore industrialist Adi Godrej among 24 selected for Padma Bhushan while Sridevi and Nana Patekar and film director Ramesh Sippy get Padma Shri. Cricketer Rahul Dravid and woman boxer MC Mary Kom named for Padma Bhushan Awards 2013.
communal harmony and national integration in a sustained manner over a sufficiently long period of time. In addition to a citation, the award carries a cash prize of Rupees five lakh for the Organisation. The Foundation for Amity & National Solidarity, Delhi has been selected for the National Communal Harmony Award for the year 2012 by the Jury headed by the Vice-President of India.
K-15 Missile
DSC Prize for South Asian Literature
Novelist Jeet Thayil was named as the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature winner. Thayil won the award for his first novel, Narcopolis, depicting Mumbai underground in the 70s. The novel was earlier shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012. Thayil's name was among six shortlisted for the prize along with Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif and Amitav Ghosh. The winner of the award gets $50,000. Instituted by DSC Limited in 2010, the DSC Prize is awarded annually for the best work of fiction inspired by the South Asian region, people, culture and diaspora; published in English, including translations into English. The Prize is unique in not relying on author ethnicity as an eligibility criterion and is open to authors across the globe writing on the region.
National Communal Harmony Award 2012
The National Communal Harmony Awards were instituted in 1996 by the National Foundation for Communal Harmony (NFCH), an autonomous organization set up by the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, for promoting communal harmony and national integration. The award has been instituted with a view to demonstrating due appreciation and recognition of the efforts of individuals and organisations for promotion of
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Moving a step closer to completing its nuclear triad, India has successfully test-fired a submarine launched ballistic missile,the K-15 Sagarika missile from an underwater pontoon simulating a submarine launcher, in Bay of Bengal with a strike range of around 750 kilometres. The missile is now ready for deployment on various platforms including the indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant which is under development. So far, India had the capability of delivering nuclear weapons from land and aerial platforms only. The missile-equipped submarine will provide the third leg of the strategic TRIAD nuclear deterrence India has been seeking to establish. India has a no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons and the development of an SLBM boosts its retaliatory strike capability. K-15 is part of the family of underwater missiles being developed by the DRDO for the Indian strategic forces' underwater platforms. DRDO's Hyderabad-based Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) have developed this ballistic missile. This is the first missile in the underwater category to have been developed by India. India is also developing three additional underwater missiles for its submarines, including K4/5 (3,500 km range), the two-stage, subsonic Nirbhay loitering cruise missile reaching 1,200 km and the Brahmos super-sonic cruise missile 290 kilometres respectively. The Nirbhay was reportedly being prepared for a test flight in February 2013.
EDITORIALS
Justice For The Republic
Fast-track courts, to try crimes by politicians or crimes against women, can yield huge benefit In 1987 the Law Commission, concerned at India's abysmally low ratio of judges for its population then less than 11 per million people against developed countries' norm of 100 - recommended increasing it to 50 immediately, and to 100 by the year 2000. A quarter-century later, India still languishes at only 13 judges per million people. It should thus surprise no one that well over 30 million cases are pending at all levels of the judiciary, about three million of them for over a decade. Of course, there are other shortcomings that contribute to this logjam, but the sheer arithmetic of too few judges trying too many cases is at the heart of the problem. Some states have continued operating fast-track courts on their own even after central funds dried up, but many haven't. Costs, of course, are the main hurdle. The just announced recruitment of 2,000 judges for fast-track courts at a cost of Rs 80 crore seems relatively little, but the total cost of operating a court has been estimated at five to 10 times the salaries of the associated judges. Accounting for that, and the higher salaries of judges at the high courts and Supreme Court, it could require an additional Rs 32,000 crore per year for India to reach a respectable level of 50 judges per million people. Compare that to the following: Rs 60,000 crore for the farm loans waiver in 2008, and Rs 33,000 crore for MNREGA, Rs 44,000 crore for the petroleum subsidy and Rs 75,000 crore for the food subsidy last year. Although assuring justice to voters should seem as important an aim as any of those others, the reality is that it has not been viewed as such by successive governments, and it is unlikely even now that an additional Rs 32,000 crore per year will be sanctioned for the judicial system. The other systemic shortcomings that compound the shortage of judges include a similarly low police to population ratio (not to mention obsolete policing practices which have long needed reforming); the self-appointing collegium system for inducting new judges at the higher levels, which has resulted in hundreds of vacancies; and the practice of judges granting endless adjournments, though the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) limits it to three for any party to a case. Judicial redress is the last resort of the harassed citizen; for 'the system' to improve, we must first ensure that justice is both assured and quick. The just released Justice Verma committee report, while recommending several changes in law, has stressed that the real problem is implementation. It also blames poor governance and reiterates that "speedy justice is not merely an aspect of the right to life with dignity, but is essential for efficacy of the law". Why fast-track courts are necessary for judges to simply follow the CPC and limit the number of adjournments to three is something only judges can answer. But fast-track courts, while not a cureall
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The gradual gumming up of the judicial system has now created an appalling situation where even heinous criminal cases like rape and murder are stuck for years. The growing anger this has caused may have reached a tipping point with the vicious gang rape in Delhi a few weeks ago, which led to the hasty establishment of five new fast-track courts there. Subsequently, the law ministry has approved the recruitment of 2,000 new judges for fast-track courts throughout the country. Though some are sceptical, fast-track courts can indeed make a difference. There are several examples from across the country. For instance, one such court in Sambalpur, Orissa, has twice convicted and awarded death sentences to men for raping and murdering minors, in trials lasting three months instead of years.
The irony is that until now, the government itself had been less than enthusiastic about fast-track courts, though they have disposed of 85% of the cases assigned to them since their creation in 2001. Despite such success, the central government started withdrawing the funding for these courts after their initial terms, until the Supreme Court objected and they were allowed to continue. But in the process, less than 1,200 of the original 1,700 remain in existence, a far cry from the five that were to be established in every district of India.
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panacea for all the system's ills, are clearly a big part of the solution. Their established track record and anecdotal success stories should give us confidence that they can make a huge difference. Improving the entire justice system calls for significant political will and funds, which will be a challenge despite today's tipping point. But while it would be ideal to somehow make all courts work like fast-track courts, and increase the judge to population ratio to at least 50 per million, it would nevertheless be immensely desirable to make even a few changes that attack the roots of the problem. Two of the deepest and most cancerous of such roots are the criminalisation of politics and widespread crimes against women. For a small fraction of the funds required to set right the entire judicial system, an adequate number of fast-track courts could be established, dedicated to deal with criminal cases against elected representatives and attacks on women. Tackling these two ills will yield disproportionate benefits to the overall system and set in motion a virtuous cycle of reforms. Source: Times of India
Expert Committee (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court has emphasised on a science-based cautious approach towards open releases of geneticallymodified organisms (GMOs). It proves that the science community continues to have concerns around GM crops. The TEC, made up of eminent scientists from the fields of molecular biology, toxicology, biodiversity and nutrition science, in their interim report to the court, highlighted the potential impact of GMOs on health, biodiversity and socioeconomic realities and the abysmal standards of GM regulation in India. While the biotech seed industry lobbies went around town tarnishing the TEC recommendations, more than 120 scientists made a submission to the Supreme Court urging the Hon'ble judges to accept the TEC report. More than 20 farmer unions from across the country too wrote to the apex court demanding the same. In the last 15 years, India has witnessed modern biologists, socioeconomists, ecologists and health experts raising concerns on the mindless rush towards GM crops. It is unfortunate that these scientific concerns are being sidelined and trampled by the powerful GM lobby led by MNCs like Monsanto and their cronies. GM crops are a false solution to the global food and farming crisis. If there is one thing that is a constant, it is the propagation of the myth that GM crops are a necessity, if the world has to feed its growing population. The same myth is propelled in India as well, both by the seed industry and its supporters, including our Union agriculture minister, Sharad Pawar. However, the latest global food projections by USDA show that the current world food production can feed 13 billion people, double the existing population. Similarly, in India, we are sitting on one of world's biggest hoards of food grain, around 667 lakh tonnes (till January 1, 2013), which is 2.5 times more than the government's benchmark for buffer stocks. It is disgusting how 21 million tonnes of wheat perish every year due to lack of storage and distribution facilities. How is it that the government insists on more production in the name of food security while we sit on mountains of food grain, wasting it? In fact, intensive agricultural practices promoted by GoI like the Green Revolution have destroyed the soil, and polluted and depleted water table in the Indo-Gangetic plains of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Mindless usage of toxic
GM crops: Time to be responsible & responsive
"It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach and impose a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal, till such time independent scientific studies establish to the satisfaction of the public and professionals the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact to human health and environment, including the rich genetic wealth of brinjal existing in the country," said the then-Union minister for environment, Jairam Ramesh, on Bt brinjal moratorium. This decision, he further stated, "is both responsible to science and responsive to society", which also represents the GM debate in India. The debate around Bt brinjal and the democratic process created by Jairam Ramesh at that time set a global precedence. It created the space for scientific concerns on the impact of GM crops on human health and the environment, besides those on socioeconomic considerations. It is not surprising to see the opposition to GM crops in India, like elsewhere, was started by scientists on the impact of GM. Stalwarts like Dr M S Swaminathan and Dr Pushpa Bhargava have recommended precautionary-based approach towards Bt brinjal and, more recently, the Technical
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pesticides has further added to it and GM crops are a continuation of these input-intensive models of farming. However, this has not saved farm livelihoods. Going by the National Crime Records Bureau, more than 2.5 lakh farmers have committed suicide in the last 20 years, most of it due to agrarian distress, and a majority of them were from the cotton belt of Vidarbha, where aggressive promotion of Bt cotton took place. It has exposed the government's bluff of GM crops being the panacea for agrarian distress. A 10-year review of Bt cotton by the Central Institute of Cotton Research, Nagpur, shows that yield has not increased in proportion to acreage of Bt cotton. Even the IAASTD report, to which India is also a signatory, calls for a fundamental change in farming practices and acknowledges that GE crops are highly controversial and will not play a substantial role in addressing the key problems of climate change, biodiversity loss, hunger and poverty. The initiative sponsored by the United Nations and the World Bank had 450 scientists analysing developments in agricultural science and technology and their impacts in the last 50 years.
forefathers. This is in contrast to the free market and neo-liberal economic policies advocated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his pro-privatisation and foreign direct investment aides. The globally-orchestrated process of dismantling communist and socialist edifices of governance over the past two decades, synchronous with Mr Singh's foray into politics, also marked the abandoning of the socialist dream. Mr Gandhi's emergence as the Congress's official second most important leader, after party president Sonia Gandhi, is significant because of his attachment to his political legacy. His widely-publicised sojourns in Dalit neighbourhoods and assurances of welfare delivery to destitute people invoke the "Garibi hatao" and "Roti, kapda, makaan" pledges of his grandmother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, rather than the private sector-driven, ecologically destructive development path, traversed by the neoliberal cabal. Policy-makers' overriding obsession with achieving high growth targets has relegated humanitarian issues of clothing and feeding people on the brink of starvation, or just above and below the poverty line, and of providing them healthcare and basic education, to the shadows. The policy makers have instead amply displayed willingness to abdicate their responsibilities, vested in public office, by transferring state administrative duties and functions to private entities. National Advisory Council may try to influence Government policies, but given its extra-constitutional status, its proposals are not binding on the Government. In the event that Mr Gandhi is eventually projected as the Congress's prime ministerial candidate, it is to be seen whether Mr Gandhi continues the socialist tack, of shaping policies to benefit economically and socially vulnerable sections which are the Congress's traditional support base. It would then be as it was before. But this is an unlikely scenario, in view of India's emergence as a lucrative investment destination for foreign companies, wary of saturated domestic markets, and Government's pliability. Mr Gandhi's political survival would hinge more on his ability to accommodate present-day global geo-economic interests and compulsions than the family names. That policy-making is elitist is implicit in the fact of the 12th Five-year Plan, for the period 2012-2017, being criticised by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, which is evaluating it. MPs
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So, if our government and all of us are serious about solving our food and farming crisis, it really is high time that we stop parroting the seed industry and start focusing on progressive science of agroecology. Source: Economic Times
High GDP is not everything
Now that Mr Rahul Gandhi is Congress's vice president, it would be edifying to know his stand on the issue of forest rights of Adivasis and forest dwellers. They are among the most marginalised people in the country. Violating the Forest Rights Act, 2006, in order to push through controversial projects such as the bauxite mining one proposed by diversified minerals group Vedanta in Odisha's Niyamgiri Hills, would further jeopardise their livelihood sources. Mr Gandhi was reported to have backed the move to cancel the project. So far, the National Advisory Council, an extraconstitutional body that includes well-known civil rights activists and headed by his mother, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, has been pushing for state interventions to benefit vast numbers of the dispossessed and hungry, a throw-back to the socialist policies, espoused formerly by the Congress under the leadership of the 42-year-old scion's
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have castigated the plan for being divorced from 'ground realities' and for not having a clear 'poverty line'. And in that lies a strange story. The Government's confusion over setting a viable poverty line that accurately reflects want and inflationary pressures, and the wide gap between growth projections and the real conditions, in which vast numbers of poor and hungry people live, is an indictment of the Planning Commission's willful ostrich-like burrowing into the sands of make-believe. There are different official estimates of the percentage of people below the poverty line, and calories consumption and daily spending for defining such people, both urban and rural. The plan panel in the middle of the last decade proposed that an estimated 27 per cent Indians were poor. This surmise hinged on calories intake and excluded expenditure on healthcare, education, clothing and other necessities.
second place in Israel's election on January 22nd, for years wrote a popular column in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in which he would ask, "What is it to be Israeli?" What, in other words, does it take to feel you belong in the Jewish state? The question became his trademark. Now a big chunk of the electorate-a lot bigger than the pollsters predictedhas given an answer that may reshape Israel's future, not least by improving the chance of peace with the Palestinians. Mr Lapid's party, Yesh Atid (There is a Future), running for the first time, got 19 seats in the 120seat parliament, against 31 for Likud-Beitenu, led by the incumbent prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who is still expected to retain his post. But the prime minister will find it much harder in the next month or so to rejig his ruling coalition. Hawkish and religious parties that have been generally loth to offer the sort of territorial and other compromises needed to revive the peace process got half the seats. But the election result shows that Israelis on the more malleable middle ground are still a force to be reckoned with. The post-election bargaining will be tricky. Two key consequences may follow. One is that Naftali Bennett, a religious hawk who rejects the idea of a Palestinian state, may not have to be brought into a government. Pollsters had expected his new party to do so well that Mr Netanyahu would have had to give him a senior post. The other is that it may prove impossible for Mr Netanyahu to include both Mr Lapid's secular party and religious parties in a ruling coalition. They are at loggerheads, among other things over the issue of whether ultra-Orthodox men should serve in the armed forces. If by chance Mr Netanyahu found it impossible to include Mr Bennett and the religious parties in a coalition, he might have to bring in not just Mr Lapid but the likes of Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister whose new party's main policy is to cut a deal with the Palestinians; she got six seats. Shelly Yachimovich, whose Labour party came third with 15 seats, has promised not to join any government led by Mr Netanyahu. The election result proclaims that "being Israeli" does not mean you have to share the nationalistreligious zeitgeist that has swept through Israel in recent years and seemed to be propelling the belligerent Mr Bennett and his Yisrael Beitenu (Jewish Home) party into a position of influence and perhaps even power.
The 2009 Suresh Tendulkar Committee's view was that a person is poor if he spends less than Rs19 daily in a city, or Rs15 in the village area at 20042005 prices. The committee set the poverty figure at about 37 per cent. The NC Saxena Committee said that 50 per cent people were poor. The Arjun Sengupta Committee on Unorganised Workers inferred that there were 77 per cent poor or vulnerable Indians. The cut-off amount for poverty was Rs20 per day. The Commission later revised its own figures for 2011-2012, pegging the poverty line at Rs22.65 per day for those in rural environs, and Rs28.42 for urban dwellers. A more realistic poverty surmise was furnished by the National Sample Survey for 2009-2010. As per its findings, based on average monthly consumption expenditure, necessary for survival, the poverty line would be Rs66.10 for urban areas and Rs35.10 for rural areas. An estimated 65 per cent of the country's population is below this marker. The Commission must understand that success of welfare schemes depends on correct estimates of poverty. Source: The Pioneer
