January - 14 January 2013 Issue-2/2013 (7 January to 14th 7 January)

CURRENT AFFAIRS
CLASS NOTES: 7 Jan -14 Jan, 2013
(Compiled from 11 Newspapers & 7 Magazines)
8 Janaury 2013 Moderate earthquake hits North-east
An earthquake of moderate intensity on Wednesday rocked the entire north eastern region, but there was no report of any injury to people or damage to property. The quake, measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale, hit the region at around 7.12 AM with its epicentre being 89 km underneath the earths crust along the Indo Myanmar border, officials at the Regional Seismological Centre here said. The quake lasted a few seconds and rocked all major towns in the region, they said. The epicentre was in Phek district of Nagaland. Dr.Lallenmawia said the technical information about the quake was received from the seismological centre of the North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat in Assam. each discovered planetary system using other techniques; and 6. Determine the properties of those stars that harbor planetary systems. The Kepler Mission also supports the objectives of future NASA Origins theme missions Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) and Terrestrial Planet Finder(TPF), moderate temperatures are habitable for life similar to that found on Earth. At least one in seven exoplanets are flying close-in orbits around their suns much like Earths orbit around its sun, the scientists say. And the groups leader says the number is probably more like half which means there may be a staggering number of them within their stars so-called habitable zones, where temperatures would be just right for water to exist. Their analysis included only planets roughly the size of Earth, and with orbits around their stars that are closer than the orbit of Mercury to our sun. But by factoring in the exoplanets discovered by Kepler to date, a team of scientist headed by Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics say there could be at least 17 billion exoplanets in the Milky Way. Unlike the comets of our own night sky like Haleys, that fly around the sun and past the planets of our solar system, objects are flying past stars where planets havent formed yet, although the ingredients for planets do exist in clouds of gas and dust. Like the comets in Earths night sky, those objects that astronomers now call exomets, are icy remnants of a timebillions of years agowhen all planets must have formed from clouds of frozen rocky rubble. Interstellar dust under the influence of gravity becomes blobs, and the blobs grow into rocks, the rocks coalesce and become bigger thingsplanetesimals and comets and finally, you get planets, said Mr. Welsh at a press conference during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The discovery of exomets suggests they are just as common as exoplanets in other distant solar systems, and that might mean a staggering number of planets.

By identifying the common stellar characteristics of host stars for future planet searches, By defining the volume of space needed for the search and By allowing SIM to target systems already known to have terrestrial planets.

The Transit Method of Detecting Extrasolar Planets:

When a planet crosses in front of its star as viewed by an observer, the event is called a transit. Transits by terrestrial planets produce a small change in a stars brightness of about 1/10,000 (100 parts per million, ppm), lasting for 1 to 16 hours. This change must be periodic if it is caused by a planet. In addition, all transits produced by the same planet must be of the same change in brightness and last the same amount of time, thus providing a highly repeatable signal and robust detection method. Once detected, the planets orbital size can be calculated from the period (how long it takes the planet to orbit once around the star) and the mass of the star using Keplers Third Law of planetary motion. The size of the planet is found from the depth of the transit (how much the brightness of the star drops) and the size of the star. From the orbital size and the temperature of the star, the planets characteristic temperature can be calculated. Knowing the temperature of a planet is key to whether or not the planet is habitable (not necessarily inhabited). Only planets with

Extra Terrestrial life Kepler Mission Scientific Objective:

The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems. This is achieved by surveying a large sample of stars to: 1. Determine the abundance of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the habitable zone of a wide variety of stars; 2. Determine the distribution of sizes and shapes of the orbits of these planets; 3. Estimate how many planets there are in multiple-star systems; 4. Determine the variety of orbit sizes and planet reflectivities, sizes, masses and densities of short-period giant planets; 5. Identify additional members of

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7 January - 14 January 2013 Issue of hunting of rare India-bound birds in Pakistan

1. A leading environmental group working for conservation of flora and fauna has sought intervention of the External Affairs Ministry to put pressure on Pakistan to ban hunting of rare birds, Houbara bustards, which has drastically reduced Indias share of their annual winter migration and affected the desert eco-system. 2. The hunting of Houbara bustards, taxonomically classified as Clamydotisundulata, through falconry in Pakistan has led to an alarming decline in their numbers. The poaching mainly in Sindh province along the international border is not only a cause of serious concern for India but also in violation of wildlife protection laws and international conventions. The species has been declared vulnerable due to a more than 60 per cent decline in its global population even as Indias share in the Houbaras migration is bagged in the neighbouring country. 3. The Arab royals also used to visit Iran and Afghanistan for falconry till late 1970s. Since the fall of the Shah of Iran and the prolonged war in Afghanistan, Pakistan became a favourite destination for the bird hunters. Though Pakistan banned hunting of birds in 1972, it is not enforced against the royal guests from the West Asian countries who believe that the Houbara meat has mythical aphrodisiac qualities. 4. Even as Houbara bustard is regarded as the provincial bird of Balochistan, the Federal authorities in Pakistan reportedly issue permits during the hunting season in Sindh province every year, with each permit allowing 100 birds to be hunted by the holder. Most of the permits go to royalty, rulers and influential people from countries such as Qatar, Bahrain, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia. 5. Named Taloor in Sindhi language, the Houbara bustards migrate from the cold northern regions of Siberia to the warmer regions of the world, including the Indian sub-continent. Bird-lovers describe it as a beautiful bird with a black stripe down the sides of its neck. It is usually 60 cm long with a 140 cm wingspan and is brown above and white below. 6. The Houbara bustard is listed in the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals, also known as the Bonn Convention. Because of its increased hunting especially in its winter habitats, the Convention of the International Trade in Endangered Species has classified it as an endangered migratory bird. Concepts: Bonn Convention 1. The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (also known as CMS or the Bonn Convention, not to be confused with the Bonn Agreement) aims to conserve terrestrial, marine and avian migratory species throughout their range. It is an intergovernmental treaty, concluded under the aegis of the United Nations Environment Programme, concerned with the conservation of wildlife and habitats on a global scale. Since the Conventions entry into force, its membership has grown steadily to include over 100 Parties from Africa, Central and South America, Asia, Europe and Oceania. The Convention was signed in 1979 in Bonn (hence the name) and entered into force in 1983 Houbara Bustard: 1. The Houbara bustards migrate from the cold northern regions of Siberia to the warmer regions of the world, including the Indian subcontinent. Bird-lovers describe it as a beautiful bird with a black stripe down the sides of its neck. It is usually 60 cm long with a 140 cm wingspan and is brown above and white below. 2. Under IUCN it is classified as vulnerable. 5.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as against 5.1 percent estimated earlier. b) Fitch as well as Standard & Poors have assigned the lowest investment grade rating to India and any downgrade would push it to the junk grade making it difficult for corporates to raise finances from overseas markets at competitive rates. c) Indias economic growth during 2012-13, according to RBI, is estimated to slip to around 5.8 percent, which would be the lowest in the last decade. d) The government is also looking into the various recommendations of the Kelkar Committee which had suggested a road map for fiscal consolidation. e) The Committee had suggested that slew of measures like phased elimination of LPG, kerosene, diesel and food subsidies to deal with the deteriorating fiscal situation. f) The government has taken various tough measures such as raising diesel prices, capping subsidised LPG cylinders and pruning non-Plan expenditure with a view to curtailing government expenditure and containing fiscal deficit. Credit Rating: An assessment of the credit worthiness of individuals and corporations. It is based upon the history of borrowing and repayment, as well as the availa-bility of assets and extent of liabilities.

WEF rates India lowest on tackling risks

WEF: The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva. It describes itself as an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The Forum is best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubnden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 2,500 top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world, including health and the environment. India was ranked lowest among

Fitch Threatens to downgrade India

The Finance Ministry on Tuesday said it is not worried about the threat of ratings downgrade by global agencies like Fitch as it is moving on the right track and will restrict fiscal deficit to 5.3 percent of the GDP in 2012-13. Reasons for downgrade: 1. Low growth rate. 2. High Fiscal deficit 3. No policy initiatives 4. High subsidies 5. Political Logjam 6. Diminishing exports 7. Sluggish industrial sector a) In view of rising expenditure and subdued growth in revenue collection, the Finance Ministry has already raised the fiscal deficit target to a more acceptable level of