Israel's election: The hawks' wings are clipped
A sparky performance by a middle-of-the-road party may pull Binyamin Netanyahu back to the centre-and perhaps towards talks with the Palestinians. YAIR LAPID, a former television talk-show host whose secular, middle-of-the-road party soared into
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For much of the campaign Mr Bennett made the running, setting the agenda, declaring his unswerving rejection of the two-state solution and pulling the whole of Mr Netanyahu's "national camp" ever further to the right. A high-tech magnate, Mr Bennett appeared to attract voters from beyond his core constituency of religious Israelis who have settled on the West Bank, the main bit of a wouldbe Palestinian state. Young people, not necessarily religious or settlers, seemed to admire the brash bluntness of his message coupled with his flair as a businessman. Mr. Bennett had taken over and thoroughly revamped the venerable National Religious Party, which had shrunk to three seats in the outgoing parliament. He also co-opted members of the fading National Union, which was even further to the right, into his Jewish Home. Pollsters thought this newfangled outfit would get as many as 15 seats. In the event, it got 11-still a good score, but not what Mr Bennett expected.
Lieberman had won an outright majority, they might well have hunkered down together, turning a deaf ear to pleas from Mr Obama and others to re-engage with the Palestinians. Now Mr Netanyahu may have to think again. Source: The Economist
Deregulate food, fertiliser, sugar as well
The fiscal distortions and distributional inefficiencies in these sectors should be done away with. Last week, the Government of India (GOI) took a bold and wise decision to re-notify deregulation of diesel prices. It is an attempt to reduce the nation's fiscal burden, but it also indicates that the government is serious about getting the economy back on track. Oil marketing companies (OMCs), at the discretion of the Government, will now increase or decrease diesel prices. To compensate their current under-recoveries of about Rs 9/litre, oil corporates will apply "small corrections" of 50 paise in monthly instalments. The "small correction" upped shares of oil companies next day and improved stock market sentiment. The recent hike in rail fares, which were untouched for the last ten years, is also a step in the right direction. Over time, they should promote efficient use of scarce resources, cut down deficits, and thereby help rein in inflation. Rising Food Subsidy
Indeed, the Bennett phenomenon may have prompted a backlash. Those same young, yuppy voters may have begun to feel uncomfortable with the harsh vision of endless occupation that Mr Bennett presented. Perhaps Barack Obama's leaked comments earlier this month that Mr Netanyahu's policies towards the Palestinians were undermining Israel's own interests caused middle-class Israeli voters to stop and think. Hence, perhaps, the surge for Mr Lapid at the expense of Mr Bennett. The parties of the national camp-Likud-Beitenu, Mr Bennett's lot and the two main ultra-Orthodox parties-together have exactly 60 of parliament's 120 seats. So Mr Netanyahu is just short of a majority for a right-religious coalition on its own. Mr Lapid is the new kingmaker. Despite his winning score, Mr Netanyahu has taken a knock. His Likud-Beitenu's tally of 31 seats is 11 fewer than the previous combined parliamentary strength of the two parties in his ruling coalition, Likud and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu, which teamed up on a joint list just before the election. The ether around Mr Netanyahu is already thick with recriminations over the way he ran his campaign. More important for the future of Israel, however, is the prospect that he may, if he is to embrace Mr Lapid and perhaps other parties in the more peaceminded centre, have to grapple more seriously with the Palestinian issue. If the hawks led by Mr Netanyahu and backed by Messrs Bennett and
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However, there appears to be a selective amnesia in the Government on raising food and fertiliser subsidies. The FCI has been allocated Rs 75,000 crore in the 2012-13 Budget, which may only cover 50 million tonnes of grains, while stocks are likely to touch double this tonnage (100 million tonnes), requiring a funding of Rs 1,50,000 crore. How will these extra allocations be made? For wheat and rice, the policy prescription is to reduce prices and inflate demand. This goes against the 'grain' of the Centre's fuel policy. No long-term export policy is in place for evacuating official inventories and resolving the problem of plenty. The trade fears export/import embargos on the slightest supply/demand mismatch. Even Russia and Ukraine have refrained from banning wheat export this year, despite the 35 per cent drop in output. Higher domestic prices have compensated losses of farmers in these countries.
There is a lot of confusion over the implementation of the Food Security Bill (FSB). The criteria for identifying beneficiaries, and the mode and quantum of disbursal - whether via PDS or cash transfers, and how many kg per household per month is to be accounted - are loose ends that may not be tied up even before the 2014 elections. Storing and distributing about 70 million tonnes (mt) of grain to cater to 67 per cent of the population, is a gigantic exercise. About 46 million tonnes of built-in covered storage space is available, while plans to create additional warehousing have been on the blueprint stage for many years. There also appears to be intense opposition to this Bill within the Government. The Ministry of 'Food and Agriculture' was split for this reason. Sharad Pawar was divested of the charge of Department of Food, and assigned only the Agriculture Department as he publicly expressed his reservations about FSB. K.V. Thomas was made Food Minister to expedite implementation of FSB. The Chairman of the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) has come out with a discussion paper, apprehending unsustainable financial liabilities on account of this Bill, amounting to Rs 6 lakh crore in the next three years. Members of the Planning Commission too have given dissenting opinions on FSB.
Media reports also suggest that CACP has recommended to the Finance Minister to de-regulate urea pricing, while directly compensating the farmer on per hectare basis. This can reduce the fertiliser subsidy by about Rs 20,000 crore, while incentivising farmers to optimally use N, P and K, raising the efficiency of fertiliser usage, while cutting down the fiscal deficit. Sugar Populism The Rangarajan Committee has suggested dismantling all controls on sugar, and aligning sugarcane pricing to pricing of sugar and first stage by-products. This is a rational proposition, but the politics of sugar in Uttar Pradesh is such that the State Government has announced a much higher 'state advisory price' (SAP) than what the industry can afford. This will bleed the industry and damage the interest of farmers. The Centre needs to clean up the mess in sugar sector, from dismantling levy, to the release system, to export/import norms. These controls have not served any purpose but promoted rent-seeking, which bureaucrats and politicians both enjoy. If the sugar sector has to attain value addition in terms of ethanol and cogeneration, regressive interventionist actions must end forthwith. The experience in other sectors, be it steel or cement or telecom, has shown that by de-regulating these sectors they have become more efficient. If streamlining of the fuel/diesel policy is meant to rationalise distortions, let a similar prescription be applied to food, fertiliser and sugar. Source: Business Line
The direct cash transfer scheme is proposed to be linked to FSB, while the Bill before Parliament makes no mention of this.
If cash transfers are the preferred route, then openended procurement of foodgrains needs to be restructured and deregulated in a calibrated manner. But no one has given much attention to this. The net result is that the Government has become the biggest hoarder of grains, which are stocked unscientifically, and therefore, with every passing day their quality deteriorates, and the fiscal deficit goes up! Opposition parties are mute spectators. Fertiliser Cost The fertiliser industry has a subsidy component of Rs 95,000 crore this year, against a Budgeted sum of Rs 62,000 crore. This is yet another area with a wide gap between the cost of production/imports and the release/administered price of urea. While the pricing of phosphorus and potassium has been partially de-controlled, nitrogen is still heavily regulated. As a result, the situation has taken a turn for the worse.
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The Verma manifesto
The Justice Verma committee report foregrounds institutionalised forms of rape culture to illustrate their terrifying relationship with law and governance. Indicting state institutions for propagating, normalising and even celebrating this rape culture, the committee also confessed to understanding, for the first time, the extent and range of impunity and immunity afforded to those who are guilty of sexual violence. A range of amendments to the law are recommended, new sections suggested, protocols developed, and a bill of rights for women is pronounced. This voluminous report, crafted through a series of conversations with survivors of sexual violence, academics, activists, representatives from the government and lawyers, provides the
Delhi protests with a manifesto for radical transformation. This reasoned, researched and anguished document is ambitious in its desire to link structures of power and domination with the everyday mechanisms to silence testimonies against sexual violence. It speaks directly to the experiences of young people on the streets of Delhi by recognising the damaging impact of sexual harassment (although there is an anachronistic use of the word "eveteasing" in the commentary which precedes the recommendations). It also recommends that offences such as stalking, voyeurism and forced stripping should be defined under Section 354 of the IPC as distinct forms of sexual assault, rejecting the colonial, humiliating and trivialising definition, which described everything short of penile penetration of the vagina as outraging the modesty of women. The report redefines rape substantially. It recognises rape as a crime of patriarchy committed by men, and acknowledges that the victims of such horrendous violence can include men and transgendered persons in everyday contexts. Unlike the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2012, the report does not accept the idea that women or transgendered people can rape adult men, in everyday contexts. Rather, the definition of rape operates on a sociologically informed classification, retaining gender specificity for perpetrators (always men) and gender plurality for victims (any person, irrespective of gender or sexual orientation). The strength of this definition is that it drives home the fact that sexual violence is a privileged and preferred form of patriarchal violence, which can terrorise by sexually humiliating any person who transgresses heterosexist social, sexual and political orders. In the instance of "aggravated" rape such as gangrape, the report rightly recognises that any person, including women, can commit and abet gangrape. Hence, the recommendation to create a new section of the IPC reads "where a person is raped by one or more in a group of persons acting in furtherance of a common intention, each of these persons shall be deemed to have committed the offence of gangrape, regardless of their gender". The committee's definition of rape, like the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, moves away from a phallocentric emphasis to include metonymic substitutes for the penis in its definition. It also expands the notion of consent, in very welcome ways. Consent, the committee says, must be defined as "unequivocal voluntary agreement when the
person by words, gestures or any form of non-verbal communication, communicates willingness to participate in the specific act". Neither should it be presumed that "a person who does not offer actual physical resistance to the act of penetration" is "to be regarded as consenting to the sexual activity". For the first time in the history of law reform in India, a committee has recommended that consent should not be presumed in the event of an existing marital relationship between the complainant and the accused. Will Parliament feel the pain of women trapped in violent marriages and decline the votes of their husbands by criminalising marital rape? Indeed, will the political class accept the committee's recommendation to disallow men accused of rape and sexual assault from enjoying any kind of political power? However, it is quite disappointing that the committee is silent on the deletion of Section 377 of the IPC, which defines unnatural sexual offences. Indeed, it is a travesty of history that in the case of 23-year-old medical student, whom the committee refers to as Nirbhaya, the accused are being tried under Section 377. Surely, it should be intolerable to describe rape as unnatural sex. Nor should the law have the power to criminalise consensual sex between adults. Violating the age of consent, irrespective of gender, is presented as a strict liability offence. The committee recommends that such an offence attract 10 years' punishment and if such an offence results in murder or reduces its victim to a persistent vegetative state, that it attract imprisonment for the rest of the person's natural life. It is not, however, immediately clear how the misuse of the statutory rape, kidnapping and abduction laws, to criminalise love affairs, will be dealt with. Surely our policemen and courts also imitate the logic of khap panchayats when it comes to upholding caste hierarchies? This must find a fuller critique and revision. Especially since the committee is clear that any form of impunity and immunity, which generates legal, political and social technologies of silencing and shaming survivors of rape and sexual assault, must now be named, disassembled and made liable. In a logical move to strike down impunity, the committee indicts the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, saying that it must not be necessary to seek sanction to prosecute "sexual violence against women
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by members of the armed forces or uniformed personnel" in a criminal court. It cannot be argued that any rape is necessary in the line of duty. Further, the JVC recommends a new offence, which will also inscribe accountability for mass sexual violence, by defining command responsibility. This holds a public servant criminally liable if he or she "either knew or owing to the circumstances should have known that the persons under his or her command, control or supervision would commit such offences".
By addressing the institutionalisation of rape cultures in juvenile, observation and protection homes, the committee opens up the linkages between police practices and sexual bondage of trafficked children. The horrifying state response to missing children is read alongside the brutalisation of children in the protective care of the state. The Justice Verma Committee report shines a light on the darkness that inhabits the walls of these institutions, where inmates who are sexually humiliated cannot walk with us in protest. Source: Indian Express
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Weekly Current Affairs 28th January to 3rd February, 2013 [3]
NATIONAL
I&B Ministry Constitutes Expert Committee to Review Functioning of Prasar Bharti ensuring wider reach to a worldwide audience including creating an exclusive overseas service. Government approves amendments on Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill 2011 The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has constituted an Expert Committee for the purpose of reviewing the institutional framework of Prasar Bharati including its relationship with Government, its continuing role as a public broadcaster and measures needed to ensure technical upgradation of the organization. The Expert Committee will be headed by Shri Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations. Other members will be: Smt. Asha Swaroop; Dr. B.K. Gairola; Sh. Shekhar Kapur; Prof. M.P. Gupta; Sh. Jitendra Shankar Mathur and Shri Jawhar Sircar. The terms of reference of the Committee are as follows:-
a) To suggest measures to sustain, strengthen and amplify Prasar Bharati`s role as a Public Broadcaster with special reference to its relationship with Government in the emerging context. b) To review the status of implementation of the recommendations made by various committees that have undertaken study of Prasar Bharati, namely, the Sengupta committee, the Bakshi Committee and the Narayanamurthy committee and suggest a road map ahead for enhancing the reach and potential of Prasar Bharati. c) To suggest measures to digitize the archival material in the possession of Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) including material from Independence Movement era, and develop enabling infrastructure, in the form of data digitalization systems, data centers and networks etc.
d) To suggest ways of using the new media to deliver digital content - both in broadcast mode (DTH) and in a demand-based mode (Free on social media like You-Tube, and on payment through IPTV). e) To suggest a strategy for creating a network of domestic and overseas business partners for
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Weekly Current Affairs 28th January to 3rd February, 2013
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The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011 was passed by the Lok Sabha on 27th December, 2011. The Bill was taken up for discussion and passing in the Rajya Sabha on 29.12.2011. Discussions remained inconclusive. Thereafter, the Rajya Sabha adopted a motion and referred the Bill to a Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha for examination and report. The Select Committee submitted its report to the Rajya Sabha. The Union Cabinet has approved the proposals submitted by the Department of Personnel & Training for moving official amendments to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011, as suggested by the Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha. Salient features of amendments to lokpal and lokayuktas bill 2011 approved by the cabinet are as below:a) Collegium for Selection of Lokpal: The Bill provides for selection of Members of Lokpal by a Selection Committee comprising the Prime Minister, Speaker (Lok Sabha), Leader of Opposition (Rajya Sabha), Cheif Justice of India or a Supreme Court judge nominated by CJI and an eminent jurist nominated by the President. The Select Committee has recommended that the fifth member of the Selection Committee (i.e., eminent jurist) may be nominated by the President on the basis of recommendation of the first four members of the Selection Committee. Government has accepted this recommendation. b) Jurisdiction over bodies receiving donations from public: The Select Committee has recommended exclusion of bodies and institutions receiving donations from the public from the purview of Lokpal. Government has decided to exempt only such bodies or authorities established, constituted or appointed by or under any Central or State or Provincial Act providing for administration of public religious or charitable trusts or endowments or
societies for religious or charitable purposes registered under the societies Registration Act. Other non governmental bodies receiving donation from the public would thus remain within the purview of Lokpal. c) Power to order investigation straight away: Select Committee has recommended that the Lokpal should be given power to order an investigation straightaway (without first ordering a preliminary inquiry) in case Lokpal finds that a prima facie case exists. Government has accepted this recommendation subject to the modification that the Lokpal should, before coming to a conclusion that there exists a prima facie case for entrusting the matter for investigation, call for the explanation of the public servant and then decide whether there exists a prima facie case for ordering investigation.
The setting up of a Directorate of prosecution headed by a Director of Prosecution under the overall control of Director, CBI;
II. The appointment of the Director of Prosecution on the recommendation of the Central Vigilance Commission; III. Maintenance of a panel of advocates by CBI, other than the Government Advocates, with the consent of the Lokpal for handling Lokpal referred cases; IV. Provision of adequate funds to CBI for investigating cases referred by Lokpal; V. Transfer of officers of CBI investigating cases referred by Lokpal with the approval of Lokpal. Government has decided to accept all these recommendations except the last one, i.e., seeking approval of Lokpal for transfer of officers of CBI investigating cases referred by the Lokpal, which is proposed not to be accepted as it would affect the smooth functioning of the CBI. Other salient features of the Bill a) Powers of supervision over CBI : The Bill confers powers of superintendence on the Lokpal over the Delhi Special Police Establishment (CBI) in respect of matters referred by the Lokpal for inquiry/investigation. b) Appointment of Director, CBI: A high powered Committee chaired by the Prime Minister will recommend selection of the Director, CBI. c) Attachment/confiscation of ill-gotten property: The Bill contains provisions for attachment/ confiscation of property acquired by corrupt means, even while prosecution is pending.