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the worlds major economies for its preparedness to tackle global environmental risks and secondlowest for economic risks, while Switzerland is on the top, a report said on Tuesday. a. As per the annual Global Risks Report published by Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF), the biggest global risk in terms of likelihood would be severe income disparity for the next 10 years and major systemic financial failure will be the top-most risk before the world in terms of impact. b. The report said that Switzerland is best placed among the worlds 10 major economies for adapting to or recovering from global economic and environmental risks. While India is ranked ninth in terms of its ability to tackle global economic risks and comes last at tenth position for environmental risks. Italy is ranked lowest at tenth position for economic risks. c. The rankings of the 10 major economic of the world-Brazil, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Russia, the UK and the US - are based on Global Risks Perception Survey of over 1,000 experts from across the world. d. India fared relatively better at sixth position in terms of the governments risk management effectiveness, although it ranks second-lowest in terms of its global competitiveness index score. e. The survey on risk management effectiveness found that Germany, Switzerland and the UK are perceived by business leaders to have highest risk-management effectiveness, while Russia was seen as having the least effective risk management. The US and China were ranked fourth and fifth respectively, while those positioned below India on this metric included Italy, Brazil, Japan and Russia. f. Surveys were conducted across a total of 139 countries. g. Taking into account the scores of all the countries, India was ranked 38th in terms of its risk management effectiveness and 32nd for its resilience to global risks. Singapore was ranked on top in both these surveys. Among the top-five global risks in terms of likelihood are: severe income disparity, chronic fiscal imbalances, rising greenhouse emissions, water supply crises and mismanagement of ageing population. Health-related risks: 1. Greatest risk of hubris to human health comes in the form of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Many people take for granted that antibiotics will always be available when we need them, but soon this may no longer be the case. Every dose of antibiotics gives an advantage for those small numbers in a bacterial population that are resistant to the drug 2. The more a particular antibiotic is used, the more quickly bacteria resistant to that antibiotic will be selected and increased in numbers. 3. For India, the report said that within four years (from 2002 to 2006) the antibiotic-resistance bacteria went from 7 drugs to 21 drugs. It further said the pharmacy sales of strong antibiotics which should be a last line of defence increased nearly six-fold from 2005 to 2010 in India. 4. A national task force in India had recommended ending overthe-counter sales of antibiotics, but the proposal was rejected as it would deny access to antibiotics to patients in rural areas where there are no physicians to prescribe the drug, the WEF report said. JMM, senior leader Shakeel Ahmed said. Ahmed, who is in-charge of Congress affairs in Jharkhand, said that the party would await the decision of Governor Syed Ahmed before deciding its future course of action. Earlier in the day, Munda submitted to the Jharkhand governor the Cabinet decision recommending dissolution of the Assembly and also his resignation. Concept regarding dissolution of legislative assembly by the governor: Please refer to S.R Bommais case The language of Bommai is plain. In all cases where the support of the Ministry is claimed to have been withdrawn by some legislators, Justices Sawant and Kuldip Singh held, the proper course for testing the strength of the Ministry is holding the test on the floor of the House. The assessment of the strength of the Ministry is not a matter of private opinion of any individual be he the Governor or the President (emphasis added). Justices Jeevan Reddy and Agarwal underlined the floor test procedure: Whenever a doubt arises whether the Council of Ministers has lost the confidence of the House, the only way of testing it is on the floor of the House (emphasis as in the original). The sole exception to this will be a situation of all-pervasive violence where the Governor comes to the conclusion - and records the same in his report - that for the reasons mentioned by him, a free vote is not possible.

ShibuSoren-led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha formally withdraws support from BJP-led Arjun Munda govt.
Deepening the political crisis in the state, Jharkhands ruling coalition partner JMM submitted its letter to Governor Syed Ahmed today formally withdrawing support to the 28-month-old ArjunMunda government pushing it to a minority. The JMM action came even as the Jharkhand Cabinet decided to recommend dissolution of the state assembly to prevent any horse trading-like situation. Jharkhand Cabinet decision not binding on Governor: Congress New Delhi: Jharkhand Cabinets decision recommending dissolution of the Assembly was not binding on the Governor as it was done by the ArjunMunda Government after being reduced to a minority, Congress said today. It is not binding on the Governor to accept the recommendation of a minority government. It was crystal clear that the BJP-led government had been reduced to a minority after withdrawal of support by the

FDI policy made more friendly, rational: Anand Sharma

Seeking to encourage foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country, the policy has been made friendlier, rational and simple, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma said today. Steps Taken: 1 Indias Growth: Greater Opportunities, he said investment limit has been raised from Rs 600 crore to Rs 1,200 crore for projects that need cabinet approval. 2 At present, the national investment rate is around 33-34 percent and by the end of 12th Plan, the aim was to increase this to 36 percent, he said. 3. Market diversification was

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Indias strategic decision, he said, adding the country had successfully found new markets in Africa and other neighbouring countries. 4. Encouraging long term FDI flows would be more fruitful as the Government had decided to borrow as little as possible, he said. 5. We have continued to receive considerable remittances from the Indian Diaspora which is our underlying strength. In 2012, we received USD 80 billion leaving China behind with USD 76 billion

7 January - 14 January 2013 Meerut scissors registered for GI tag

1. For the first time, a handmade tool from micro and small and medium enterprises in India has been registered for a geographical indicator (GI) tag, an official of a body promoting this sector said on Wednesday. The tool is a pair of scissors made of metal scrap by a community in Meerut, which is the only scissor cluster in India and which has been making the product for more than three centuries. 2. The tag would enable the crafters to make scissors of standard sizes and of high quality, he said. At present, the size varies, from six inches to 14 inches, and the scissors are sold at a price ranging from Rs.20 to Rs.500. 3. Known for their sharpness, the scissors are used at home and by industrial garment manufacturers.They can be repaired, unlike other scissors that are thrown out after use. 4. The Meerut scissors are made of carbon steel blades sourced from scrap metal found in cars, buses, trucks and railways. The handles are made of plastic, aluminium or alloys, which are sourced from old utensils. All the parts are pre-used. The first pair was made 360 years ago by Asli Akhun. 5. Meerut has 250 small-scale scissors-making units, employing 70,000 people directly and indirectly. Both the Central and Uttar Pradesh governments have helped the industry. 6. While men make scissors, women do the tasks that require handwork and pack the products. 7. They are sent only to the domestic markets, but the makers find it tough to meet the demand at home. 8. Mr.Saluja said the GI tag was given to products based on certain information submitted to the Geographical Indication Registry, Chennai: proof of origin, the GI map, the statement of case and the history of the product. Concept: GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATORS Geographical Indications of Goods are defined as that aspect of industrial property which refer to the geographical indication referring to a country or to a place situated therein as being the country or place of origin of that

Engineered bacteria make fuel from sunlight

1. In a bid to find a substitute to fossil fuels as raw material for the chemical industry, scientists have engineered bacteria which could help grow chemical precursors for fuels and plastics. 2. Most chemical feedstocks come from petroleum and natural gas, and we need other sources 3. Biological reactions are good at forming carbon-carbon bonds, using carbon dioxide as a raw material for reactions powered by sunlight,called photosynthesis, and cyanobacteria, also known as blue -green algae, have been doing it for more than 3 billion years. 4. The challenge is to get the cyanobacteria to make significant amounts of chemicals that can be readily converted to chemical feedstocks. 5. The researchers, working a step at a time, built up a three-step pathway that allows the cyanobacteria to convert carbon dioxide into 2,3butanediol, a chemical that can be used to make paint, solvents, plastics and fuels.

product. Typically, such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness which is essentially attributable to the fact of its origin in that defined geographical locality, region or country. Under Articles 1 (2) and 10 of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, geographical indications are covered as an element of IPRs. They are also covered under Articles 22 to 24 of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, which was part of the Agreements concluding the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations. India, as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), enacted the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration & Protection) Act, 1999 has come into force with effect from 15th September 2003.

Giant ring of gas and dust spotted around Milky Ways black hole
1. Researchers have captured new images of a ring of gas and dust seven light-years in diameter surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). 2. The telescope also captured images of a neighbouring cluster of extremely luminous young stars embedded in dust cocoons. 3. Ryan Lau of Cornell University and his collaborators studied the galaxys circumlunar ring (CNR), while Matt Hankins of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway is lead author of the other paper, regarding the quintuplet cluster (QC). 4. The images were obtained during SOFIA flights in 2011 with the FaintObject Infrared Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) instrument built by a team with principal investigator Terry Herter of Cornell. 5. FORCAST offered astronomers the ability to see the CNR and QC regions and other exotic cosmic features whose light is obscured by water vapor in Earths atmosphere and interstellar dust clouds in the mid-plane of the Milky Way.

9 Janaury 2013 Rajiv Takru is new Financial Services Secretary

Rajiv Takru, now Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has been appointed as Financial Services Secretary in the Finance Ministry. Structure of the Finance Ministry: The ministry of Finance consists of 5 departments, namely: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5 Department Department Department Department and Department Services. of Economic Affairs of Expenditure of Revenue of Disinvestment; of Financial

Saturns moon Titans lakes covered with hydrocarbon ice blocks

1. Scientists on NASAs Cassini mission have claimed to have

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found blocks of hydrocarbon ice decorating the surface of existing lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbon on Saturns moon Titan. 2. The presence of ice floes might explain some of the mixed readings Cassini has seen in the reflectivity of the surfaces of lakes on Titan.Titan is the only other body besides Earth in our solar system with stable bodies of liquid on its surface.But while our planets cycle of precipitation and evaporation involves water, Titans cycle involves hydrocarbons like ethane and methane. 3. Ethane and methane are organic molecules, which scientists think can be building blocks for the more complex chemistry from which life arose. Cassini has seen a vast network of these hydrocarbon seas cover Titans northern hemisphere, while a more sporadic set of lakes bejewels the southern hemisphere. 4. Up to this point, Cassini scientists assumed that Titan lakes would not have floating ice, because solid methane is denser than liquid methane and would sink.But the new model considers the interaction between the lakes and the atmosphere, resulting in different mixtures of compositions, pockets of nitrogen gas, and changes in temperature. 5. The result, scientists found, is that winter ice will float in Titans methane-and-ethane-rich lakes and seas if the temperature is below the freezing point of methane minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit (90.4 Kelvins). 6. We now know its possible to get methane-and-ethane-rich ice freezing over on Titan in thin blocks that congeal together as it gets coldersimilar to what we see with Arctic sea ice at the onset of winter. Titan: Titan (or Saturn VI) is the largest moon of Saturn. It is the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found. Titan is the sixth ellipsoidal moon from Saturn. Frequently described as a planet-like moon, Titan has a diameter roughly 50% larger than Earths moon and is 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System, after Jupiters moon Ganymede, and it is larger by volume than the smallest planet, Mercury, although only half as massive. Titan was the first known moon of Saturn, discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, and was the fifth moon of a planet apart from the Earth to be discovered. Titan is primarily composed of water ice and rocky material. Much as with Venus prior to the Space Age, the dense, opaque atmosphere prevented under-standing of Titans surface until new information accumulated with the arrival of the CassiniHuygens mission in 2004, including the discovery of liquid hydrocarbon lakes in the satellites polar regions. The surface is geologically young; although mountains and several possible cryovolcanoes have been discovered, it is smooth and few impact craters have been found. The atmosphere of Titan is largely composed of nitrogen; minor components lead to the formation of methane and ethane clouds and nitrogen-rich organic smog. The climateincluding wind and rain creates surface features similar to those of Earth, such as dunes, rivers, lakes and seas (probably of liquid methane and ethane), and deltas, and is dominated by seasonal weather patterns as on Earth. With its liquids (both surface and subsurface) and robust nitrogen atmosphere, Titans methane cycle is viewed as an analogy to Earths water cycle, although at a much lower temperature. The satellite is thought to be a possible host for microbial extraterrestrial life or, at least, as a prebiotic environment rich in complex organic chemistry with a possible subsurface liquid ocean serving as a biotic environment. Cassini: CassiniHuygens is a Flagshipclass NASA-ESA-ASI robotic spacecraft sent to the Saturn system. It has studied the planet and its many natural satellites since arriving there in 2004, also observing Jupiter, the Heliosphere, and testing the theory of relativity. Launched in 1997 after nearly two decades of gestation, it includes a Saturn orbiter and an atmospheric probe/lander for the moon Titan called Huygens, which entered and landed on Titan in 2005. Cassini is the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter orbit, and its mission is ongoing as of 2012. It launched on October 15, 1997 on a Titan IVB/Centaur and entered into orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004, after an interplanetary voyage which included flybys of Earth, Venus, and Jupiter. On December 25, 2004, Huygens separated from the orbiter at approximately 02:00 UTC. It reached Saturns moon Titan on January 14, 2005, when it entered Titans atmosphere and descended to the surface. It successfully returned data to Earth, using the orbiter as a relay. This was the first landing ever accomplished in the outer Solar System.

900 foot-wide asteroid Apophis to pass by Earth, may hit in 2036

Apophis, a 900 foot-wide asteroid named after an Egyptian demon is set to pass by Earth has no chances of a cataclysmic collision, according to scientists. The asteroid will not get closer than around nine million miles to Earth tonight (January 10th, 2013). Scientists will use this encounter to improve their estimate of just how dangerous the space rock really is, the Daily Mail reported. In 2029, Apophis is expected to come uncomfortably close, brushing past the Earth at a distance of just 30,000 kilometres. That will put the asteroid inside the orbit of communication satellites. However, there remains a nonnegligible chance of the asteroid smashing into Earth in 2036. Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones. These terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disk of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet, but as small objects in the outer Solar System were discovered, their volatile-based surfaces were found to more closely resemble comets, and so were often distinguished from traditional asteroids. Thus the term asteroid has come increasingly to refer specifically to the small bodies of the inner Solar System out to the orbit of Jupiter, which are usually rocky or metallic. They are grouped with the outer bodies centaurs, Neptune Trojans, and trans-Neptunian objectsas minor planets, which is the term preferred in astronomical circles.

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7 January - 14 January 2013 Temi Tea The Flavor of Sikkim

Amidst the backdrop of picturesque and mighty Mt. Khanchan Dzonga refreshed by the gentle breeze of river Teesta brews the morning sip of Sikkim the Temi tea. Spread over 180 hectares of gentle slope with altitude ranging from 4500 to 6316 feet, the Temi tea garden produces one of the finest orthodox tea that promises the appreciation of tea connoisseur. The Temi Tea estate was established in 1969 during the erstwhile regime of Chogyal and the commercial production started in the year 1977. In the year 1974 Tea board was formed to govern the day to day functioning of the estate and later it went on to become the subsidiary of Industries Department under Sikkim government. Temi Tea which apart from providing direct employment to over four hundred labors and thirty personnel, also is a major employer in the Government sector. The gentle slopes that originate from the Tendong hill range has loamy soils condition with slope of 3050% that suits best for tea plantation and produces nearly 100 tons of tea annually. Although the quantity of produce may seem insignificant in terms of major tea producing estates, the quality and the flavor it produces has been able to win the heart of tea aficionados within India and the world. The tea produced by the Temi Tea estate is packaged under many brand names like Temi Tea which is of the best quality consisting of pure tea golden flowery orange pekoe. The next in quality is the popular brand of Sikkim Solja followed by Mystique and Kanchanjunga Tea. It is also sold in the form of Orthodox dust tea. While nearly 70 percent of the produce is sold in public auction at Kolkata through its authorized broker, the rest is converted into retail packets and sold in the local market. The geographical location and the young plantation supplemented by organic method of production have further added to the value and flavor of tea leaves produced from this estate. Temi Tea garden closely followed the guidelines issued by IMO, Switzerland and with the completion of observation period; Temi Tea Estate was certified 100 percent organic by IMO India, a member group of IMO Switzerland in 2008. In addition, it is also a HACCP certified estate as per ISO 22000 standard under Food Safety Management System ensuring finest of quality product reaching the market. It may be noted that Temi tea garden is also the recipient of All India Quality Award from Tea Board of India for the two consecutive years. learning comprehension and retention of children in schools. 5. The centre has also sanctioned special training for drop outs or never enrolled children. Over 33280 lakh rupees have been sanctioned for 6,59,668 out of school children for age appropriate admission in regular schools. 6. Transportation/ escort facility for total of 47,909 children has been provided in 2011-12 and 2012-13 in LWE districts. 7. LWE districts are treated as Special Focused districts for need based planning and sanctions.

Educating Children in Naxal Affected Areas

One piece of good news on the educational front from left wing extremist affected (LWE) districts in the country is that many areas have witnessed a declining trend in the dropout rates since the inception of Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan as was stated by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development, ShriShashiTharoor while replying to a question in Parliament during the just concluded winter session A number of steps have been taken over the years by the centre and the concerned state governments to enroll children in schools in LWE affected areas and most importantly to retain them in schools and thus arrest the high rate of drop outs that these schools have been witnessing for many years . Central Government Initiatives and Assistance 1. The opening of residential schools has been quite effective in retaining children in schools. According to official figures there are 77 residential schools/ hostels in LWE districts with intake capacity of 31650 children. 889 Kasturba Gandhi Vidalaya residential schools for girls have been opened in the affected districts for class VI to VIII. 2. Under the provisions of a scheme of the Ministry for Tribal Affairs 100 percent central assistance is provided for construction of all Scheduled tribe girls ashram schools and boys ashram schools in naxal-affected districts identified by Ministry of Home Affairs from time to time. 3. The Coordination with Ashram Shalas and other SC/ST department schools by giving free text books, the mid-day meal, teacher training school maintenance grant and teacher grant for teaching aids has also helped. 4. Multi Lingual Education in early grades in tribal districts of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh is another step that can improve

KG to PG Educational Hubs in Maharashtra

The Maharashtra government is planning an initiative towards starting KG to PG educational hubs for tribal students in areas affected by Naxalite violence. These residential schools are meant to impart education to students from kindergarten to postgraduate level and are aimed at letting tribal communities enter the mainstream.

Portable Cabin Schools in Chhattisgarh

In Chhattisgarh the state government there has installed pre-fabricated structures, porta cabin schools in all the districts of Bastar region. While it takes a long time to build permanent infrastructure for schools, the Prefabricated structures can be moved to areas where Naxalites have destroyed schools or where ever they are required. The porta cabin school scheme in Chhattisgarh has been implemented with the help of UNICEF and the state of Jharkhand has also approved funds for such schools.

Balbandhu Programme of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights An innovative Balbandhu
scheme initiated by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) in strife torn areas two years back too has started making an impact. The scheme has been introduced in nine districts affected by civil strife in Sukhma in Chhhatisgarh, Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, Khammam in Andhra Pradesh, East Champaran, Sheohar, Jammui and Rohtas in Bihar and Kokrajhar and Chirang in Assam. Balbandhus are young people recruited from within the

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community to oversee the children in such areas go to school, return to schools if they have dropped out and trace and restore the missing children to their families. While these balbandhus may not have the power to enforce implementation but they can put pressure on the authorities by involving the community and the Panchayats towards this end An evaluation report on the Balbandhu programme says that these young recruits have given a distinct confidence to the children in these areas specially the school going ones. vehicle technologies exists in the country. As per these projections, 6-7 million units of new vehicle sales of the full range of electric vehicles, along with resultant liquid fuel savings of 2.2 2.5 million tonnes can be achieved in 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. The NEMMP 2020 projections also indicate that the savings from the decrease in liquid fossil fuel consumption as a result of shift to electric mobility alone will far exceed the support provided thereby making this a highly economically viable proposition. Therefore on all counts encouraging the faster adoption of hybrid & electric vehicles and their manufacture in India is a wise investment for our future generations. 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. Objectives of the Scheme: i. To support the sustainability and growth of MSEs by addressing common issues such as improvement of technology, skills and quality, market access, access to capital, etc. ii. To build capacity of MSEs for common supportive action through formation of self-help groups, consortia, upgradation of associations, etc. iii. To create/upgrade infrastructural facilities in the new/existing industrial areas/ clusters of MSEs. iv. To set up common facility centres (for testing, training centre, raw material depot, effluent treatment, complementing production processes, etc). Cluster Development Programme has facilitated growth and promotion of MSMEs in NER under various trades. A Regional Resource Centre (RRC) for cluster development has been set up at Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE),Guwahati, with 7 SubCentres in all the North Eastern States. 4,135 enterprises have been created through clusters, besides scaling up of 1,760 enterprises in developed clusters through efforts of IIE, Guwahati.

Among many other suggestion, recommendations, that the Balbandhu programme should be extended for at least two years in the same block and a new block should be opened up in the neigh bouring district where the existing resource person and balbandhu can give basic operational training

The self-help groups and Balbandhu committee should monitor Midday meal scheme and send regular reports.