d) Opportunity of Hearing to public servant: The Select Committee has recommended that the seeking of comments from the public servant during the preliminary inquiry by the investigating agency should not be mandatory [clause 20 (2)]. Committee has also recommended that the opportunity of hearing by Lokpal before ordering investigation may be dispensed with [clause 20 (3)]. The affording of an opportunity to the public servant and to the government/competent authority at the preliminary inquiry stage and before ordering formal investigation would help clear doubts in several cases and would substantially reduce the number of cases going for regular investigation. Therefore, Government has decided not to accept this recommendation of the Select Committee and move an official amendment for the purpose. e) Power to order prosecution of public servants: The Select Committee has recommended that the power to grant sanction for prosecution of public servants could be shifted to the Lokpal in place of the Government. The Select Committee has also recommended that Lokpal may be required to seek comments of the competent authority and the public servant before taking such decision. Government has decided to accept this recommendation of the Select Committee. f) Strengthening of CBI: The Select Committee has recommended a number of amendments in the Bill for strengthening the CBI. These include-
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d) Enhancement of punishments under Prevention of Corruption Act: The Bill proposes to enhance punishments under Prevention of Corruption Act: i) Maximum punishment from 7 years to 10 years ii) Minimum punishment from 6 months to 2 years. Executive Committee on Climate Change constituted
The implementation of eight missions to fight climate change were in poor condition as there was no inter-ministerial coordination, thus Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has constituted a secretary level panel to assist the PM's council on
climate change in implementing the eight missions to fight climate change. The committee will be headed by principal secretary to Prime Minister Pulok Chatterji. The Executive Committee on Climate Change would focus on the following tasks: a) Assist the PM's Council on Climate Change in evolving a coordinated response to issues relating to climate change at the National level. b) Regularly monitor the implementation of the eight national missions and other initiatives on Climate Change. c) Advise the PM's Council on Climate Change on modifications in the objectives, strategies and structure of the missions, as may be necessary.
National Green Tribunal bans throwing of debris into Yamuna
With a view to cleaning the Yamuna, the National Green Tribunal has restrained anybody, person or authority from throwing debris of any kind, including solid wastes, on the banks of the Yamuna or the water body near the grand old river. A Full Bench of the Tribunal, comprising its Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, judicial member Justice P. Jyotimani and expert members D.K. Agrawal, G.K. Pandey and A.R. Yousuf, passed this order after hearing counsel for various parties. Even private parties are throwing debris on the river bank, on the basis of the principle of 'polluter pays' it will be in the interest of justice that these authorities are directed to recover amounts spent for removal of debris which are thrown by the private persons, from them. According to the judgement "persons" will include a company, partnership, sole proprietorship and individuals. All these authorities should exercise their statutory powers and not only preventing all persons throwing debris on the river bank, but even require them to pay for the purposes of removal of debris which are thrown by them. This shall be in the discretion of the authorities and will be implemented upon compliance with the principle of natural justice. Further the Bench has issued the following directions: The State of Uttar Pradesh, DDA, Government of NCT Delhi and East Delhi Municipal Corporation shall forthwith start removing debris from the river bank of Yamuna and the water body. The construction and other materials shall be removed to other identified sites. In the event no sites have been identified by any authority, all the Corporations and the DDA, State of Uttar Pradesh and the NCT of Delhi will have to notify within two weeks of notification the sites for dumping of debris. In the event of no site being available, as temporary measure all the above public Authorities/ Corporations and State of Uttar Pradesh shall start removing debris and bring them to the end of 'highest flood level' of river Yamuna. The stored debris shall be converted into a wall at that end point. It would prevent unauthorised entry, flood and prevent pollution of the Yamuna. New health scheme launched for rural kids in Uttar Pradesh
d) Co-ordinate with various agencies on issues relating to climate change.
The Chairman of the Executive Committee on Climate Change will be the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests will be the MemberConvenor. Other members of the Committee include Cabinet Secretary, Finance Secretary, Secretary, Planning Commission, Secretary, Ministry of Power, Secretary, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, Secretary, Water Resources, Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Secretary, Department of Agriculture & co-operation, Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research & Education, Secretary, Department of Earth Sciences, Secretary, Ministry of Coal, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs. The Chairman of Executive Committee on Climate Change may invite any other officer/Expert to the meetings as may be necessary. The PM's Council on Climate Change and the Executive Committee on Climate Change would be serviced by Ministry of Environment and Forests. The Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change was constituted in 2007, in order to co-ordinate National Action for Assessment, Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change. The National Action Plan of Climate Change (NAPCC) was released by the Prime Minister in June 2008. Under the NAPCC, with the approval of PM's Council on Climate Change, eight national missions are being implemented.
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The UP government has launched a new scheme "Aashirvad Child Health Guarantee Scheme" for the
health care of over six crore children in the age group of two years to 18 years living in the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh. It will be implemented under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Regular health check-ups, diagnosis and treatment of ailments form the core of the ambitious programme of the Samajwadi Party government. According to the 2011 Census, U.P.'s population was around 20 crore, of which about 8.5 crore children were in the 2-to-8-years age group. This included around 6 crore kids residing in the rural and far flung areas where health facilities are negligible. Studies have revealed that about 50 per cent of the rural children in this age bracket suffer from malnutrition and were anaemic. The scheme will be implemented in three phases. The first phase will cover children studying in primary and secondary schools in the rural areas. In the second phase children from Class 1 to 12 in government and government-aided schools, informal education schools, schools run by the Labour and Social Welfare departments, juvenile reform homes and Aanganbari schools will be covered. The third phase will cover children not going to school, including the kids living with their parents at construction sites, brick kilns and those belonging to the families of gypsies.
at 44, with the picture in rural areas worse than in urban settings. Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim and Nagaland account for 50 per cent of the total grant. Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu account for another Rs. 400 crore, and the remaining money is distributed among the rest of the States and Union Territories. Manipur, with an IMR of 11 per 1,000 live births, will receive the highest amount of Rs. 458 crore, followed by Tamil Nadu that gets Rs. 168 crore. The IMR of Tamil Nadu is 22. Among the smaller States, Meghalaya will get Rs. 6.2 crore, Mizoram Rs. 3.13 crore, Nagaland will get Rs. 159 crore, Sikkim Rs. 150 crore and Tripura Rs. 84 crore. As for big States, Maharashtra will get Rs. 133 crore, Punjab Rs. 106 crore, Karnataka will receive Rs. 53 crore, West Bengal Rs. 26 crore and Uttarakhand Rs. 42 crore. The grant is payable to the States based on the data available in the Sample Registration System Survey of 2009 and 2012. Only 11 States and Union Territories have achieved the MDG as far as IMR is concerned. Of these, only three bigger States Maharashtra, Kerala and Delhi - have been able to achieve the target. Strengthen RTE guidelines discrimination: NAC to end
For better health care facilities 54 digital X-ray machines, 118 coloured ultrasound machines, 20 Xray machines and 33 operation machines for orthopaedic operations would be installed in the government hospitals. Further 100 X-ray machines, 99 ultrasound machines and 455 ECG (electro cardiogram ) machines would be provided to different community health centres. Cash incentives to States for lower neonatal deaths
To achieve the millennium development goal (MDG) of 28 per 1,000 live births by 2015, the Ministry of Finance has approved the release of incentive grant-in-aid for reduction in the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) during 2012-13. The Rs. 1,500crore incentive will be given to the States that have made impressive reduction in the IMR between 2009 and 2011. This has been done on the recommendations of the 13th Finance Commission. Despite making huge achievements, India is unlikely to reach the international target of reducing infant mortality rate, set by the United Nations in 2000, considering that in 2011 the national IMR stood
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The Working Group, headed by Farah Naqvi, has recommended that The Right to Education Act's guidelines need to be strengthened to help end discrimination in schools, whether based on caste, religion, gender, disability, class or language, by setting up an effective grievance redress and monitoring machinery. According to the Working Group, the Human Resource Development Ministry should ask the States to establish a monitoring and grievance redress architecture from local to the State and National levels; that the Ministry, along with the States, institutionalize mechanisms for dialogue and mediation that ensures the participation of all stakeholders in resolving grievances, individual and systemic; and make provisions for capacitybuilding of all personnel involved with this task while creating inter-ministerial coordination mechanisms at the Centre and the State level for better convergence. The Working Group also wants the Ministry of Women and Child Development to strengthen the
National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and the State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) by undertaking institutional reform measures within the SCPCRs and augmenting both human and financial resources. It has also suggested reforms in teacher education and training for preparing and training teachers to handle discrimination and engaging with issues of identity, diversity, processes of social exclusion and inclusion. Grievance redress, it feels, should be done as far as possible in a non-adversarial manner through dialogue, training of school management committees and local authorities on discrimination and by evolving a time-bound and confidential way of resolution, in which civil society groups could be involved. However, if the non-adversarial route does not work, then it wants punitive action taken. ADB $100 million Loan to Provide Sustainable Urban Services in Five Uttarakhand Towns
and will be extended to cover in addition Haldwani, Roorkee and Ramnagar towns specially for improving the water supply infrastructure that will benefit about 800,000 residents. A comprehensive sewerage system will also be developed under the project, which will provide improved sanitation facilities to about 100,000 residents of Roorkee town. The project will address this objective and help alleviate infrastructure deficiencies, tap economic potential, and improve the living environment. The project will improve the quality life and employment opportunities for the people living in five project towns. It will also improve the ability of participating institutions to manage sector reforms and deliver better services. The contribution of tourism in the state economy is significant, so upgrades to key infrastructure will also help draw visitors and generate more employment opportunities. The second tranche loan from the ADB's Ordinary Capital Resources has a 25-year term including a grace period of five years, commitment charges of 0.15% and interest rate to be determined in accordance with ADB's LIBOR-based lending facility. The Government of India will provide counterpart funds of $42.86 million for a total second tranche project investment cost of $142.86 million. Asian Development Bank, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Established in 1966, it is owned by 67 members - 48 from the region.
Government of India has signed an agreement for a $100 million loan with Asian Development Bank (ADB) as second tranche of Uttarakhand Urban Sector Development Investment Program which will support rehabilitation and expansion of basic urban infrastructure in five major urban centers of Uttarakhand and ensure sustainable municipal service delivery. The project will supplement the urban infrastructure program already initiated under the first tranche in Dehradun, Haridwar and Nainital
[ 8 ] Weekly Current Affairs 28th January to 3rd February, 2013
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INTERNATIONAL
World Press Freedom Index 2013 The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders based upon the organization's assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year. A smaller score in the index corresponds to greater freedom of the press. This year's index is a better reflection of the attitudes and intentions of governments towards media freedom in the medium or long term. For the third year running, Finland has distinguished itself as the country that most respects media freedom. It is followed by the Netherlands and Norway. Although many criteria are considered, ranging from legislation to violence against journalists, democratic countries occupy the top of the index while dictatorial countries occupy the last three positions. Again it is the same three as last year - Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea. governments in their entirety as regards this key freedom In view of the emergence of new technologies and the interdependence of governments and peoples, the freedom to produce and circulate news and information needs to be evaluated at the planetary as well as national level. Today, in 2013, the media freedom "indicator" stands at 3395, a point of reference for the years to come. The indicator can also be broken down by region and, by means of weighting based on the population of each region, can be used to produce a score from zero to 100 in which zero represents total respect for media freedom. This produces a score of 17.5 for Europe, 30.0 for the Americas, 34.3 for Africa, 42.2 for Asia-Pacific and 45.3 for the former Soviet republics. Despite the Arab springs, the Middle East and North Africa region comes last with 48.5. The high number of journalists and netizens killed in the course of their work in 2012 (the deadliest year ever registered by Reporters Without Borders in its annual roundup), naturally had a significant impact on the ranking of the countries where these murders took place, above all Somalia (175th, -11), Syria (176th, 0), Mexico (153rd, -4) and Pakistan (159th, -8). ICJ asked Britain to explain acquisition of Diego Garcia
India has dropped nine places to 140th rank in the list of 179 countries because of increasing impunity for violence against journalists and because Internet censorship continues to grow. It is the lowest for the "world's biggest democracy" since 2002. China (173rd, +1) shows no sign of improving. Its prisons still hold many journalists and netizens, while increasingly unpopular Internet censorship continues to be a major obstacle to access to information. The Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders does not take direct account of the kind of political system but it is clear that democracies provide better protection for the freedom to produce and circulate accurate news and information than countries where human rights are flouted. In dictatorships, news providers and their families are exposed to ruthless reprisals, while in democracies news providers have to cope with the media's economic crises and conflicts of interest.
Coinciding with the release of its 2013 Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders for the first time has published an annual global "indicator" of worldwide media freedom. This new analytic tool measures the overall level of freedom of information in the world and the performance of the world's
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In a blow to the British government, the International Court of Justice in The Hague has asked Britain to explain its decision to acquire the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean from Mauritius in 1965 and sub-lease its biggest island Diego Garcia to the US, much to India's discomfort, especially during the 1971 Indo-Pak war when Washington tilted in favour of Islamabad. Diego Garcia is used by long range bombers belonging to the US Air Force and a staging post for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hearing will be on the basis of the UN law of the sea; and the final verdict will be binding on Britain. After purchasing the Chagos archipelago, of which Diego Garcia is a part, Britain forcibly evicted around 1,500 islanders - deporting them to Mauritius and Seychelles - to pave the way for the US base. The deportation of Chagos islanders is a matter of
alleged human rights violation and legal battles in British courts. A defeat for Britain at the ICJ could result in a return of the islanders to their original habitat. UK's flourishing tongues: Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati
The 2011 Census conducted by UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) has for the first time tried to see how well the population could speak English when this was not their main language. It showed English remained the main language for 92% (50m) residents aged 3 and over. The remaining 8% (4m) had a different main language, but most were proficient in English. The second most reported main language in England and Wales was Polish (1% - 546,000).
in Zangmu in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), which began to be built in 2010. One of the three approved new dams is bigger than the Zangmu project. A 640 MW dam will be built in Dagu, which lies 18 km upstream of Zangmu. Another 320 MW dam will be built at Jiacha, also on the middle reaches of the Brahmaputura downstream of Zangmu. A third dam will be built at Jiexu, 11 km upstream of Zangmu. The capacity of the Jiexu dam is, as yet, unconfirmed. The three projects were listed in the State Council's energy plan for the Twelfth Five Year Plan period (2011-15), which was released on January 23. The catchment area at the dam site, according to the Huadong Engineering Corporation, is 157,400 square kilometres, and the average annual discharge is 1010 cubic metres per second. The dam will be built with a height of 124 metres and 640 MW capacity. The construction of the Zangmu dam in 2010 had triggered concerns in India regarding possible impact on downstream flows. Chinese officials, however, assured their Indian counterparts that the project was only a run-of-theriver hydropower station, which would not divert the Brahmaputra's waters. The government has also built at least six smaller hydropower projects on the Yarlung Zangbo's tributaries which will have no impact on downstream flows. The government has, for now, shelved a longdiscussed plan to divert the Yarlung Zangbo's waters to the arid north, citing technical difficulties. The plan is part of the proposed Western route of the massive South-to-North diversion project, on which construction is yet to begin. However, with the three new approvals under the energy plan, four hydropower projects will now be built - all located within a few dozen kilometres of each other - on the main stream of the middle reaches of the Brahmaputra. While they are run-of-the-river projects, they will be required to store large volumes of water for generating power. Their construction is likely to trigger fresh concerns in India on how the flows of the Brahmaputra downstream will be impacted. China gets Pakistan's strategic Gwadar port Pakistan's cabinet formally agreed to hand over the operation of its strategically located Gwadar port from Singapore's PSA (Port of Singapore Authority) International to China's Overseas Port Holdings. This puts in place China's famed "string of pearls" strategy which may have significant implications for India.
For the first time three Indian tongues figured in the list of top six spoken languages spoken in Britain, with Punjabi being the third most common language used in England and Wales, after English and Polish. It is spoken by 2.73 lakh people. Bengali is the fifth commonest language followed by Gujarati, jointly spoken by 4.34 lakh people in England and Wales. Tamil took 12th spot with just over a lakh people using it as the main spoken language.
The top 10 languages included English, Polish, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Arabic, French, Chinese and Portuguese. The census revealed there were 49 main languages (spoken by groups of more than 15,000 people). The top 20 included five South Asian languages and nine European. Interestingly, 22,000 people used sign language. Of the 4 million residents aged 3 and over with a main language other than English, 1.7 million could speak English very well, 1.6 million well, and 726,000 not well. The remaining 138,000 could not speak English at all. China gives go-ahead Brahmaputra dams for three new