Students should be encouraged to form self-help groups where the students good in studies could help weak children. National Electric Mobility Mission Plan Launched
The Honble Prime Minister unveiled the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020. The principal end objectives of the National Mission for Electric Mobility (NMEM): 1. National energy security 2. Mitigation of the adverse impact of vehicles on the environment and growth of domestic manufacturing capabilities. 3. The NEMMP 2020, the mission document for the NMEM that was approved by the National Council for Electric Mobility (NCEM) on 29th August, 2012, sets the vision, lays the targets and provides the joint Government industry vision for realizing the huge potential that exists for full range of efficient and environmentally friendly electric vehicle (including hybrids) technologies by 2020. The NEMMP 2020 is a wellresearched document and relies on in-depth primary data based study conducted jointly by the Government and the Industry which indicates that high latent demand for environmentally friendly electric

Recommendations of the Conference of Chief Secretaries and DGsP

The conference of the Chief Secretaries and Director Generals Police held in New Delhi on January 04, 2013 has suggested increase in punishment for gang rape, setting up of Fast Track Courts, National data base for sexual offenders and amendments to Cr PC, IPC and Juvenile Justice Act. The conference also came out with the suggestions for gender sensitization of police force, more recruitment of women in police, deployment of women police in every Police Station, single help line for women across the country, strengthening of forensic capabilities and community Policing. Some of the important suggestions made by the participants at the conference are as follows: CRIME PREVENTION Prevention is most important. There should be zero tolerance for petty offences as the offender can escalate in the crime ladder and especially for cases u/s 509. Community policing should be introduced. National data base of

Industrial Clusters in North Eastern Region

The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) has adopted the cluster development approach as a key strategy for enhancing the productivity and competitiveness as well as capacity building of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) and their collectives in the country. Clustering of units also enables providers of various services to them, including banks and credit agencies, to provide their services more economically, thus reducing costs and improving the availability of services for these enterprises.

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sexual offenders should be initiated. Preventive sections of Cr PC should be used more and coordination between police and citizens needs to be ensured. CHANGES IN LAW Cr PC needs to be amended to aim at speedy trials. Section 509 of IPC needs to be amended. When there is presumption of offence having been committed, discretion in grant of bail should be done away with. Punishment for gang rape should be higher. Amendment to Juvenile Justice Act to lower the age to 16 years and grading based on the magnitude of offence is necessary. Placement agencies need to be brought under law. ORGANISATION Accountability of police is essential. Gender sensitization to be made a part of the curriculum, if not done in Police Training Schools and Colleges. Awareness programmes are necessary. Expansion of civil Police is necessary and reluctance of women to join should be reduced by reserving posts for them in Police. Dy. SP should be the nodal officer for crime against women in every district. One Addl. DG of Police should be designated as nodal officer in every state. WOMEN SAFETY There is a need to increase the number of response vehicles (PCR) and Women PCRs could be started. Mahila help desk need to be established if not done in all Police Stations. Women help line should be toll free. Security of women in the trains should be ensured. GPS system should be fixed in transport buses. There should be single helpline number across the country. More women Police Stations need to be opened. Care centers for women who have no place to go at night should be started with the help of NGOs. INVESTIGATION PROCESS Investigation process is delayed mainly because of delay in forensic science reports and hence forensic capabilities needs to be strengthened. There is need for more Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for investigation.Depending on the crime, investigation should be completed within 30 to 90 days and a time frame for filing charge sheet should be defined. Prosecution needs to be supported. Cases need to be registered as and when women reach a Police Station. Recording of information should be only by women and if necessary by audio/video recording. Medical practitioner who examines a rape victim must be a woman. Police protection for the victim till the trial ends should be given. TRIAL Fast Track courts are necessary and need to be supported. Court procedure should prevent humiliation of the victim and character assassination must be stopped. There should be no adjournments once trial starts with day to day hearing. Rights of the victims should be defined. Judges and prosecutors should be women. Discretion in grant of bail for heinous offences should be removed. Prosecutor should be of the choice of the victim. The one day conference was attended by Union Home Minister Shri Sushilkumar Shinde, Union Women & Child Development Minister Smt. Krishna Tirath, Union Minister for Social Justice & Empowerment KumariSelja, Union Ministers of State for Home Shri RPN Singh and Shri M Rama chandran and senior officers from the Center and State Governments. rural Internet users (24.3 million active users out of a total 38 million) use the Internet in the local language. But only 25 per cent of the total 84 million urban users browse the Net in regional languages (20.9 million). 3. By and large, the applications that are most used by regional language users include emails, search engines and news content, text chat, matrimonial services and online banking services. In rural areas, the report shows a bias in favour of sites offering government services, land records and private initiatives such as eChoupal, which provides aggregated information of interest to farmers and facilitates sale of farm produce. 4. According to the IAMAI report, Internet non-users have mentioned that lack of content in local language as one of the major reasons, along with lack of infrastructure. 5. With a low working knowledge of English in India (according to the National Readership Survey, 2006, only 18.2% of the population is English-literate; 34.2% in urban and 11.1% in rural areas), Internet penetration in India is only 12%, since content is primarily available in English. 6. The reading problem was resolved long ago, at least for Tamil, says N. Chokkan, one of the first-generation users of Tamil on the Internet. With the introduction of Unicode to regulate the way Tamil is being used on the Net, things have changed dramatically. Today, there are about 15 applications for the PC and five or six mobile apps purely for typing. 7. The study covered the top metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Pune, and 12 smaller cities. Five non-metro towns and 10 small towns were also included in the study. It was conducted by the e-Technology group of the Indian Market Research Bureau and the IAMAI, an industry body representing the online and mobile industry in India.

10 Janaury 2013 National waterway number 6, for northeast

The 121-km stretch of LakhipurBhanga of the Barak River will soon become a national waterway, the sixth in the country. Approving the proposal, the Union Cabinet on Thursday decided to enact a law for the purpose and cleared Rs. 123 crore for providing infrastructure on this stretch. The Inland Waterways Authority of India will execute the project in two phases. The first will be completed by 2016-17 and the second by 2018-19, integrating the waterways in the northeast and helping cargo transport through Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.

Vernacular Report, 2012

According to the Vernacular Report, 2012, of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI): 1. A higher percentage of rural people are aware of regional language content than urban users. 2. In India, 45 million users access content in the local language. Around 64 percent of

The Afghanistans turmoil

The Issue = American troops to leave Afghanistan by 2014, and the Taliban issue has still not been resolved. The Obama angle: Obama needs to show some concrete results that have been achieved by the USAfghan war; hence America is

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speeding up the political dialogues. The realisation, two years ago, that defeating the Taliban was impossible triggered cautious efforts at exploring ways to deal with them politically. As 2014 approaches, those efforts have picked up speed, with the Obama administration keen to leave behind an arrangement that can help it claim a semblance of political achievement from the military intervention. Through the facilitation of a French think-tank, representatives of the Karzai governments High Peace Council met Taliban representatives in France last month. The position that the Taliban representatives took at the meeting contained: 1. They denounced the Constitution. 2. They do not want the 2014 elections to be held, and 3. Believe their Islamic Emirate, ousted by U.S. forces after 9/11, was the best thing that happened to Afghanistan. 4. There was no renouncing of ties with al-Qaeda. With the underlying tone one of contempt towards the Karzai government. Hence it is hard to escape the impression that the Taliban are not so much interested in negotiation with Kabul as a deal with the U.S. for a return to power. Given this, the High Councils Peace Process Roadmap to 2015 sounds unrealistic. It visualises a deal based on respect for the Constitutiona ceasefire with the Taliban and other armed groups by the end of 2013, their transformation into political parties and participation in the following years elections. In reality, it makes a huge pragmatic concession to the Taliban by envisaging non-elected positions in the power structure. This has already raised concern within and outside Afghanistan, not least because it is no secret that Pakistan has been working both sides of the table. Pakistans stakes are understandable: post2014, any instability in Afghanistan is most likely to first wash across the Durand Line, adding to its existing woes. But it is not clear if it realises that any attempt to use its influence with the Taliban to create instability in the neighbourhood after 2014 would rebound on it. Locked out of the process after all the talk of a regional solution, The Indian Angle: Indias primary worry is Pakistans intentions, as recently cross-border tensions have increased. Moreover India has invested its time, money and people in Afghanistan hence it would be injurious to Indian interests that Taliban regime comes back into power. supplement the falling incomes of their families during times of agrarian distress. This is what seemed to have happened in India between 1999-2000 and 2004-05. During this five-year period, the growth of agricultural incomes in the country was stagnant, yet the number of self-employed female workers engaged in agriculture and related activities increased by 17 million, possibly indicating distress employment. On the other hand, between 200405 and 2009-10, the number of self-employed female workers engaged in agriculture and related activities decreased by 19 million in India. This decline in employment could be attributed to a modest revival in the growth of agricultural incomes and to the positive impact on rural employment and wages created by the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). Thus, it appears that in India, during the 2000s, female employment in agriculture was not driven by any real opportunities for income generation, but was part of a last-ditch effort to escape impoverishment.