China has given the go-ahead for the construction of three new hydropower dams on the middle reaches of the Brahmaputra River, ending a two-year halt in approving new projects on the river amid concerns from India and environmental groups. China has, so far, only begun construction on one major hydropower dam on the main stream of the middle reaches of the Brahmaputra or Yarlung Zangbo as it is known in China - a 510 MW project
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In 2011, the Pakistani defence minister had announced in Beijing that Islamabad would transfer ownership to a Chinese company. China had demurred then, but despite the worsening security situation in Balochistan, the Chinese have apparently agreed to take it over. Gwadar was built by China but during its operation by PSA, it barely attracted any commercial traffic. There is also a lot of port development that remains to be built. Pakistan expects China to complete that construction in record time, given its past performance. More than that, Pakistan expects China to turn Gwadar into a naval base. For China, Gwadar could also be a conduit for energy flows into northwestern China, by transporting oil and gas from the port through pipelines that traverse Balochistan and the federal agencies to feed into China's Xinjiang province. As China's oil imports increase, it would prefer to insulate its energy flows from the turbulent waters of the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea. As China moves into the Indian Ocean, Gwadar port would be ideal as a staging ground for Chinese ships. China already has a steady presence in Sri Lanka's Hambantota port, it is wooing Maldives, though no port presence is planned yet. China is also building a port in Chittagong, Bangladesh, as well as Sonadiya, near Cox's Bazar. From the security point of view, India could find itself considerably constrained. New United Nations report calls Israeli settlements in Palestinian areas 'illegal'
occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem." The report states that settlements are established and developed for the exclusive benefit of Israeli Jews. They are maintained and advanced through a system of total segregation between the settlers and the rest of the population living in the OPT. This system of segregation is supported and facilitated by strict military and law enforcement control to the detriment of the rights of the Palestinian population. The report further states that Israel is committing serious breaches of its obligations under the right to self-determination and under humanitarian law. The magnitude of violations relating to Israel's policies of dispossessions, evictions, demolitions and displacements from land shows the widespread nature of these breaches of human rights. The motivation behind violence and intimidation against the Palestinians and their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands, allowing the settlements to expand. About 250 settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem have been established since 1967 either with or without Government authorization. The number of settlers is estimated at 520,000 (200,00018 in East Jerusalem and 320,000 in the rest of the West Bank. Over the past decade the settler population has grown at a much higher rate than the population in Israel itself with a yearly average growth of 5.3 per cent (excluding East Jerusalem), compared to 1.8 per cent in Israel. The establishment of the settlements in the West Bank including East Jerusalem is described by the report as "a mesh of construction and infrastructure leading to a creeping annexation that prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian State and undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination". The Mission also reported the continuing cases of violence by settlers against native Palestinians, including "physical assaults on the person, the use of knives, axes, clubs and other improvised weapons, as well as shootings and throwing Molotov cocktails". Between 1 July 2011 and 30 June 2012, Israeli settlers injured 147 Palestinians, including 34 children. Settler attacks on schools and harassment of children on their way to school is showing an upward trend since 2010.
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The report of the International Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) states that a multitude of the human rights of the Palestinians are violated in various forms and ways due to the existence of the settlements. These violations are all interrelated, forming part of an overall pattern of breaches that are characterized principally by the denial of the right to self-determination and systemic discrimination against the Palestinian people which occur on a daily basis. Thus an independent inquiry mandated by the United Nations has called on Israel to halt all settlement activity and to ensure accountability for the violations of the human rights of the Palestinians resulting from the settlements. The UN Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, dispatched the Mission in March 2012 "to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the
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One of the primary sources of livelihood for the Palestinian farmers is olives. To harass and hurt this valuable asset, Israeli settlers often target the olive trees. From 2005 to 2012 Yesh Din, a local NGO, monitored 162 investigations into vandalism against Palestinian trees with only one investigation leading to an indictment. Figures for 2012 (until mid-October) show that during this period over 7,500 trees were damaged or destroyed by settlers. The Mission also reported the wide spread policy of the Israelis to prevent Palestinians from going to their mosques or practicing holy rituals. Iran unveils domestically built-fighter jet
manufactured fighter-bomber that can even evade radar. The Qaher is one of several aircraft designs rolled out by the Iranian military since 2007. Qaher-313 is a fully indigenous aircraft designed and built by our aerospace experts. This is a radar-evading plane that can fly at low altitude, carry weapons, and engage enemy aircrafts and land at short airstrips The Islamic republic launched a self-sufficiency military programme in the 1980s to compensate for a Western weapons embargo that banned export of military technology and equipment to Iran. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles, torpedoes, drones and fighter planes.
[12] Weekly Current Affairs 28th January to 3rd February, 2013
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Iran has unveiled its newest combat jet the Qaher-313, or Dominant-313, a domestically
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ECONOMY
India launches G2B portal for business related information that banks have to park with RBI, would improve the availability of funds. Following the repo rate revision, the other policy rates like reverse repo, bank rate, and Marginal Standing Facility Rate too will come down by 0.25 per cent. These initiatives are aimed at encouraging investments, supporting growth and anchoring inflationary expectations. Inflation has been the prime inhibiting factor that has prevented the RBI from cutting repo rate in the last nine months. The RBI, however, has reduced the growth projections for the current financial year to 5.5 per cent from its earlier estimate of 5.8 per cent. On inflation, it moderated the rate to 6.8 per cent for March-end from earlier projection of 7.5 per cent. What is CRR? India ranks a poor 132nd among 185 countries in the International Finance Corporation's Ease of Doing Business index. Smaller countries, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have ranked higher in the index. To improve the business environment, India has launched its first Government-to-business portal to provide a round-the-clock, secure, one-stop-shop for all investment and business related information under the National eGovernance Plan.
This mission mode project will mark a paradigm shift in the Government's approach to providing G2B services for India's investor and business communities. The portal has been developed by Infosys in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. The project aims to create a business and investorfriendly ecosystem in India by making all business and investment related regulatory services across Central, State and local Governments available on a single portal, thereby obviating the need for an investor or a business to visit multiple offices or a plethora of Web sites. eBiz will create a 24x7 facility for information and services and will also offer joined-up services where a single application submitted by a customer for a number of permissions, clearances, approvals and registrations will be routed automatically across multiple governmental agencies in a logical manner. An inbuilt payment gateway will also add value by allowing all payments to be collected at one point and then apportioned, split and routed to the respective heads of account of central/ State along with generation of challans and MIS reports. RBI cuts policy rates by 0.25 pc
After a long gap of nine months, the Reserve Bank (RBI) has reduced the short-term lending rate by 0.25 per cent to 7.75 per cent and Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) by similar margin to 4 per cent thus released Rs 18,000 crores primary liquidity into the system. While repo rate cut will reduce the cost of borrowing for individuals and corporates, the reduction in CRR, which is the portion of deposits
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What is SLR?
Cash reserve Ratio (CRR) is the amount of funds that the banks have to keep with RBI. If RBI decides to increase the per cent of this, the available amount with the banks comes down. RBI is using this method (increase of CRR rate), to drain out the excessive money from the banks.
Statutory Liquidity Ratio is the amount of liquid assets, such as cash, precious metals or other approved securities, that a financial institution must maintain as reserves other than the Cash with the Central Bank What is Repo and Reverse Repo rate? A repurchase agreement is the sale of securities together with an agreement for the seller to buy back the securities at a later date. The repurchase price should be greater than the original sale price, the difference effectively representing interest, called the repo rate. The party that originally buys the securities effectively acts as a lender. The original seller is effectively acting as a borrower, using their security as collateral for a secured cash loan at a fixed rate of interest. A reverse repo is simply the same repurchase agreement from the buyer's viewpoint, not the
seller's. Hence, the seller executing the transaction would describe it as a "repo", while the buyer in the same transaction would describe it a "reverse repo". So "repo" and "reverse repo" are exactly the same kind of transaction, just described from opposite viewpoints. The term "reverse repo and sale" is commonly used to describe the creation of a short position in a debt instrument where the buyer in the repo transaction immediately sells the security provided by the seller on the open market. New Norms to judge PSUs merit for taking part in coal mine auction released
The proposed technical committee's recommendations would then be placed before an Inter Ministerial Panel, headed by Coal Secretary, for its final decision. The Coal Ministry's move is understood to have followed government auditor CAG's report estimating a whopping Rs 1.86 lakh crore potential loss to the exchequer due to allotment of blocks to 57 private firms without auction. First Revised Estimates of National Income, Consumption Expenditure, Saving and Capital Formation, 2011-12
The new eligibility criteria include: Demandsupply deficit, plant location and progress made in earlier awarded block, mining capability and the company's financials. The eligibility would be judged on a parameter of 20 marks in which the highest weightage of seven points has been given to demand-supply gap of the unit followed by five each on its financials and progress made in the earlier awarded block. The remaining three is for its mining capability.
As far as the marks with respect to demandsupply gap, this will not be applicable for central PSUs i.e. Ministry of Power, will provide the deficit position based on Central Electricity Authority derived norms to be confirmed by Ministry of Power/Planning Commission, as the case may be. Demand-supply deficit of the state PSUs has to be verified by the competent authority of the state government. If required, this may be referred to Planning Commission for their comments. After carrying out the scrutiny, a task force constituted by Coal India arm CMPDIL will prepare a comprehensive status incorporating details, coal block-wise and applicant-wise, to be submitted to the Coal Ministry. Coal Ministry will then seek various stakeholders' views including state governments and concerned ministries. CMPDIL's observations would again be reviewed by the Coal Ministry which would place it for reviewing before a technical committee, to be constituted with members drawn from Ministry of Power and Steel, Central Electricity Authority, DIPP and Planning Commission.
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Embroiled in controversy over the allocation of mines, the Coal Ministry has charted out a new set of guidelines to evaluate applications from government firms for assessing eligibility for taking part in competitive bidding.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released the First Revised estimates of National Income, Consumption Expenditure, Saving and Capital Formation for the financial year 2011-12. The salient features of the estimates at aggregate level, which are based on latest available information, are indicated below: GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT AND GROSS NATIONAL INCOME Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at factor cost at constant (2004-05) prices in 2011-12 is estimated at ` 52,43,582 crore as against ` 49,37,006 crore in 201011 registering a growth of 6.2 per cent during the year as against a growth of 9.3 per cent in the year 2010-11. At current prices, GDP in 2011-12 is estimated at ` 83,53,495 crore as against ` 72,66,967 crore in 2010-11, showing an increase of 15.0 per cent during the year, as against an increase of 19.0 per cent in the previous year. At constant (2004-05) prices, the Gross National Income at factor cost in 2011-12 is estimated at ` 51,96,848 crore as against ` 48,82,249 crore in 201011 showing a rise of 6.4 per cent during the year, as against an increase of 8.8 per cent in the previous year. At current prices, the Gross National Income in 2011-12 is estimated at ` 82,76,665 crore as compared to ` 71,85,160 crore in 2010-11, showing a rise of 15.2 per cent during the year, as against an increase of 18.4 per cent in the previous year. The growth rate of 6.2 per cent in the GDP during 2011-12 has been achieved due to growth in financing, insurance, real estate & business services (11.7%), transport, storage and communication (8.4%), electricity, gas & water supply (6.5%) and trade, hotels & restaurants (6.2%). At constant prices, the primary sector, i.e. agriculture, forestry & fishing has shown a growth of 3.6 per cent during 2011-12 as against 7.9 per cent during the year 2010-11. The
growth of secondary sector is 3.5 per cent and that of service sector is 8.2 per cent during 2011-12, as against a growth of 9.2 per cent and 9.8 per cent, respectively, in the previous year. CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE, SAVING AND CAPITAL FORMATION As various components of expenditure on Gross Domestic Product, namely, Consumption Expenditure and Capital Formation, are normally measured at market prices. PRIVATE FINAL CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE) at current prices is estimated at ` 50,56,219 crore in 2011-12 as against ` 43,49,889 crore in 2010-11. At constant (2004-05) prices, the PFCE is estimated at ` 33,34,900 crore in 2011-12 as against ` 30,88,880 crore in 2010-11. In terms of GDP at market prices, the rates of PFCE at current and constant (2004-05) prices during 2011-12 are estimated at 56.3 per cent and 59.2 per cent, respectively, as against the corresponding rates of 55.8 per cent and 58.3 per cent, respectively in 2010-11. DOMESTIC SAVING
corresponding estimates at constant (2004-05) prices are ` 27,745 and ` 26,045, registering an increase of 6.5% in 2011-12, as against an increase of 7.1% in the previous year. CST issue between Centre and States resolved
The Centre and states have resolved the contentious issue of Central Sales Tax compensation with the states; agreeing for a lower payment of Rs 34,000 crore for phasing out the Central Sales Tax, a precondition for rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). CST, a tax imposed on the interstate movement of goods, was reduced from 4% to 3% in 2007-08 and further to 2% in 2008-09 after the introduction of value-added tax (VAT). The centre had then promised the states that it would bear losses due to reduction of CST. The Empowered Committee set up by finance minister P Chidambaram to resolve the CST issue had suggested that the payment of Rs 34,000 crore be made to the states towards losses on account of phasing out of CST. According to the resolution the Centre would bear 100% of the loss accrued to states in 2010-11 fiscal on account of lowering of CST. However, for 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal, the Centre would give 75% and 50% of the losses to the states. The CST will be phased out totally after the introduction of GST, which was originally scheduled to be launched from April 2010. The GST rollout has missed several deadlines on account of differences over contentious issue of CST compensation and design of the GST structure between the states and the Centre. Introduced in the Lok Sabha in March 2011, GST Constitution Amendment Bill is with the standing committee on finance. Cabinet clears revival package for Scooters India
Gross Domestic Saving (GDS) at current prices in 2011-12 is estimated at ` 27,65,291 crore as against ` 26,51,934 crore in 2010-11, constituting 30.8% of GDP at market prices as against 34.0% in the previous year. The decrease in the rate of GDS has mainly been due to the decrease in the rates of financial savings of household sector from 10.4% to 8.0%, private corporate sector from 7.9% to 7.2% and that of public sector from 2.6% to 1.3% in 2011-12 as compared to 2010-11. ESTIMATES AT PER CAPITA LEVEL
The per capita income (per capita Net National Income at factor cost) in real terms, i.e. at 2004-05 prices, is estimated at ` 38,037 for 2011-12 as against ` 36,342 in 2010-11, registering an increase of 4.7 per cent during the year, as against an increase of 7.2% during the previous year. The per capita income at current prices is estimated at ` 61,564 in 2011-12 as against ` 54,151 for the previous year depicting a growth of 13.7 per cent, as against an increase of 17.1% during the previous year. The per capita PFCE at current prices in 2011-12 is estimated to be ` 42,065 as against ` 36,677 in the year 2010-11, showing an increase of 14.7% as against an increase of 15.7% in the previous year. The
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The Cabinet has approved the Rs 200-crore revival package for ailing public sector unit (PSU) Scooters India (SIL) on the recommendation of the Department of Heavy Industry. In 2011, the Cabinet had given approval to divesting government's entire 95.38 per cent stake in Scooters India to a private player through strategic route. But the Department of Heavy Industry had put on hold the strategic sale of ailing public-sector unit SIL.
Incorporated in 1972, SIL initially manufactured scooters under the brand name Vijai Super for the domestic market and Lambretta for overseas markets. Later, it ventured into the three-wheeler segment with the Vikram brand. In 1997, it stopped two-wheeler production and is now engaged in the manufacture and marketing of only three-wheelers. The automobile company, which has about 1,200 regular employees, has been incurring losses since 2002-03. In March 2009, the company was declared sick. SIL's net loss (before tax) stood at about Rs 20 crore during the 2011-12 fiscal. Growth hits 9-year low in 2011-12
The CSO had in February last year estimated GDP growth for 2011-12 at 6.9 per cent, but revised it later to 6.5 per cent in May. The downward revision of GDP estimate for 2011-12 could be attributed to the scaling down of services growth from 8.9 per cent to 8.2 per cent earlier. CSO has, however, raised agriculture and industry growth estimate to 3.6 per cent and 3.5 per cent, respectively. Agriculture was earlier estimated to have grown by 2.8 per cent and industry by 3.4 per cent. The CSO has also pegged the 2011-12 gross domestic savings at 30.8 per cent of GDP as compared to 34 per cent a year ago. Along with the first revised estimate for 201112, the CSO also came up with the second revised estimate for 2010-11 and third revised estimate for 2009-10. GDP growth estimate for 2010-11 has been revised upwards to 9.3 per cent from 8.4 per cent, and for 2009-10 to 8.6 per cent from 8.4 per cent earlier.
The revised GDP growth estimate of 6.2 per cent is the lowest in nine years after the 2002-03 nadir of 4 per cent.
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India's economic growth estimate for 2011-12 has been revised downward to 6.2 per cent from 6.5 per cent earlier. This has been reflected in the first revised estimate for 2011-12 (earlier called quick estimates) released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
INDIA AND THE WORLD