Woman in Indian workforce

The labour participation rate of women = it is the number of women in the labour force as a proportion of the total female population. 1. In 2008, the labour participation rate in India was only 33 percent for females as compared to 81 percent for males. 2. By way of comparison, it was 68 percent for females in China. 3. Among Indian States, the female labour participation rate is one of the lowest in Delhi, a region also known for its harsh treatment of women. The labour force includes not only the employed but also unemployed persons who are actively seeking jobs. In India, substantial numbers of women who are not counted in the labour force are, as described in the official statistics, attending to domestic duties in their own households. 1. National Sample Survey reports tell us that, in 2009-10, out of every 1,000 females (all ages) in Indias rural areas, 347 were attending to domestic duties. 2. In the case of urban females, this number was even bigger: 465 per 1000. Compare this to the number of rural and urban men who were attending to domestic duties: only 5 per 1,000 and 4 per 1,000 respectively. A womans work in her own household is not counted as an economic activity, and does not get reported in the national income statistics. This is unlike the case of services by a paid domestic help, which is considered an economic activity and is counted in the national income. As is well known, womens domestic duties include childbirth, caring for the young and old, cooking, and a range of other activities that are crucial for the upkeep of the family. In rural areas, women periodically enter and exit from agricultural work. Quite often, womens participation in agricultural activities as self-employed workers is to

Urban, Educated Women

1. In India, social factors play a significant role in reducing womens labour participation. 2. In 2009-10, the proportion of those attending to domestic duties (and therefore out of the labour force) was 57 per cent among urban females with graduate degrees or higher, compared to just 31 percent among rural females with primary or middle school education. 3. What are the reasons for such a massive withdrawal of educated women from the work force? Lower wages than men could be one reason. But then female-male wage disparities exist in Japan and South Korea as well, but female labour participation has been high in these countries. 4. Within Indian manufacturing, womens employment is increasingly in the low-paid, vulnerable sectors. Between 1999-2000 and 2004-05, women accounted for 3.7 million of the 9.7 million new manufacturing jobs created in the country. A large proportion of these women were employed in the export-oriented sectors such as garment-making. 5. However, by 2009-10, Indias manufacturing sector was suffering

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from a variety of problems,including power shortage and a slowdown in export demand from western countries. Between 2004-05 and 2009-10, 3.7 million manufacturing jobs were lost in the country, and more than 80 per cent of those who lost their jobs were women. 6. During the post-1990 years, the major source of employment for women has been in the services sector, mainly in low-paid services such as domestic help.

7 January - 14 January 2013 Soon MSMEs can buy, sell licences for patented products online
MSMEs will get concessional rates for trading on the portal An online portal where micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) can trade licences for patented products will be launched in April, said Karamjeet Singh Saluja, Deputy Director, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), Federation of Indian Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises (FISME), Intellectual Property Facilitation Centre (IPFC). There are different IPR instruments, and entrepreneurs should know which instrument should be used when, some of them are; patents, copyrights, trademarks, geographical indication (GI) tags.

3. The 25-hydroxy Vitamin D blood test can tell you if you are deficient or not. Levels over 30 nanograms/ millilitre are termed sufficient. (One nanogram is one billionth of a gram).

VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY RISK GROUP

1. Even though the body can make Vitamin D from sunlight, very few people actually expose themselves to direct sunlight, what with all the sunscreens, staying indoors or covering up to protect the skin against the sun or harsh cold. 2. Those who are especially prone to deficiency are the elderly. People over 65 years make only a quarter of the vitamin than those who are in their twenties. Obese people who have BMI (body mass index) of over 30 too dont make enough. 3. Those with dark skin tones and those who have fat malabsorption due to cystic fibrosis, celiac or Crohns disease, or bowel surgeries are prone to Vit D deficiency. Patients with liver or kidney disease, those taking glucocorticoids, who are home bound or live in a/c rooms (glass panes block UVB rays) and those who live in the northern latitude fall into the risk group. Vegetarians too run the risk of deficiency as animal foods are a major source of Vitamin D. 4. Just 10 to 15 minutes of exposure to the direct sun on our limbs will provide us most of the required Vitamin D. Unfortunately, pollution, cloudy sky and seasons with less sunshine could act against acquiring sufficient ultraviolet B (UVB) rays that create Vitamin D in our body. HOW VITAMIN D AFFECTS OUR HEALTH The Health Professional Follow up Study of 50,000 healthy men monitored the Vitamin D level over a span of 10 years. It was found that those who had low level had twofold the risk of heart disease than those with adequate levels. Separate studies on the same have shown sudden cardiac arrests, stroke and death in people with deficient levels of the vitamin. Children who play under the sun seem to have lesser incidence of respiratory infections. Adults who dont, seem to catch a cold more often. A study on Finnish children over a span of 30 years found that those with Vitamin D deficiency were 90

In Myanmars transition, shades of Indonesia

There are many parallels between Myanmar and Indonesia as: 1. The militaries of both nations are inheritors of the legacies of Japanese occupation, are obsessed with law, order, discipline, unity and territorial integrity 2. Gave high premium to intelligence agencies in maintaining regime survival; debilitated their civil societies; acquired stakes in the countrys economy, and legitimised the political role of the armed forces through constitutional provisions. 3. Both are multi-ethnic states are haunted by the twin spectres of racial tension and a separatist periphery. And, both have inflated views of their importance to national survival. 4. As in Indonesia, nationalism flowered in Burma during World War II and Burmas post-independence leadership had been closely associated with the anti-colonial Burma Independence Army (BIA) recruited and trained by the Japanese. 5. In both Burma and Indonesia, the military had played a prominent part in the achievement of independence. In both countries, having intervened decisively, the military consolidated its position by expanding into civilian administration and business and by establishing a military-dominated political party. Despite minor differences, the pathology, the ideological outlook and the experiences of the two countries are so similar that Myanmar is likely to follow the same trajectory in its movement towards democracya guided political system with a certain role for the armed forces till the economy grows to accommodate both the security and economic interests of the armed forces through an expanded defence budget, and creates a middle class demanding greater transparency and accountability from the government.

Maharashtras SEZ exit policy may not be successful: CREDAI

Raising doubts about the success of the new industrial policy for Maharashtra, developers apex body CREDAI on Wednesday said integrated industrial parks may not be successful as Special Economic Zones have failed to take off. The new policy allows an exit route for special economic zone (SEZ) developers, whose projects have got stuck due to issues like land acquisition or changes in tax laws by the Union government. It is heartening to note that state government is trying to give some incentives to generate higher employment. The new industrial policy is welcome in that sense. However, the policy on conversion of SEZ seems to be going nowhere. Government needs to understand as to why and how SEZs have failed.

Vitamin-D and its importance

1. Sunshine vitamin or Vitamin D, which is manufactured in our body when our skin is exposed to the sun, is popularly known for its muscle strengthening and bone building properties. 2. Getting appropriate Vit D (or sunlight) reduces risk of heart diseases and diabetes, protects against and betters prognosis for colorectal cancer and TB, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia and even wards off the flu!

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per cent more at risk of developing Type 1 diabetes. Vitamin D deficiency is linked to both insulin resistance and impaired pancreatic secretion of insulin. Concept: There are 3 types of UV rays: UVA: A stands for Aging. UVA radiation penetrates deep into the skin and is responsible for premature aging of the skin and skin cancer. Tanning beds can emit 2 to 5 times more UVA radiation than the sun. UVB: B stands for Burning. UVB radiation is stronger than UVA radiation. It mainly affects the outer layers of the skin, causing sunburns, premature aging of the skin, and skin cancer. These rays are strongest during the summer months especially between 11 am and 4 pm. UVC: UVC radiation is the strongest, most dangerous form of UV light. However, they are stopped by the earths atmosphere and do not reach earths surface. Criteria for SAT chief selection modified The Union Cabinet, on Thursday, approved the modified norms for expanding the eligibility criteria for presiding officer of the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), a post that has been lying vacant since November, 2011. Under the modified norms, the eligibility criteria stands slightly diluted in that a retired judge of a High Court with seven years of experience would now be eligible for appointment as SAT chief. As per the earlier norms, only a retired judge of the Supreme Court or a former Chief Justice of a High Court could be appointed as SAT presiding officer. The post has been lying vacant since November 2011 as the government could not find a willing judge meeting the eligibility criteria. science campaign with a heavily instrumented Global Hawk aircraft, will take off from and be operated by NASAs Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California. 3. Water vapour and ozone in the stratosphere can have a large impact on Earths climate. The processes that drive the rise and fall of these compounds, especially water vapour, are not well understood.This limits scientists ability to predict how these changes will influence global climate in the future. 4. ATTREX will study moisture and chemical composition in the upper regions of the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earths atmosphere.The tropopause layer between the troposphere and stratosphere, 12 km to 17 km above Earths surface, is the point where water vapour, ozone and other gases enter the stratosphere. 5. Studies have shown even small changes in stratospheric humidity may have significant climate impacts. Predictions of stratospheric humidity changes are uncertain because of gaps in the understanding of the physical processes occurring in the tropical tropopause layer. 6. ATTREX will use the Global Hawk to carry instruments to sample this layer near the equator off the coast of Central America. 7. The ATTREX payload will provide unprecedented measurements of the tropical tropopause, said Eric Jensen, ATTREX principal investigator at NASAs Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. c. Gamma-ray bursts are shortlived bursts of gamma-ray photons, the most energetic form of light. They can originate far across the universe, and astronomers believe many are caused by giant stars collapsing, often billions of years before Earth was formed. d. Gamma-ray bursts can tell us some very interesting things about the universe, Nemiroff said. e. In this case, those three photons recorded by the Fermi telescope suggest that spacetime may not be as bubbly as some scientists think. f. Some theories of quantum gravity say that the universe is not smooth but foamy made of fundamental units called Planck lengths that are less than a trillionth of a trillionth the diameter of a hydrogen atom. g. Planck lengths are so small that theres no way to detect them, except via photons like those that make up gamma-ray bursts. h. The reason the wavelengths of these photons are some of the shortest distances known to science so short they should interact with the even smaller Planck length. And if they interact, the photons should be dispersedscattered-on their trek through Planck length-pixelated spacetime. i. In particular, they should disperse in different ways if their wavelengths differ, just as a ping pong ball and a softball might take alternate paths down a gravely hillside. j. Also, one wouldnt notice the scattering over short distances, but across billions of light years, the Planck lengths should disperse the light. And three photons from the same gamma-ray burst should not have crashed through the Fermi telescope at the same moment.

Spacetime more like clear whisky than frothy beer

Space-time continuum may be less like a frothy quantum beer and more like a sipping Einsteinian whiskey, a scientist has claimed. a. Astrophysicist Robert Nemiroff of Michigan Technological University and NASA Goddard, reached this conclusion after studying the tracings of three photons of varied wavelengths that were recorded by NASAs Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in May 2009, the Science Daily reported. b. The photons originated about 7 billion light years away from Earth in one of three pulses from a gamma-ray burst. They arrived at the orbiting telescope just one millisecond apart, in a virtual tie.

NASA to send aircraft in stratosphere to study climate change

1. NASA will send a remotely piloted research aircraft 65,000 feet over the tropical Pacific Ocean this month to probe unexplored regions of the upper atmosphere and detect how a warming climate is changing Earth. 2. The first flights of the Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment (ATTREX), a multi-year airborne

FII inflows through P-Notes rise to Rs 1.77 lakh cr

1. Investments into Indian shares through participatory notes (P Notes), a preferred route for HNIs and hedge funds from abroad, hit 9month high of Rs 1.77 lakh crore (about $32.4 billion) in November. 2. According to the latest data released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the total value of PNote investments in Indian markets (equity, debt and derivatives) rose to 1,77,164 crore

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at the end of November after falling to a near three year low of Rs 1,28,895 crore in May. 3. The November figure has reached highest level since February, when the cumulative value of such investments stood at Rs.1,83,151 crore. 4. PNotes, mostly used by overseas HNIs (High Networth Individuals), hedge funds and other foreign institutions, allow them to invest in Indian markets through registered Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), while saving on time and costs associated with direct registrations. 5. Market analysts say investment through PNotes has been raising in the past three months on policy reform measures taken by the government and its initiatives to address tax related issues. 6. Besides, value of PNotes issued with derivatives as underlying, was at an Rs 94,658 crore at the end of November. 7. The quantum of FIIs investments through PNotes, however, declined to 13.7 percent in November, from 14.4 percent in the previous month. 8. PNotes have been accounting for mostly 1520 per cent of total FII holdings in India since 2009, while it used to be much higherin the range of 2540 per cent in 2008. It was as high as over 50 per cent at the peak of Indian stock market bull run during a few months in 2007. 9. Their share has fallen after SEBI tightened disclosure and other regulations for such investments. 10. FIIs, the key driver of Indian markets, poured in $24 billion (around Rs 1.28 lakh crore) into Indian equities in 2012second highest net inflows since 1993 when India opened up its door for foreign investors. seeks to upgrade infrastructure at ports and customs stations on its own terms, the official added. The developed countries including the EU and the US are trying to cherry-pick areas where they want to have plurilateral agreements totally by-passing the Doha round so that they can have some early gains. We are fighting against it, the official said. Developed nations are trying to use the next ministerial meeting of the WTO scheduled in December in Bali to sign a number of plurilateral agreements as the on-going Doha round of talks has not reaped results. India said that it had lost heavily after signing the first instalment of the IT agreement that involved eliminating duties 217 items like parts of microscope, semiconductor equipment, spraying appliances and still image video cameras. two surveys on the prevalence of mental retardation and cancer 3. The published report said no criterion, clinical or biochemical was applied for the selection of victims of endosulfan spraying. Persons with all types of common diseases and those living 10 to 15 km away from the cashew estates are included in the list of victims to avail of free medical aid and financial benefits. 4. The report called for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary study to bring out the true picture of the issue that shook the conscience of the whole world.

Sri Lankan parliament impeaches Chief Justice

The Sri Lankan parliament impeached Chief Justice Shirani Bandara nayake on Friday, effectively throwing the judiciary into disarray and signalling a breakdown of the Constitution. A host of procedural issues delayed the debate on Thursday, and the vote on Friday. But Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, a brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, allowed the vote to go ahead late on Friday. He later announced that the President will be informed that the impeachment motion was passed with 155 votes for the motion and 49 against. 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; and he has said that he would first consult a panel of eminent persons ahead of taking such a decision. Also, since the 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. Concept: the judicial impeachment in India: What is impeachment? A member of the higher judiciary, which means the Judges and Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of India and the state High Courts, can be removed from service only through the process of impeachment under Article 124 (4) of the Constitution on grounds of proven misbehaviour or incapacity. In India, there is no other process by which a Judge can be removed from office before his term comes to an end. However, the process is very cumbersome.

11 Janaury 2013 KAU scientists challenge studies on impact of endosulfan

Two scientists from Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) have come out with a report highlighting serious flaws and inconsistencies in two independent epidemiological studies carried out in the endosulfan-affected areas in Kasaragod. Authored by K.M. Sreekumar, entomologist at the College of Agriculture, Padannakkad, and K.D. Prathapan of the College of Agriculture, Vellayani, the report, published in the latest online edition of the Current Science journal of research, alleges major lapses in the analysis of endosulfan residues, lack of clarity in the incidence of physical disability, biased findings about change in sex ratio, and absence of data to substantiate higher incidence of cancer. SOCIAL REALITIES 1. The report said the inferences on reproductive health events in women had not taken social realities into account and there was no statistical comparison between the data generated during the period of pesticide application (1980 to 2000) and the period after. 2. It also highlighted the inconsistencies in the data generated by the

India not to be part of extended IT pact of select WTO members

India will not be party to the second instalment of the IT agreement that a number of World Trade Organisation members are negotiating as it would lead to zero import tariffs on a number of sensitive electronic and consumer products including mobile phones, i-pads, washing machines and refrigerators. New Delhi would be part of the trade facilitation agreement that

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Who decides if a Judge should be impeached? As per the Judges Inquiry Act, 1968, a complaint against a Judge has to be made through a resolution either by 100 members of the Lok Sabha or 50 Rajya Sabha members. After the MPs submit a duly signed motion to this effect to their respective presiding officers Chairman of the RajyaSabha or Speaker of the LokSabhathe presiding officer constitutes a three-member committee comprising two Judgesone from the Supreme Court and one Chief Justice of a High Court if the complaint is against a HC Judge; and two Supreme Court Judges if the complaint is against a sitting Judge of the apex courtand a jurist to probe the complaint and determine if it is a case fit for initiating the process of impeachment. This team can involve any independent agency, either from the government or the private sector, to investigate the charges, before making a recommendation to the House. Thereafter, if the committee has concluded that impeachment proceedings be launched, the matter is debated in both Houses of Parliament. The Judge who is facing impeachment is also given the opportunity to rebut the charges, either in person or through his representative. However, the entire process debate onwardshas to be completed within a single session of the House, failing which the motion is deemed dropped and can only be taken up if the entire process is repeated afresh in any subsequent session. What is the majority needed to pass the impeachment motion? After the debate ends and the Judge has been heard, if the House decides to put the motion to vote, the resolution has to be passed by two-thirds majority in both Houses in the same session. The resolution is then sent to the President, who orders removal of the Judge. Has any Judge ever been impeached since Independence? None till date. The only time, Parliament came close to impeaching a Judge was in the case of former Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice V Ramaswami for corruption in 1991. However, the move failed as the then Congress government headed by Rajiv Gandhi asked all Congress MPs to abstain from voting, thus defeating the motion. Last year, 58 MPs of the Rajya Sabha moved a motion for impeachment of Calcutta High Court Judge SoumitraSen for his involvement in financial misappropriation before he was appointed as a Judge. The matter is pending before a three-member committee constituted by the RajyaSabha Chairman. On Monday, 75 MPs of the Rajya Sabha submitted a signed motion for impeachment of controversial Karnataka High Court Chief Justice P D Dinakaran on 12 counts. Once the signatures are verified, the matter will be referred to a committee to be constituted by the Chairman of the RajyaSabha. Among other things, Dinakaran is accused of encroaching upon government and village common land, amassing assets much beyond his known sources of income and causing loss to the exchequer. Is there any other way to punish errant Judges? No. In most cases, transfer is the only course of action followed by the Supreme Court collegium if it feels that the offence of the Judge is not so grave so as to attract the penalty of impeachment. Ironically, in a large number of cases, the highest court of the land has ruled that transfer is no punishment. Is the government mulling a new law to rein in and punish errant Judges? Yes, Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily has already announced on the floor of the Parliament that a new law in this regard could be introduced in the ongoing Session of Parliament itself. Two judges are: (1) Justice V. Ramaswami: He was the Punjab and Haryana high court chief justice of in the year 1993 when he was impeached by the LokSabha by 196 votes because of his incapacity to do work; the supreme court had charged Justice V. Ramaswamias failed TO DO COMPLETE JUSTICE. (2) Justice SoumitraSen: He was the Calcutta high court chief justice, the chief justice of India K.G Balakrishnam had recommended him for impeachment to the parliament because he had misappropriating Rs. 22.83 lakh .than on 2009 a three members commitee was set up and investigation was started and he was found guilty and finally on 17 August 2011 he was impeached by Rajya Sabha. CONCLUSION: The impeachment process is levied on the official who is unable to do his or her work properly or who had done the unconstitutional work which harms the country. The impeachment is the process to stop the corruption in the higher level officials and to remove them from their offices because as we had studied we were came to know that by impeachment only the higher level officer is removed from the office.

Judicial over Activism

The judgment delivered on September 13, 2012 by Justice Swatanter Kumar, on behalf of himself and Justice A.K. Patnaik, belongs to an impressive lineage of Supreme Court rulings which create havoc and confusion in institutionsand even in the conduct of examinationsof which its judges were blissfully unaware. That this one called for a complete overhaul of the system of the Central Information Commission (CIC) and the many States Information Commissions is the least of its blemishes. What is of graver import and long-term consequence is that it is a wanton and reckless assault on parliamentary democracy. INTEMPERATE COMMENTS Proceedings for its review had to be halted because its author Justice Swatanter Kumar retired last month and was immediately appointed Chairman of the National Green Tribunal; but not before delivering intemperate comments during the review proceedings. Like almost all Supreme Court judgments, this one is rich in florid prose, disdainful of brevity and is animated by a desire to legislate. A good copy editor would have reduced its 107 pages to one-third. The issue before the court was simple. Section 12 (5) and (6) of the Right to Information Act, 2005 prescribe, respectively, qualifications and disqualifications of the CIC and Information Commissioners. S. 15 (5) and (6) replicate them for their counterparts in the States. Briefly, the petition contended that the criteria for eligibility did not specify the qualifications or consultation with the judiciary. They perform judicial or quasi-judicial functions and should, therefore, have judicial experience. The Act must also prescribe a mechanism for consultation with the judiciary for such appointments.