Cross-LoC trade, bus service to be resumed between India and Pakistan Both the nations have inked an extradition treaty and a friendlier visa regime. The Extradition Treaty will help to increase cooperation among law enforcing agencies of the two countries and to curb criminal activities. The RTA will ease the visa obtaining procedure and will promote people-topeople exchanges between the two countries. The new visa regime, named revised travel arrangement, proposes to remove restrictions on visits of businesspersons, students, patients, senior citizens above 65 years and children below 12 years. Businessmen would be given five-year multiple entry visa, while those travelling for medical purposes would be given two-year multiple entry visa along with visa to three attendants of a patient, under the proposals. During the meet both sides expressed satisfaction at the smooth operation of the Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP) and agreed to increase number of joint patrolling with a view to curbing criminal activities along the border. They expressed confidence that increased number of coordinated patrolling under the CBMP would enhance cooperation between the border guarding forces of the two countries, and enable them to manage the identified vulnerable areas with a view to preventing criminal activities, illegal movement, acts of violence and loss of lives along the border areas. Both sides agreed to allow development work within 150 yards of zero line. As an additional measure for better border management, both sides agreed to immediately start consultations between the District Commissioner and District Magistrate of border districts for resolving local issues. Both sides also agreed to further intensify the activities of the different nodal points in different areas of cooperation such as human trafficking, drugs, INTERPOL, etc. Both sides agreed to extend cooperation for apprehension of wanted criminals and fugitives and in this regard, Bangladesh Home Minister once again urged for immediate tracking, arresting, and handing over the killers of the father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
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Pakistan army had on 11th January refused to open the gates for allowing cross-LoC trade at Chakan-Da-Bagh crossing point in Poonch district resulting in stranding of 25 J-K trucks carrying goods mostly vegetables for traders in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Chakan-Da-Bagh crossing point was started in 2006 to facilitate easier trade and travel between divided families of Jammu and Kashmir and PoK. Cross-LoC trade and travel are considered as major confidence building exercises between India and Pakistan.
This was the second time that LoC travel and trade had come to a grinding halt after Pakistani Army refused to open gates in past 8 months. LoC trade had earlier come to a halt on 14th June last year due to closure of gates of Chakan-Da-Bagh border point in Poonch following LoC firing, shelling and ceasefire violations. It was resumed later on 14th July. The Poonch-Rawlakote'Carvan-e-Aman' bus service was also suspended on 11th June 2012 and resumed later on 17th July after the Brigade commander level meeting between Pakistani and Indian armies. India and Bangladesh ink extradition treaty
The 4th Home Ministers level talks between Bangladesh and India commenced at Dhaka. The Bangladesh delegation was led by Dr. Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, Minister, Ministry of Home Affairs whereas Indian delegation was led by Shri. Sushilkumar Shinde, Union Home Minister.
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Cross-border trade and bus service between India and Pakistan will resume along Chakan-da-Bagh crossing point in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir from 28 Jan 2013, after more than a fortnight-long suspension, following escalation in tension at the Line of Control over the brutal killing of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani troops.
14th Session of India - Australia Joint Ministerial Commission convenes in Delhi
The 14th Session of the India - Australia Joint Ministerial Commission convened in New Delhi. It was co-chaired by Shri Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles, India and the Dr. Craig Emerson MP, Australian Minister for Trade and Competitiveness and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Asian Century Policy. The Ministers welcomed the positive momentum in the India-Australia relationship, based on shared values, converging interests and growth in economic links. Both the nations has emphasised on the importance of closer trade and investment relations for the strategic partnership. The Ministers underlined the importance of a solid institutional framework to facilitate future growth in bilateral trade and investment. In this context, they have placed the priority on the conclusion of a mutually beneficial Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA); a comprehensive, high quality equitable agreement would broaden the base of merchandise trade, remove non-tariff barriers that impede trade in services, and facilitate and encourage investment. The Ministers welcomed the growth in the bilateral investment relationship and agreed on the importance of strong bilateral investment flows particularly in priority areas such as mining, advanced manufacturing, infrastructure, clean technology and tourism.
The Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to finding ways to break through the current impasse in the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations. They expressed disappointment that it had not been possible to conclude the Doha Development Agenda to date, but agreed on the importance of moving the process forward, particularly in the current global economic environment. They also agreed on the need to resist rising protectionist pressures. The Ministers acknowledged the critical importance of education and skills development in helping to achieve both countries` targets for innovation, productivity and economic growth and welcomed efforts underway to strengthen the bilateral knowledge partnership. In particular, they commended growing collaboration under the auspices of the Australia-India Education Council between India`s nascent Sector Skills Councils and Australia`s Industry Skills Councils on standards and approaches to vocational training. The Ministers highlighted research work underway to lift agricultural productivity and make crops more disease-resistant. The two Ministers recognized the potential for greater focus and collaboration in food security, including through enhanced agricultural trade and investment. Indian delegate encouraged greater Australian investment in the Indian agriculture sector, including for cold chains and storage and logistics management of agriculture and horticultural produce. They noted the significant growth in the bilateral agricultural cooperation, including the establishment and first meeting of the Joint Working Group on Agriculture held in New Delhi in September and the proposed first meeting of the Joint Working Group on Wool and Woollen products in February 2013. They announced plans for Australia and India to host a regional Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) workshop in 2013. They also commended the work by both countries in improving market access for meat and horticultural products. The Ministers agreed on the important role of people-to-people links in the expanding bilateral relationship. The Ministers felt that direct flights between India and Australia would provide a further boost to bilateral engagement. The Ministers agreed that the next Joint Ministerial Commission will be held in Australia in 2014.
The Ministers has also welcomed the launch of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations towards a modern, comprehensive, high quality, and mutually beneficial regional economic partnership agreement. During the meet, they have discussed their mutual commitment to strengthening the East Asia Summit (EAS) as a forum that incorporated all the major economies in the India-Pacific region. Further the Ministers underlined their commitment to reinforce the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), both during India`s remaining period as chair and Australia`s two year term as chair from November 2013. In particular, they commended the work being done in IOR-ARC on trade facilitation, customs cooperation and business-to-business cooperation, as useful practical steps towards greater regional trade and economic cooperation.
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India and Spain Agrees to Enhance Cooperation in the Field of Renewable Energy
Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Minister for New & Renewable Energy met Spanish delegation led by Ms. Carmen Vela Olmo, Minister of State for Research, Development and Innovation. Both the leaders agreed to enhance research, cooperation and technologies in the field of Renewable Energy. Besides, research projects in the area of forecasting of wind power and fabrication of cost effective solar cells will be considered for financing by the Indian and Spanish governments. During the meet, the two ministers also agreed to initiate a second call for research proposals so as to encourage joint research and development activities between research institutions as well as industry groups of both the countries. The joint Indo-Spanish programme for Technological cooperation in Renewable Energy was developed as a consequence of the visit of the Minister of New & Renewable Energy, to Spain last year. Following the signing of the agreement in May, 2012, a joint call for project proposals was published which included proposals on various aspects on Renewable Energy involving industry and R & D institutions in both the countries and covering all aspects of Renewable Energy. India is the fifth largest country in the world in terms of wind power installed capacity. In addition, India's National Solar Mission aims to facilitate the installation of 20000 MW of grid connected power capacity by 2020. Spain is the 4th largest producer of wind generated power and is top-ranked worldwide in terms of photovoltaic solar power capacity. Legislation for doubling H-1B visa, make Green Card easier
A bipartisan group of top US Senators has introduced a legislation in the Senate aiming at several changes in immigration norms, including doubling of H-1B visa cap and establishing a marketbased escalator. The other proposed measures include recapturing of unused Green Card numbers, eliminating country cap and recommending a series of new provisions to provide legal permanent residency to talented and brilliant. Introduced by Senators Marco Rubio, Orrin Hatch, Amy Klobuchar, the Immigration Innovation (I2) Act of 2013 proposes to increase H-1B cap from
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65,000 to 115,000 and establish a market-based H-1B escalator, so that the cap can adjust to the demands of the economy. The bill includes a 300,000 ceiling on the ability of the escalator to move. If the cap is hit in the first 45 days when petitions may be filed, an additional 20,000 H-1B visas will be made available immediately. If it is hit in the first 60 days when petitions may be filed, an additional 15,000 H-1B visas will be made available immediately and if the cap is hit in the first 90 days when petitions may be filed, an additional 10,000 H-1B visas will be made available immediately. In case the cap is hit during the 185-day period ending on the 275th day on which petitions may be filed, and additional 5,000 H-1B will be made available immediately, the bill proposes and calls for uncapping the existing US advanced degree exemption (currently limited to 20,000 per year). The legislation focuses on areas vital to keep US competitiveness intact in the global economy. It proposes increased access to Green Cards for high-skilled workers by expanding the exemptions and eliminating the annual per country limits for employment based Green Cards. The legislation also aims at reforming the fees on H-1B and Green Cards so those fees can be used to promote American worker retraining and education. India, Gibraltar sign Tax Information Exchange Agreement
India and Gibraltar have signed a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) that calls for the transparent sharing of information. The Agreement was signed by Jaimini Bhagwati, High Commissioner of India to the UK from Indian side and Gilbert Licudi QC, Minister with the responsibility of Financial Services, Gibraltar on behalf of Gibraltar. This is the 13th TIEA being signed by India. So far India has signed TIEAs with Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Jersey, Macau, Liberia, Argentina, Guernsey, Bahrain and Monaco. As per the agreement, based on international standard of transparency and exchange of information, information must be foreseeably relevant to the administration and enforcement of the domestic laws of the Contracting Parties concerning taxes covered by the agreement. It also
provides for tax examination abroad and has specific provisions for providing banking and ownership information. The salient features of the agreement also say that the requesting state has to provide some minimum details about the information requested in order to justify the foreseeable relevance criteria. Information is to be treated as secret and can be disclosed to only specified person or authorities, who are tax authorities or the authorities concerned
with the determination of tax appeal. It also provides for the use of information for non tax purposes with the written consent of the Competent Authority of the requested Party. There is a specific provision that the requested Party shall provide upon request the information even though that Party may not need such information for its own tax purposes. The agreement also provides for exchange of past information in criminal matters.
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CSIR-OSDD Collaborates with the Royal Society of Chemistry In pursuit of common aims and to raise awareness of the importance of Cheminformatics to accelerate the discovery of novel therapies for neglected diseases like TB and Malaria, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which provides scientific and industrial R&D that maximises the economic, environmental and societal benefits for the people of India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between its Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) initiative and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the largest European organization for advancing chemical sciences. RSC's activities span education, conferences, science policy, development of chemical applications and the promotion of chemistry to the public. The MoU, spanning three years, aims to address the objective of finding novel, fasteracting, and more effective regimens for TB and Malaria by advancing the discipline of Cheminformatics. The collaboration envisions conducting workshops and conferences to build links between experts and leaders in the coming years and will focus on jointly building an online repository of real and virtual molecular structures along with developing free-to -use software tools for drug discovery and development. The partnership also aims at exploring the possibility of advancing OSDD's e-learning program for students. Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) is an initiative funded and led by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. OSDD is a team India consortium with global partnership with a vision to provide affordable healthcare to the developing world to solve the complex problems associated with discovering novel therapies for diseases like Tuberculosis, Malaria and Leishmaniasis. Global Research Team Decodes Gene Sequence of Chickpea and disease resistance, and enhanced genetic diversity. The research milestone was the result of years of genome analysis by the International Chickpea Genome Sequencing Consortium led by the International Crops Research Institute for the SemiArid Tropics (ICRISAT). The project team had 49 scientists from 23 organizations in 10 countries, including ICAR from India. The global research partnership succeeded in identifying - 28,269 genes of kabuli variety of chickpea. Re-sequencing of additional 90 chickpea types provided millions of genetic markers. This has great potential in developing drought tolerant and disease resistant varieties of this important pulse crop. Chickpea or gram is the second largest pulse crop in the world, grown in about 11.5 million hectares. It is grown mostly by poor farmers and in dry areas. It is highly nutritious. While India is the largest producer (also importer and consumer) of chickpea, it is grown in a number of African countries including Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya. Chickpea is also an important component of the pulse industry in Australia, Canada and USA. Water flow on Mars hints at ancient life
A global research team has completed highquality sequencing of not one but ninety genomes of chickpea (gram / chana) that promises improved grain yields and quality, greater drought tolerance
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A new study hints at the possibilities that narrow ridges found in Martian craters may actually be fossilized remnants of underground cracks through which water once flowed on the red planet. Water flowing beneath the surface of ancient Mars suggests life may once have been possible on the Red planet. The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, bolsters the idea that the subsurface environment on Mars once had an active hydrology and could be a good place to search for evidence of past life. The study suggests that the ridges, many of them hundreds of metres in length and a few metres wide, had been noted in previous research, but how they had formed was not known. Water, if present in the subsurface, would have circulated through the cracks, slowly filling them in with mineral deposits, which would have been
harder than the surrounding rocks. As those surrounding rocks eroded away over millions of years, the seams of mineral-hardened material would remain in place, forming the ridges seen today. Using high-resolution images from Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the researchers noted the orientations of the ridges and composition of the surrounding rocks. The orientation data is consistent with the idea that the ridges started out as fractures formed by impact events. Importantly, researchers also found that the ridges exist exclusively in areas where the surrounding rock is rich in iron-magnesium clay, a mineral considered to be a telltale sign that water had once been present in the rocks. Iran successfully sends monkey into space
in mobile labs show that the cells are actively using oxygen. It may take months for biologists to identify the microbes present. The microbes have been sealed off below the ice for at least 100,000 years. Lake Whillans sits in a shallow cavity at the downstream end of a slow-moving sheet of ice. The deep liquid streams that feed this and more than 340 other subglacial lakes across Antarctica also lubricate the ice above. Geothermal energy, along with friction and a heavy blanket of ice, keeps the water liquid in this frigid land. Pulsar behaviour defies theories
Iran recently claimed to have sent a monkey into space. The primate travelled in a Pishgam rocket, which reached an altitude of some 120km (75 miles) for a sub-orbital flight before "returning its shipment intact".
Western nations have expressed concern that Iran's space programme is being used to develop long-range missiles, which could be later used to develop missiles that could potentially be used to carry nuclear warheads, whereas Iran denies it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and insists its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes. Later Iran claimed that the monkey has returned safely from space over which many people expressed skepticism.
The Iranian Space Agency is Iran's governmental space agency. Iran is an active participant in the Asian space race and became an orbital-launchcapable nation in 2009.
According to Iranian manned space program, the first sub-orbital spaceflight with an Iranian on board will take place by 2016 at an altitude below 200 kilometers as preparation for the eventual orbital spaceflight. Experts are looking at this launch from Iran in light of these plans. Life found deep below Antarctic ice
Cells containing DNA have emerged as the first evidence of life in a subglacial lake in West Antarctica. A U.S. research team retrieved water from Lake Whillans, which sits 800 meters below the ice surface. The water hosted a surprising bounty of living cells. The scientists collected three 10-liter water samples from the lake. Preliminary tests conducted
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Unlike pulsars that emit either at X-ray or radio frequencies, a pulsar located 3,500 light years away has been found emitting both radio and X-ray radiation in sync. When a star heavier than our Sun by eight to 50 times runs out of hydrogen, it blows away its outermost layers of gas in a supernova explosion and undergoes a gravitational collapse. The remnant of this is a core of neutrons called a neutron star - usually around 20 km across, densely compacted and highly magnetised. When the neutron star is spinning, it emits strong radiation from its poles which can be detected only when it is pointed towards the Earth. Because of the spin, these emissions point at Earth periodically, making it appears as though the neutron star is pulsating. For this reason, spinning neutron stars are called pulsars. An international team of scientists working on the LOFAR telescope in the Netherlands and the GMRT telescope near Pune, India, announced a strange behaviour of a pulsar PSR B0943+10. Located 3,500 light years from Earth, PSR B0943+10 has been known since the 1980s to emit radiation in the radio frequency. Pulsars usually emit radiation at radio or X-ray frequencies exclusively, although ones emitting purely gamma radiation have also been found. Some other pulsars also switch modes, emitting brightly for some time and weakly for the some other time, within seconds. While this behaviour has been known for some time, a self-consistent theory to explain it still eludes astrophysicists. However, for the first time ever, a pulsar, PSR B0943+10, has been observed switching between two different modes of radiation - X-ray and radio within a second. The X-ray mode showed itself when the radio mode had weakened. Also, anomalous weak radio signals were observed when the pulsar was in the bright X-ray mode.
The team also found that the X-ray emission seemed thermal in origin. This suggests that a temporary "hotspot" appears close to the pulsar's magnetic pole which switches on and off as the pulsar flips. Hideout of dormant TB bacteria found
Detailed information is scarce on supermassive black holes, thought to be at the heart of most galaxies. The problem is that most other supermassive black holes are too far away to examine properly even with the Hubble Space Telescope. The new method, when combined with new telescopes such as ALMA (Attacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array), promises to extend this black hole 'weigh-in' to thousands of distant galaxies. It will also enable the study of black holes in spiral galaxies (similar to our own Milky Way), which are hard to target using currently available techniques. The team demonstrated the new technique on the supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy, NGC 4526, in the constellation of Virgo. NGC 4526 was chosen as a test because it has been widely studied but the team believes the technique will work on a wide range of different galaxies. The team observed carbon monoxide molecules in the galaxy they were monitoring using the Combined Array for Research in Millimetre-wave Astronomy (CARMA) telescope. With its supersharp images they were able to zoom right into the centre of the galaxy and observe the gas whizzing around the black hole. The gas (carbon monoxide) moves at a speed which is determined by the black hole's mass, and the distance from it. By measuring the velocity of the gas at each position, the mass of the black hole can be measured. Now with this new technique and telescopes like ALMA it would be possible to examine the relationship between thousands of more distant galaxies and their black holes giving an insight into how galaxies and black holes co-evolve. Proton's radius revised downward
The hiding place of dormant tuberculosis bacteria in humans has been finally found. The remarkable study published in the Science Translational Medicine journal unequivocally demonstrates that a particular kind of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (CD271{++}CD45{+-}) provide a safe shelter for the dormant TB bacteria.
In fact, the stem cells have an efficient way of removing TB drugs that can kill the bacteria, thus providing the bacteria a perfect environment to remain viable for extended periods of time.
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis typically attacks the lungs, but can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections are asymptomatic and latent, but about one in ten latent infections eventually progresses to active disease which, if left untreated, kills more than 50% of those so infected. Around 30% of all TB deaths all over the world occur in India. In 2011 around 3,00,000 people died due the disease in India. New technique to measures mass of black holes
Scientists have developed a new technique of measuring the mass of Supermassive black holes which they say could revolutionise our understanding of how they form and help to shape galaxies. The method, developed by a team including Oxford University scientists, can spot the tell-tale tracer of carbon monoxide within the cloud of gas (mostly hydrogen) circling a supermassive black hole at the centre of a distant galaxy. By detecting the velocity of the spinning gas they are able to 'weigh' (determine the mass) the black hole.
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Recurrence of TB after successful drug treatment remains a big challenge in controlling the disease. Recurrence could have occured either due to reactivation of the dormant TB bacteria residing somewhere inside the body or through reinfection. Several studies have shown that more than reinfection, it is the reactivation that causes disease recurrence. Hence management to prevent reactivation is essential. But the precise location where the bacteria hide was not known.
A new measurement finds that the proton is about 4 percent smaller than previous experiments suggest. For years, physicists have used two indirect methods to determine the size of the proton. They can fire an electron beam at protons and measure how far the flying particles get deflected. Alternatively, physicists can study the behavior of electrons in hydrogen atoms. They shoot a laser at an atom so that the one electron jumps to a higher, unstable energy level; when the electron returns to a low-energy state, it releases X-rays whose frequency depends on the size of the proton. Both
methods suggest the proton has a radius of about 0.88 femtometers, or 0.88 quadrillionths of a meter. That measurement was not in doubt until 2010, when physicists at ETH Zurich developed a new technique to probe proton size. They also used hydrogen atoms, but replaced the electrons with muons - particles similar to electrons but more than 200 times as massive. Muons' additional heft enhances their interaction with protons and makes their behavior more dependent on proton size. After measuring the X-rays emitted by muons shifting between energy states, the team published a paper in Nature saying that the proton radius is 0.84 femtometers - about 4 percent less than previous estimates. Now, two-and-a-half years later, the team has reexamined muon-containing hydrogen and measured the X-ray frequencies resulting from two energy level shifts. Both emissions yielded the same, slimmed-down value for the size of the proton. The new study eliminates the possibility of certain systematic errors and reduces the measurement's uncertainty by 40 percent.
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City heat affects weather in distant places According to a new study, heat generated by everyday activities in major cities affects temperatures across thousands of kilometres, significantly warming some areas and cooling others. The 'waste heat' generated from buildings, cars, and other sources in major Northern Hemisphere urban areas causes winter warming across large areas of northern North America and northern Asia. The study found that temperatures in some remote areas increase by as much as 1C. At the same time, the changes to atmospheric circulation caused by waste heat cool areas of Europe by as much as 1C. The net effect on global mean temperatures is nearly negligible - an average increase worldwide of just 0.01 C. This is because the total human-produced waste heat is only about 0.3% of the heat transported across higher latitudes by atmospheric and oceanic circulations. The waste heat is also changing atmospheric circulation, including jet streams - powerful narrow currents of wind that blow from west to east and north to south in the upper atmosphere. In the new study, the researchers looked at "urban heat", produced directly by transportation, heating and cooling units, and other energy-consuming activities.
2 - MARKERS
India Hands Over Dornier Surveillance Aircraft to Seychelles The Defence Minister Shri A. K. Antony has handed over Dornier surveillance aircraft to the Foreign Minister of Seychelles Mr. Jean Paul Adam. The maritime surveillance aircraft will be used to guard the extensive coastline of the island nation in the Indian Ocean. The Dornier 228 manufactured by the defence public sector undertaking, the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) will also be supported by the HAL team for maintenance on site to enable the new user to get the requisite expertise. the Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan, has organized 16th National Conference on eGovernance on 11 - 12 February, 2013 in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The National Conference on e-Governance provides a platform to policy makers, practitioners, industry leaders and academia to deliberate, interact and recommend actionable strategies. To recognise and promote excellence in implementation of eGovernance initiatives, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Government of India, presents National Awards for e-Governance every year. Categories of Awards are: A) Excellence in engineering Government Process Re-
The DO-228 is a highly reliable, multi-purpose, fuel efficient, rugged, light weight twin turbo prop aircraft with a retractable tricycle landing gear. It is a frontline surveillance platform for applications like maritime reconnaissance, intelligence warfare, search and rescue, pollution control and transport. Taiwan tycoon launches Asia's Nobel-type prizes
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B) Exemplary Horizontal Transfer of ICT-based Best Practice C) Outstanding Performance in Citizen-Centric Service Delivery D) Innovative Usage e-Governance of Technology in
A Taiwanese tycoon has launched Asia's Nobel Prizes for outstanding achievements in natural and social sciences. The award has been named as Tang Prize Foundation with an initial endowment of $103 million (618-907 AD Tang Dynasty is revered by Chinese for its cultural and scientific achievements).
E) Exemplary Usage of ICT by PSUs F) Best Government Portal G) Sectoral Award (Focus Sector - Social Sector Programs) Army finally gets Annandale Ending the three-decade-long tussle over the historic Annandale ground, the Himachal Pradesh government has given it to the Army. The previous regime had proposed to take it over for building a multi-crore cricket stadium. The Annandale ground was taken over by the Army during World War-II to be used as a training camp. Since then it's used for operational and logistic activities. The lease had expired in 1982. Whereas the Army maintained that the ground was required for carrying out drills for disaster management and highlighted its need for national security. John Kerry sworn in as U.S. Secretary of State
The prizes will be awarded every other year to international leaders in biopharmaceutical science, sustainable development, the study of China and the rule of law. Winners will receive $1.7 million, compared to $1.2 million that comes with a Nobel prize. The Tang Prize winners will be nominated and screened by special committees set up by the Academia Sinica, Taiwan's most prestigious research organization. National Awards for E-Governance
The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Government of India, in association with the Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India and
John Kerry, the veteran American politician and 2004 presidential candidate, has been sworn in
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as the U.S. Secretary Hillary Clinton.
of
State,
replacing
Vietnam War veteran, Mr. Kerry played a key role in shaping the country's foreign policy and national security and on a range of issues including Afghanistan and Pakistan, nuclear non-proliferation, and global climate change. As Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, in 2010, Mr. Kerry was instrumental in renewing the New START Treaty, a vital nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia that helps steer both countries away from dangerous nuclear confrontations. IAF's first Swiss Pilatus trainer aircraft arrives in India
rookie pilots has been landed at Jamnagar in Gujarat. The fleet of 75 aircraft will help in replacing the fleet of HPT-32 basic trainers which were grounded after a fatal crash in 2009. The IAF is procuring the aircraft together with an integrated ground based training system and a comprehensive logistics support package. The IAF is also planning to seek more Pilatus trainer aircraft from the Swiss firm which could see another 100 aircraft being procured from there. According to the contract, Pilatus will also do a transfer of technology to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for maintenance of the fleet for the next 30 years. Pilatus will also do offsets to the tune of 30 per cent of the deal which would be close to around Rs 800 crore.
The first of the 75 Swiss Pilatus trainer aircraft procured by the IAF under Rs 2,800 crore to train its
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EDITORIALS
Justice to juveniles: Categorisation is required for the brutal The police could not file the charge sheet against the sixth accused in the Delhi gangrape case as he claimed to be a minor. According to his schoolleaving certificate, he is short of 18 years by a few months that puts him in the category of juveniles, and he can be tried under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, which defines every child below 18 as a juvenile. a juvenile irrespective of sex. India adopted it in 1992, and so, the JJ Act, 1986, was replaced by a new Act in 2000 that defined both boys and girls below 18 years as juveniles. Under it, Model Rules were formulated in 2007. According to rule 12, documentary evidence of age gets priority over the medical test. The reasoning was that the medical test is not foolproof either, and there is a possibility of variation of two years, above or below, of the real age. So, the documentary evidence is to be relied upon unless it is shown to be forged. There is a spurt in crimes committed by juveniles and many of them are repeat offenders. But an offence committed by a juvenile is considered 'an act of innocence'. According to the IPC, everyone between seven and 18 years is a juvenile who is not sentenced but reformed. Even judges, lawyers and policemen do not go to the JJB in uniforms so that the juvenile delinquent does not get the impression of being tried. The horrific crime committed by the juvenile accused in the instant case can, by no means, be called an act of innocence. It is true that, if found a juvenile, he cannot be awarded a harsher punishment as an amendment to a criminal law cannot be applied retrospectively. But the future is to be secured. Those opposing any amendment to reduce the age adduce the logic of broken homes and commiserate with the juvenile accused on the ground that the state failed to give them protection earlier. They also ratiocinate that the law should not be made or changed as a kneejerk reaction to one incident. The logic of broken homes in many cases is not true. Further, today's children are different and mature quite early due to huge exposure to the world, thanks to the communication revolution. They are not innocent like those children of 1919 who Cardew saw being exploited in prisons. Even the prisons are more open and anything happening inside cannot be suppressed for long. The leniency in punishment has led to increase in crimes committed by minors. Not only that, they are even being used by hardened criminals for
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According to the police, he was the "most brutal" among the six rapists. If tried under the JJ Act, he may be let off within a few months as the maximum punishment under the Act is imprisonment of three years, but the child has to be kept in an observation home and is entitled to bail. The possibility of the accused going scot free in a few months has led to an overwhelming demand to amend the law to make it tougher and reduce the age of a juvenile in its definition from 18 to 16 or even 14 years. The need to treat children differently from general criminals was highlighted for the first time by the report of the Indian Jail Committee, 1919-20, headed by A G Cardew. The report, considered a watershed in the history of jail reforms, said that child prisoners were being subjected to various kinds of exploitations, including sexual, and so, needed to be kept and tried separately. Pursuant to it, the Madras government enacted the child Act in 1921 and then several states followed suit. But it was only a state legislation.
India ratified the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice ('The Beijing Rules') adopted by General Assembly resolution of 40/33 of November 29, 1985, and this led to the enactment of a central legislation for children, the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986. In this Act, the definition of a juvenile was gender-based: below 18 for girls but 16 years for boys. The distinction was based on the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that girls need longer protection. However, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, defined everyone below 18 years as
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murders and kidnappings. Even if the definition is not changed to reduce the age of juveniles, there is an urgent need to make different categories of juveniles as there is a big gap between seven and 18. In the UK, those between 10 and 18 are juveniles but there are three categories: between 10 and 14, between 14 and 16, and between 16 and 18 years. Children in the age group of 10-14 years face welfare proceedings and those above 14 face justice proceedings. The UK was also forced to enact the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994, after the incident of the abduction and murder of a young child, James Bulger, by two 10-year-old boys. A new law was made introducing tougher punishments for young offenders. India also needs to do something like this. But it also must be ensured that every child gets proper protection of law. Source: Economic Times Afrighanistan?
Mali's ghost The origins of the conflict that has captured the headlines are not, primarily, either regional or global but local. Since time immemorial, lawlessness and violence have had a toehold in and around the vast Sahara desert and the terrain that stretches eastward across to Somalia in the Horn of Africa. But in the past few years the anarchy has worsened-especially since the fall of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi in late 2011, when arms flooded across the region's porous borders. Hostage-taking, cash from ransoms, smuggling, drug-trafficking and brigandage have bolstered an array of gang leaders. Some of them, waving the banner of Islam, have seized on legitimate local grievances fuelled by poverty, discrimination and the mismanagement of corrupt governments. In northern Nigeria an extreme Islamist group calling itself Boko Haram ("Western teachings are sinful") recruits ill-educated, jobless and angry Muslim youngsters to wage a campaign of violence and murder. In Mali the nomadic Tuareg in the northern half of the country have long been marginalised. The jihadists latched on to an ethnic revolt, promptly sweeping its leaders aside. Elsewhere, in such countries as Ethiopia and Kenya, they have cynically widened old fault-lines between Muslims and Christians, who have in the past generally cohabited peacefully. Many of these groups give themselves a global gloss. The jihadists who attacked the Algerian gas plant came from such places as Tunisia, Mali and Niger-the Algerian authorities say they even included at least one Canadian. North African Islamists look for inspiration, if not direction, to global jihadists like al-Qaeda. Some get extra money from sponsors in Saudi Arabia and other sources in the oil-rich Gulf. A loose fraternity echoes the message of hostility toward the West and its friends in Africa and beyond. As al-Qaeda comes under pressure in the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan and in parts of Yemen and Somalia, some of its people, seeking new refuge, may fetch up in the region. Despite these links, though, the direct threat is overwhelmingly local. Ask the townspeople of Timbuktu, who suddenly fell under the handchopping puritanism of strict sharia law, or the victims of a foreign-trained bomb-maker in Nigeria, or the people of Somalia, only now, with the Shabab militia in retreat, beginning to put their lives back
AFTER 11 years spent waging war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, almost $1.5 trillion in direct costs and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the Western public feels it has learned a hard lesson. It is more convinced than ever that even the bestintentioned foreign intervention is bound to bog its armies down in endless wars fighting invisible enemies to help ungrateful locals. Echoes of Afghanistan rang loud earlier this month when French forces swooped on advancing columns of Islamists threatening the Saharan state of Mali. And they were heard again, a few days later, when a unit of bearded, gun-toting jihadists from the "Signed-in-Blood Battalion" seized a gas plant and slaughtered dozens of foreigners in nextdoor Algeria-more than in any single Islamist terror attack since the bombing of a Bali nightclub in 2002. Here, it seemed, was the next front of the global war on terror and also a desert quagmire to entrap vainglorious Western leaders.
Yet all wars are different. The lessons from one campaign need not map neatly onto the next. Looking at the arc of instability, stretching from Somalia and Sudan in the east through Chad to Mali in the west, as if it were just another Iraq or Afghanistan, is misleading. It is also, if it discourages outsiders from helping defuse dangerous conflicts, harmful. Though intervention always holds dangers, in Africa it need be neither so long-drawn-out as in Baghdad and Kabul nor so hopeless.
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together. But global jihad radicalises young Muslims, lending their local grievances a dangerous new edge. Poorly trained security services feed the insurgency with their brutality. As in Kenya, where Somali refugees have fed tensions between Muslims and Christians, the conflict in one country tends to spill over next door. Over the years a radicalised, armed and trained Islamist insurgency could do immense damage in a fragile part of the world. The right lesson For those who have learned to doubt the wisdom of most intervention, this argument points to a simple conclusion: keep out. Yet for a host of reasons what happens in the Sahara is also the world's business. The region is a big producer of oil and gas. Shutting foreign businesses out of large parts of north Africa would be a real loss-one reason why Franois Hollande sent troops into Mali was to protect at least 6,000 French citizens living there. Somalia's lawlessness led to piracy across the Indian Ocean. North African jihadists would struggle to mount a campaign of terror in Europe or America just now, but that might change one day if they controlled the resources of an entire country. Better to keep them stuck in the desert. Beyond self-interest is the fact that short, sharp intervention can lighten the misery of millions of people. French paratroops helped end civil strife in Cte d'Ivoire in 2011. A few thousand British soldiers, having secured Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, in 2000, helped end a dreadful civil war there too. So long as African troops and a sustained programme of development are available for deployment when the battle has been won, intervention can work. That message is especially important for Barack Obama. His outgoing secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has acknowledged the threats. Mr Obama's response to Mr Hollande's request for American help in Mali has been cool, tardy and, so far, inadequate. The Germans, too, have shown little enthusiasm for helping.