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S. 12 (6) of the Act which states the disqualifications is simplicity itself. The Chief Information Commissioner or an Information Commissioner shall not be a Member of Parliament or Member of the Legislature of any State or Union Territory, as the case may be, or hold any other office of profit or connected with any political party or carrying on any business or pursuing any profession. How anyone can possibly object to these bars passes comprehension. Judge Swatanter Kumars objection takes ones breath away as does his reading down of its terms. He holds it to have an element of uncertainty and indefiniteness. It is difficult to say what the person eligible under the provision should be doing and for what period. The section does not specify any such period. Normally, the persons would fall under one or the other unacceptable categories. To put it differently, by necessary implication, it excludes practically all classes while not specifying as to which class of persons is eligible to be appointed to that post. The exclusion is too vague, while inclusion is uncertain. One would have thought that the exclusion of legislators, holders of office of profit, politicians, businessmen and professionals leaves open an entire range of persons to select from. The statute book abounds with bars such as these. The judge says that it debars all persons and asks if anyone, who is an elected representative, in government service, or one who is holding an office of profit, carrying on any business or profession, is ineligible in terms of Section 12 (6), then the question arises as to what class of persons would be eligible. The Section is silent on that behalf. But the criteria for eligibility is set out in S. 12 (5) and disqualification is S. 12 (6). The judge finds a way out to save S. 12 (6) from being struck down as bad in law by wrecking it. We would prefer to interpret the provisions of Section 12 (6) as applicable post-appointment rather than pre-appointment of the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners. In other words, these disqualifications will only come into play once a person is appointed as Chief Information Commissioner/ Information Commissioner at any level and he will cease to hold any office or profit or carry any business or pursue any profession that he did prior to such appointment. This perverse misreading of the provision subverts the entire scheme of the Act and flouts the will of Parliament so clearly expressed. By Judge Swatanter Kumars logic, it would be open to the government of the day to pack the Information Commissions, Central and State, with legislators from the ruling party, party officials, civil servants and others, provided only that they resigned from their jobs to fill these plum postings. Such people do not turn Becketts. The object clearly was to exclude this category, not include it after its purification by resignation. The statute book abounds with such sensible bars. Parliament was justified in laying them down. Judges Kumar and Patnaik subvert its will and do so by a reasoning which is shockingly absurd. The strictures by Lord Chancellor Simonds on a similar excess by Lord Demmings are apta naked usurpation of the legislative function under the disguise of interpretation. The ruling is no better on the provision for eligibility. S. 12 (5) says: The Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners shall be persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance. UNCERTAIN TENOR The Bench holds, however, that the terminology used by the legislature, such as mass-media or administration and governance, are terms of uncertain tenor and amplitude. It is somewhat difficult to state with exactitude as to what class of persons would be eligible under these categories. The legislature in its wisdom has chosen not to provide any specific qualification, but has primarily prescribed wide knowledge and experience in the cited subjects as the criteria for selection. Indeed it holds that the qualifications prescribed [S. 12 (5)] conflict with the disqualifications in sub-section (6). To sustain their constitutionality, the bar is thus judicially modified to apply after appointment, and the qualifications themselves are modified to plant judges on the Commissions. The right to do so is boldly stated: The Courts can also bridge the gaps that have been left by the legislature inadvertently. Gaps are detected where none exist and are filled in by an improper exercise of judicial power, in breach of the fundamentals of parliamentary democracy. Piling error upon error, the judges themselves venture to lay down qualifications a basic degree in the respective field practice in law for 20 years and a procedure for consultation with the Chief Justice of India and the Chief Justices of the High Courts. Twelve directions are given. The Almighty was content with 10. Parliament could have laid down that the CIC and the ICs be presided over by judges. It chose consciously and wisely not to do so. What have the judges to show for themselves as they ran Commissions of Inquiry and the Press Council? The Kudal Commission on the Gandhi Peace Foundation, the Thakkar Commission on Indira Gandhis assassination, the J.S. Verma and the M.C. Jain Commissions on different aspects of Rajiv Gandhis assassination, the RanganathMisra Commission on the Delhi rots, the Wadhwa Commission on the Staines murders and the Lieberhan Commission on the demolition of the Babri Masjid? Consultation with the CJI is no safeguard. Justice R.S. Pathak, CJI, was consulted on the appointment of judges to the Fairfax Commission. He opted for Judges M.P. Thakkar and S. Natarajan, a safe pair of hands. How have successive judges of the Supreme Court conducted themselves on the Press Council of India? At least six CJIs left office in the last quarter century under a cloud. On November 22, hearing the petition for review, the bench as correspondents timidly reported, probably for Justice Kumar said that the CIC and ICs are persons who have been in the governments good books. However, on September 19, a day after the Centre moved to appoint Judge Swatanter Kumar as head of the National Green Tribunal, another Bench comprising Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhyay remarked that appointments to tribunals, including the NGT, had raised serious issues relating to integrity of judges and that there is a competition among the judges to get those appointments.

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This is one aspect of the unfortunate ruling; another is its obstruction of the democratic process. The crux of the matter is that Parliament is entitled to lay down the criteria and the government, accountable to it, is entitled to choose persons who meet the criteria. The courts have no business to impose their views. governments efforts will now show results in the coming months. This data does not contradict the proposition that the economy has bottomed out. It now needs to move upwards...you need to wait to see what December is likeIn this particular case, we have to keep in mind that the base effect has operated in two different ways, he said. Prime Ministers Economic Advisory Council Chiarman C. Rangarajan viewed that the situation would improve in the coming quarters of the fiscal. I certainly think in the first quarter of next year or the last quarter of this fiscal, we can see a definite positive growth in manufacturing, he said. However, on the possibility of a rate cut by the RBI, Dr.Rangarajan said: The RBI will look at a number of factors. Wholesale Price Index will be an input into the decision makingThe RBI will have to see about an appropriate action being taken in order to contain the fiscal deficit ...Trends are in the right direction perhaps. But let us wait. Concept: IIP: Every month the stock markets wait with bated breath to hear the IIP numbers. These numbers decide the market movement. But what is IIP? What is its relationship to the stock markets? Let us understand more about IIP. IIP, the key tracker of industrial production IIP or the index of industrial production is the number denoting the condition of industrial production during a certain period. These figures are calculated in reference to the figures that existed in the past. Currently the base used for calculating IIP is 2004-05 Importance of IIP As IIP shows the status of industrial activity, you can find out if the industrial activity has increased, decreased or remained same. Today it is important because with the news of recession hovering over the horizon, better IIP figures indicate increase in industrial production. It makes investors and stock markets become more optimistic. Its relation with stock markets The optimism amongst the stock markets and investors translates into the markets going up. This is because the markets expect the companies performance to increase. This ultimately leads to the growth in the countrys GDP. It implies improvement in countrys economy, thus making it an attractive investment destination to foreign investors. Computation of IIP The first time IIP used the year 1937 as its reference point. It contained only 15 products. Since then, the criteria for the base year as well as the number of products have been revamped 7 times. Currently, IIP uses 2004-05 as the reference year and includes items whose gross value of output is at least Rs 80 crores and Rs 20 crores at gross value added level. The products included are the ones used on consistent basis and can comprise of small scale sector as well as unorganized production sector. They are segregated into 3 sections: manufacturing, mining and electricity. They are also classified on the basis of usage: capital goods, basic goods, nonbasic goods, consumer durables and consumer non-durables. The numbers for IIP are released within 6 weeks after the end of the month. This data is collated from 15 different agencies like Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Indian Bureau of Mines, Central Statistical Organisation and Central Electricity Authority. But at times, the entire data may not be easily available. Hence some estimates are done to generate provisional data, which is then used to calculate provisional index. Once the actual data is available, this index is updated subsequently. Though IIP does indicate the condition of the countrys economy, it should not be taken as the sole basis for investment. This is because some sectors may show higher performance as compared to others. This was evident in the recent past when realty sector showed higher performance, pharma sector lagged behind.