What the middle class wants
In the long run, the Sahara will become stable only when it becomes more prosperous. Much of the rest of Africa is starting to enjoy that prospect. Most of Africa's large and growing number of Muslims are hostile to jihad. Western governments would be making a grave mistake if they invoked the difficulties of intervention as an excuse for abandoning them now. Source: The Economist
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The reforms of the 1990s accelerated the growth of income and poverty reduction, demonstrating the virtues of a competitive market economy powered by entrepreneurship. Consequently, India has moved over the last decade from being a low income democracy to a lower middle income one. The stirrings observed in Delhi during the past two years are a precursor of the emerging middle class, and political demands for better governance are likely to follow. The middle class has historically grown in every country along with income, and has demanded, and got, better governance in every (now) developed country. This process has been accelerated in India by the early establishment of democracy and a flourishing media. The anti-corruption agitation of 2011, and the public outpouring of support for it, was a precursor. The common Delhi resident's passionate outrage was less about the specific scam allegations relating to the CWG and telecom and more about the basic mistreatment of citizens by the government service providers (water, power, police, MCD). The new middle class, which has had a taste of freedom and equality in the marketplace, was fed up with the arrogance of local government functionaries and the humiliating treatment meted out by corrupt and self-serving officials, while their bureaucratic and political bosses hypocritically claimed to be "servants of the people." The protests were an expression of outrage against the inequality between the government as service provider and the general public on the other side of the counter. Though both events would have been damp squibs without media attention, underlying them is a cry for attention to the citizen's personal security and equal treatment to all, men and women, rulers and the ruled. The 23-year-old woman who was gangraped migrated with her parents to Delhi from a village in Ballia district in eastern UP. She was training to be a physiotherapist, acquiring a skill that would earn her a decent income. She represented the dream of numerous families, including those who protested on the streets: women of all ages, income classes, castes and work categories, who saw something of themselves in her. She was the child of the new era of economic opportunity. From the many definitions of "middle class", I would emphasise the two most common shared elements: a level of income that is above the level
needed for survival (including savings for emergencies), and a level of education and skills necessary to earn the posited level of income. The education has to be at a quality-level to make the individual aware of the world beyond the immediate environment. This awareness is essential for making an empathetic connection between one's own selfish concerns and the concerns of other, similarly placed individuals. Thus, the third element is usually a set of shared values that, to varying degrees, are common to the "middle class". To be a part of the (lower) middle class, you have to have sufficient education to be aware of issues and elements that are outside the ambit of the skills needed for your job and to navigate the space that you inhabit, but not necessarily educated to a level that makes one capable of participating in debates about these issues or deriving solutions to social or economic problems. That is a criterion for classification in the middle class intelligentsia.
Is there a key "middle class value"? There are two values that support each other. One, that as a human being, one has a fundamental right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Two, an understanding and appreciation of true equality, that it is universal and indivisible. That is, if I have this right, then all individuals must have this right, and that the only way I can truly have and preserve this right is for all others to have the same right. Practically, this translates into a demand for equality of opportunity and equality of treatment. The competitive market economy embodies these ideals to a much greater degree than the hierarchical and segmented Indian society or the self-centered politico-bureaucratic system that now constitutes the ruling class. The fast growth unleashed by the 1991 reforms has created a demand for education and skills with which to earn income. It has also shown the current and potential members of the middle class that a market economy cares primarily about skills and competence when it is seeking to get a job done, and about the money you want to spend on its products as a consumer, and much less, if at all, about your caste, class or family background. Therefore, this demand for equal treatment is focused on the services that government provides, both public goods and services such as personal security that only government can provide, as well as private goods and services it has deliberately chosen to monopolise or control, such as higher education and electricity.
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Simple welfare theory teaches that there are three elements of social welfare. One, private income and consumption; two, public goods and services (legal, police, roads, public transport, public health-sewage, sanitation); three, the distribution of income, poverty, inclusion. Taxes and transfers can be used to change, within limits, the distribution of income and thus improve social welfare. To the extent that there is a gap between the claims and reality (wastage, corruption), these are rightly called populist measures. Much of Indian political discourse since the sixties has focused on this third element. India under Indira Gandhi was the first country in the world to raise "poverty alleviation" to a national objective under the rubric of "Garibi Hatao". The economic reforms of the 1990s raised public awareness of the role of faster growth in raising the incomes and welfare of the people, but the balance shifted back to questions of distribution and inclusion from 2004. The dramatic fall in the national growth rate and the threat of junk status, coupled with the recent prominence of the "Gujarat model", have restored some of the importance of income growth. The maintenance of a sufficiently high average per capita growth - between 6 per cent and 7 per cent (about 8 per cent GDP), which generates income opportunity for the emerging middle class, will soon become de rigueur. The rise of the middle class also promises to bring public goods and services, along with governance, into the public discourse within this decade. This will, for the first time, establish a balance between the three elements of social welfare that should be part of the political debate. Though this new middle class is still relatively small and concentrated in the urban and semi-urban areas, it is projected to grow rapidly in the next two decades if our average per capita GDP grows at its full potential of 7 per cent. The political party that finds the right policy balance between these three objectives, and convinces both the emerging middle class and the lower income groups, will be the winner. Source: Indian Express No sweetening this bitter pill
Unless the government regulates the growth of the private sector and makes it accountable, the worn-down public health infrastructure cannot be revitalized.
The absence of a well thought out policy framework for strengthening the health system is the most important issue facing the health sector in India. In the government, there is no clarity on what the nation's health system should be 10 years hence. Should it be a public sector dominated system like Brazil or China; or a regulated private-led like the U.S.; or one where both sectors function but have only one payer as in the U.K.? In Japan, delivery is private but the government sets the prices. Each option has its costs, benefits, tradeoffs and systems to ensure control on costs and quality. Unregulated
India is a unique laissez faire model with a private sector-led health system that is unregulated and has no rules of the game spelt out, not even as minimal as those laid down for opening a liquor shop. And so, one can set up a nursing home in a residential colony; throw infectious waste anywhere, charge any amount that the market allows and have no systems of oversight to assure quality. The private sector is further incentivised by excise duty waivers, subsidised loans for establishing hospitals, tax breaks and a liberalised health insurance market with tax exemptions for the premium.
More recently, a new innovation has emerged known as government sponsored insurance schemes (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, Arogyashri, Kalaignar, etc.) under which governments buy the insurance on behalf of the people/target group for providing cashless services for inpatient care, mainly surgeries. Under this scheme, the providers charge on a DRG basis, the insurance companies have assured incomes and the entire risk is borne by the government. While such schemes have widened access by making private sector facilities available, their impact on addressing the three critical issues of the health sector - equity, quality, and efficiency - has not been addressed. Instead, pricing structures are distorted and new dimensions of fraudulent and corrupt practices have entered the health sector that continues to register inflation at 30 per cent, with negligible impact on reducing catastrophic expenditures, impoverishing millions in the process. Privatisation of the health sector started in late 1980s, accelerated in the 1990s with the further
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Bihar experiment Absence of strategy
withdrawal of the state under the punishing conditionality of the IMF structural adjustment, and got further emboldened with the extensive incentives provided. In 2005, the state bounced back with a three-fold increase in the budget to revitalise the rural health delivery systems under the National Rural Health Mission, running as a parallel track to the private eco system. It is this duality and dysfunctional policymaking that is haemorrhaging the sector and requires to be stopped without delay. The worn down public health infrastructure cannot be revitalised without changing the rules of the game, bringing in legal provisions to regulate further growth of the private sector, make it efficient and accountable and provide a levelplaying field.
It is time to recognise the market failures inherent to this sector and the role of the political economy that is sustaining it, making it increasingly impossible to regulate and establish institutional mechanisms with the requisite capabilities to effectively manage the mess. Bihar's recent experiment of outsourcing diagnostics to the private sector is telling - unqualified persons were employed at some centres, but no action was taken due to political pressure. It is scary to think that a number of innocent people might have been given the wrong diagnosis and put on needless medication. This is just a small example to illustrate the kind of mess we are in. The policy confusion is worsened by the push for greater decentralisation without ensuring the availability of capacities at those levels to manage such complex systems. It is against this scenario that Chhattisgarh's recent policy initiative needs to be viewed. The policy of contracting out diagnostic services to private sector networks in 379 public facilities for 10 years, guaranteeing a minimum patient load and permitting paying patients in addition and prices pegged to those paid for under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), monitored and managed by a third party, is fraught with adverse implications for the strengthening of the public sector and huge costs for the government, should it choose to pay for them.
It is not the outsourcing that is wrong. It is the absence of a strategy to draw on the strengths of the
What needs to be done
Knee-jerk solutions and unintelligent tinkering have had a disastrous effect on the health sector in India. The government needs to look at health system development and put in place requisite conditions, such as an institutional capacity to control provider behaviour through well laid down national protocols and standard operating procedures, penalties and incentive structures. It should explore cost-effective options such as the intensive use of technology that enables electronic transmission of samples for diagnosis at centralised laboratories, pricing of services, develop IT systems to closely monitor not quantitative but qualitative outcomes as well, put in place grievance redress systems, tightening and insulating the enforcement systems at all levels from political pressures to make individuals from the ANM to the specialist, the ward boy to the laboratory technician - public or private accountable to outcomes and patients, before opening up partnerships with the private sector on such a large scale. What needs to be done is known, but sadly how to do it is not. Governments, at the Centre and in
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Incentives Withdrawn
public and private sectors. If the government is unable to recruit staff to establish laboratories in, say, an area like Bastar, it is unclear how the private sector can be lured to set up, for instance, a radiology unit, there unless huge amounts are paid to it to cover the sustainability risks involved. Likewise, outsourcing is being attempted in areas that already have laboratory facilities. While the value addition is not clear, it will undoubtedly result in the closure of the public sector services and also entail paying three times more to the private sector. And it will be three times as the CGHS prices that are being taken as a benchmark, based on the average of prices quoted on a tender basis. There is no scientific basis for CGHS rate-fixing and such a system will only result in overpaying the private sector in Chhattisgarh where the prices of inputs vary from those in Mumbai or Delhi and between Raipur and Bastar. More worrying are the qualifying criteria that only large private sector networks like corporate hospitals can meet. Small but excellent not-for-profit hospitals like the Shahid hospital in Dalli Raja in Durg or the Jan Swasthya Sahayog at Giniari in Bilaspur will both be disqualified.
the States, need to allow people with field experience and practical knowledge of the health system to contribute their expertise. What is also needed today more than ever is the need to listen to the ground - as patients, women in villages, front line workers, the hapless doctor in the PHC, all have a different story to tell. We cannot afford any more blundering! Source: The Hindu Powerless against policy winds
Despite its immense potential to bridge the power deficit and reduce the carbon footprint, policy support to wind power has been withdrawn. Lately, the winds in India have been blowing slowly. A sector that saw spectacular growth over the past decade has slowed down significantly over the last year. In the first half of the year, the industry recorded close to a 40 per cent dip in its installations. This is a stark reflection on reforms that have perhaps lost their momentum. Recent reports peg the potential for exploitable wind energy in India at 300 GW. This is far in excess of earlier estimates. The share of renewable energy in the country's total energy mix has increased from 7.8 per cent in financial year 2008 to 12.1 per cent in 2012. Not only is there an abundance of wind energy, it is also at an affordable cost: The levelised cost of energy for 20 years is Rs 4.5 and for 10 years stands at Rs 6 per unit. Over the past 20 years, the industry has provided affordable energy to over 50 million people in India; people who would otherwise have continued to live in the dark. The industry has consistently fuelled the agricultural sector - the backbone of our economy. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been effectively hedging their energy costs by investing in wind energy for captive utilisation and securing a sustainable future. Each megawatt of wind energy has created 20-25 new jobs, a boon for a country with an ever burgeoning young population. It's clear that a slowdown of the wind sector will have a ripple affect across the economy.
The reasons for the slowdown are no secret. Critical policy frameworks that supported the industry's growth - Accelerated Depreciation (AD)
and Generation Based Incentives (GBI) - were withdrawn. It has been argued that as the industry matures it should lose dependency on fiscal incentives. I agree with this. However regulatory changes need to be phased out slowly. Sudden changes can arrest the industry. The original - and perhaps smarter - plan was to stabilise the Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) market and Direct Tax Code (DTC) before withdrawing AD and GBI. This would have been an ideal situation and would have facilitated a smooth transition for the industry. However, the REC market is still in early days and DTC is far from being applied. This has effectively parked the sector in a policy vacuum - a highly risky proposition for a regulated industry. The regulatory conundrum is compounded by the rising cost of finance. Not only is it expensive but also very tightly time-bound: Loans are available maximum for a period of 10 years. This impedes the growth of an industry, which is highly capital-intensive. The wind industry has already been struggling with inadequate grid infrastructure. However, all problems have seemingly come to head now. If the industry continues to lose momentum, we will not meet the country's 2020 target of deriving 15 per cent of our energy needs from renewable energy. We continue to import coal at a much higher cost, instead of harnessing our own plentiful resources. The industry has the potential to add millions of jobs, but instead it is being forced to cut jobs. The agricultural and SME sector are unable to hedge power costs, adversely affecting their bottomline. This is bound to have a negative impact on the nation's long-term GDP growth. Carbon Footprint This financial year, we need an overhaul to get the wind industry back on track. AD and GBI need to be reinstated. GBI is critical in attracting Independent Power Producers (IPPs), who can pump much-needed finance into the system. If not for the entire life-cycle of the project, the benefit can be provided partially for a 10-year period of the project life. On the other hand, AD is required to sustain SMEs investing for captive consumption. AD could
be capped at 25 megawatts per company, per year - allowing them adequate benefit to build sustainable businesses. In parallel, the REC market needs to pick up steam. Currently, there is very limited demand for the instrument and some strong steps are required to make the market sustainable. It should be mandatory for all state and central PSUs to meet renewable energy targets, either by investing into renewable energy projects or through purchase of RECs. Large corporates should be given a mandatory target of reducing their carbon footprint by 15 per cent, by either investing in renewables or RECs, as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility. These measures would need to be monitored, perhaps on a quarterly basis and any discrepancies should be penalised. REC settlements should also be done on a quarterly basis to develop faith in the system. There is no doubt that the REC instrument is an innovative, and much needed, scheme. A little push to stabilise the system would go a long way. In terms of financing - a real challenge for the wind industry today - a few reforms are required to accelerate development and exploit the industry's potential. Project finance should be available for 20 years, instead of the current 7-10 years, with a threeyear moratorium on repayment and a ballooning repayment scheme for 17 years. Considering that the life of a wind project is for 20-25 years, this is fully justified. Additionally, banks need to adhere to priority lending for the renewable energy sector. Every year, the banks should make available five per cent of its funding for renewable energy projects. Interest costs can be reduced by providing incentive for timely repayment instead of cutting the rates. This would attract massive international equity funds for investment in renewable energy projects. Regulatory Framework We also need to focus on the development of the country's grid infrastructure. Regrettably, the State utilities do not have adequate finances to invest in the development of power infrastructure. We need private equity to bridge the gap. AD should be offered on the investments and it should be backed by a strong revenue model.
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Finally, it is imperative to establish strong regulatory mechanisms to secure payments. It should be mandatory for utilities to pay renewable energy projects on a priority basis. In the case of delays, the utilities should be required to pay 12 per cent interest - match the cost of funding from a bank. The wind industry in India has rapidly grown to be the third largest wind market in the world,
thanks to Government support. However, if this support is withdrawn, vast potential will be left unexplored. We still have a long way to go. With the right regulatory framework - as witnessed in the past - the Indian wind industry can move from strength to strength. The Budget should take some crucial steps for this critical but fragile sector. Source: Business Line
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Weekly Current Affairs Bulletin: 7 January, 2013 To 13 JANUARY, 2013

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Weekly Current Affairs Bulletin: 7 January, 2013 To 13 JANUARY, 2013

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National Electric Mobility Mission Plan Launched

UGC plans two degrees at a time

Government has launched LPG portability

Government raises assistance to rural poor for housing

IIT education gets costlier

GOI delaying proposal of laws against leaders accused of rape

Members of the Syrian opposition, however, have rejected Assad's proposal.

Palestinian Authority is now 'State of Palestine'

U.S. may allow H-4 visa holders to work

Sri Lankan Parliament impeaches Chief Justice

Saudi women appointed in Shura Council for first time

TAPI pipeline: India, fellow promoters to float SPV

Pharma companies to adopt tough ethical norms

EGoM recommends cut in CDMA spectrum price

2012, and also increased shareholding of the government in PSBs to 58 percent".

New investment policy for urea to check spurt in gas prices

Cabinet approves capital infusion in PSU banks

INDIA AND THE WORLD

IFC proposed to invest $25 mn in India 2020 Fund

Welfare initiatives for expatriates

BRICS countries agreed to strengthen cooperation in health sector

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

100th Session of Indian Science Congress

Floating ice on Saturn's moon Titan

461 new planets, billions of Earth-size planets in Milky Way: Stud

Mars Orbiter Mission payloads revealed

Commissioning of inshore Patrol Vessel (IPV)ICGS Rajkamal

Kargil gets first civil air connectivity

Indian-origin politician to be Singapore's first woman speaker

2013 UNESCO International Jos Mart Prize

What are census medals?

What was Silk Letter Movement?

Enhance Export Competitiveness

The 12-month countdown

Delivery lies in the detail

Cash transfers: Food for thought