IIP growth at 4-month low (Nov 2012)

Shaking the growing optimism over an on-going recovery while giving clear signals of a bottoming out, the growth in industrial output contracted to a four-month low of 0.1 percent in November, 2012, mainly owing to poor shows by manufacturing, mining and capital goods sectors, which have been the laggards for most part of the year. With the slump in industrial growth, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), coming immediately after a robust 8.3 per cent expansion in October and way below the 6 per cent growth witnessed in November, 2011, the dismal performance prompted the industry chambers to clamour yet again for a rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its quarterly review on January 29. The IIP data released here on Friday revealed that the major culprit responsible for the contraction in overall growth was the manufacturing sector, which makes up for over 75 per cent of the index. It grew by a mere 0.3 per cent in November last year as compared to a healthy 6.6 per cent increase in the same month a year ago. Accordingly, the cumulative growth in industrial production during the April-November period this fiscal stood pegged at a paltry one per cent, a marked pull-down from the healthier 3.8 per cent expansion notched up in the same period in 2011-12. Partly responsible for the poor show thus far this fiscal was the performance in July, 2012, which saw a contraction of 0.1 per cent. Meanwhile, the growth in the industrial production during October last year has been revised to 8.3 percent from the provisional estimates of 8.2 percent. Analysing the IIP numbers and attributing the slump in factory output in November to statistical reasons, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia argued that the economy has already bottomed out and the

NHRC unveils Code of Ethics for Indian industry

Refraining from projects that would be detrimental to locals, respecting whistleblowers rights and allowing equal opportunities to qualified employees regardless of their caste or religion are among the Code of Ethics propagated by NHRC for Indian Industry. The NHRC came up with the 12point Code after a panel appointed

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by it submitted a report and said Indian industrys criteria for social and ethical aspects are yet to reach the desired level of sophistication. The agitation and the mass uproar surrounding the Lokpal movement suggest that there is need for creating accountable entities. This aspect should be incorporated in business ethics. As per this tenet, companies must conform to trade procedures, including licensing, documentation and other necessary formalities, as applicable, the study Developing Code of Ethics for Indian Industry said. Noting that inclusion is one of the key deterrents to growth in the country, the study said, the first tenet to ethical behaviour has to be inclusiveness. All companies must refrain from undertaking projects or activities that would be detrimental to the wider interests of the communities in which they operate. This implies that companies should respect the local culture, customs and traditions in which they operate, it said. In a statement, NHRC said the Code of Ethics for Indian Industry strongly advocates for equal opportunities to all qualified employees, regardless of their race, caste, gender, religion etc for their inclusive growth and welfare. It is required that companies strive for providing a safe, healthy, clean and ergonomic working environment for their employees and indirect workers, the Commission said. The Code of Ethics was formulated after an exhaustive study based on data collected from 20 industries in diverse sectors, including Tata, Yes Bank and ITC Ltd. Code of Ethics emphasises upon the implementation of policies consistent with the laws, development of an atmosphere, wherein whistle-blowers rights are respected and employees are allowed to raise their concerns to the top management without fear and intimidation, the Commission said. Concept: NHRC The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India is an autonomous public body constituted on 12 October 1993 under the Protection of Human Rights Ordinance of 28 September 1993. It was given a statutory basis by the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 (TPHRA). The NHRC is the national human rights institution, responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights, defined by the Act as rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants. Since late 2011, the organization has been embroiled in a controversy where leading jurists have sought the resignation of its Chairman, exChief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, pending investigation into charges of assets disproportionate to his income. In response, NHRC has uploaded details of Justice Balakrishnans assets. Functions of NHRC TPHRA mandates the NHRC to perform the following functions: 1. proactively or reactively inquire into violations of human rights or negligence in the prevention of such violation by a public servant 2. by leave of the court, to intervene in court proceeding relating to human rights 3. visit any jail or other institution under the control of the State Government, where persons are detained or lodged for purposes of treatment, reformation or protection, for the study of the living conditions of the inmates and make recommendations Composition The NHRC consists of: 1. A Chairperson who has been a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India 2. One Member who is, or has been, a Judge of the Supreme Court of India 3. One Member who is, or has been, the Chief Justice of a High Court 4. Two Members to be appointed from among persons having knowledge of, or practical experience in, matters relating to human rights 5. In addition, the Chairpersons of four National Commissions serve as ex officio members. The 4 national commissions chairperson who serve as exofficio members are: 1. National Commission Minorities 2. National Commission Scheduled Castes 3. National Commission Scheduled Tribes 4. National Commission Women. for for for for

MNC insurers pitch for hike in FDI cap to 49 p.c.

1. Leading a group of multinational insurers, former Ambassador of the US to India Frank Wisner on Friday pitched for 4. review the safeguards provided raising foreign direct investment by or under the Constitution or any law for the time being in force for the ceiling in the insurance sector to 49 per cent to help insurers raise protection of human rights and capital necessary to fuel business recommend measures for their growth. effective implementation 5. review the factors, including acts of terrorism that inhibit the enjoyment of human rights and recommend appropriate remedial measures 6. study treaties and other international instruments on human rights and make recommendations for their effective implementation 7. undertake and promote research in the field of human rights 8. engage in human rights education among various sections of society and promote awareness of the safeguards available for the protection of these rights through publications, the media, seminars and other available means 9. encourage the efforts of NGOs and institutions working in the field of human rights 10. Such other function as it may consider it necessary for the protection of human rights. 2. Currently, the FDI limit in the insurance sector at 26 per cent. 3. Emphasising that foreign companies are the long term players in the insurance business, he said raising foreign investment limit will give them confidence and help them bring in higher capital which is required for the growth of the business. 4. Entry of foreign companies in the insurance market has resulted in expanding the product basket, Mr. Wisner said, adding the sector has generated about 3 million direction and indirect employment and modern practices introduced in the sector post liberalisation. 5. Indias own national insurance company has grown by leaps and bounds as a result of introduction of competition, he said. 6. Its timely for a number of reasons...India has huge demand

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for capital both foreign and domestic. Since 2009, it has been receiving less capital, he said. 7. Capital today is looking for the market which offers best and good corporate governance, predictable returns and assured policy, he added. 8. The Insurance Amendment Bill, which seeks to raise the FDI cap in the private sector insurance companies to 49 per cent from 26 per cent, is now expected in the upcoming Budget. 9. The Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill has been pending in the RajyaSabha since December 2008. 10. The Union Cabinet had cleared the draft Bill on October 4, 2012 as part of slew of measures to allow FDI in various sectors. 11. The Standing Committee headed by senior BJP leader YashwantSinha, which had scrutinised the Bill, was against raising the ceiling on FDI in the sector arguing that it would expose the sector to global vulnerability. 12. At present, there are 52 insurance companies operating in India; of which 24 are in the life insurance business and 27 are in general insurance business. rising global temperatures, degradation of natural protection from tidal waves and cyclones is inevitably leading to species loss in this richly biodiverse part of the world, according to a ZSL statement. decade, monitoring the on-going Schemes of the Government and most importantly, plan for the future. That is why the Slogan is Our Census - Our Future. National Population Register: Introduction The National Population Register (NPR) is a Register of usual residents of the country. It is being prepared at the local (Village/subTown), sub-District, District, State and National level under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR. A usual resident is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past 6 months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next 6 months or more. Objectives The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country. The database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars. Demographic Particulars 3. The following demographic details of every individual are required for every usual resident: Name of person Relationship to head of household Fathers name Mothers name Spouses name (if married) Sex Date of Birth Marital status Place of birth Nationality (as declared) Present address of usual residence Duration of stay at present address Permanent residential address Occupation/Activity Educational qualification

President presents Census Medals

President Pranab Mukherjee presented the Census Medals for extraordinary performance at a function in VigyanBhavan here on Friday. The President congratulated all the Census Medal winners and said informed decision-making has to be based on empirical data and census is the only source of data that provides information on various individual characteristics right up to the village level for rural areas and the ward level for urban areas. The President said census in India was a very challenging task in view of its multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-cultural society. Ever since the first Census of India after Independence, it has been the tradition with the Census Organisation to award silver and bronze medals and certificates of honour from the President to various census functionaries, including enumerators, supervisors, charge officers in recognition of their work. Concept: 2011 Census The Indian Census is the most credible source of information on Demography (Population characteristics), Economic Activity, Literacy and Education, Housing & Household Amenities, Urbanisation, Fertility and Mortality, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Language, Religion, Migration, Disability and many other sociocultural and demographic data since 1872. Census 2011 will be the 15th National Census of the Country. This is the only source of primary data in the village, town and ward level, It provides valuable information for planning and formulation policies for Central and the State Governments and is widely used by National and International Agencies, Scholars, business people, industrialists, and many more. The Delimitation/reservation of Constituencies- Parliamentary/ Assembly/Panchayat and other Local Bodies is also done on the basis of the demographic data thrown up by the Census. Census is the basis for reviewing the countrys progress in the past

Shrinking Sunderbans threat to Bengal Tiger

Fast-disappearing mangrove forests of the Sunderbans pose a question mark over the future of the Royal Bengal Tiger, an endangered species, and say scientists. Rapid deterioration in mangrove health is causing as much as 200 metres of the vegetation-rich coast to disappear annually in the Sunderbans, according to zoologists. Nathalie Pettorelli, from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and senior study author, said: Our results indicate a rapidly retreating coastline that cannot be accounted for by the regular dynamics of the Sunderbans. Degradation is happening fast, weakening this natural shield for India and Bangladesh. Sunderbans is the largest block of continuous mangrove forest in the world, native to nearly 500 species of reptile, fish, bird and mammals, including the world famous Royal Bengal Tiger, the journalRemote Sensing reports. Thriving human development,

LPG portability launched

1. Online booking, tracking and delivery introduced across country 2. The UPA government on Friday launched portability of LPG connections in Chandigarh. Online booking, tracking and delivery of gas, and booking of new connections through mobile and web portal have been introduced across the country.

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3. Launching gas connection portability, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister VeerapaMoily said the service would be extended to 25 more districts in the next fiscal. 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. 4. For example, a consumer of Indane of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will have the option to choose from other Indane dealers but will not be able to switch to dealers of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) or Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). A pool of two to three dealers will be cleared for every locality in the district. Consumers will have the option of choosing from this cluster, Mr.Moily added. 5. Dealer portability has been launched to provide better services to 13.5 crore customers and end the monopolistic practices of the cooking gas distributors, he said. 6. No inter-company change 7. Officials said the inter-company change was not possible at this moment as the law did not permit it. The government was looking at changing the law or creating a situation where a cylinder belonging to one oil company could be returned to or re-filled by another oil company. 8. Mr.Moily 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 percent of cylinders booked in less than two days is rated 5 stars and the distributor who supplies 85 percent of cylinders beyond 10 days is rated with no star. 9. Others are rated in between according to their delivery pattern. The rating will help consumers select distributorships once portability is available.

7 January - 14 January 2013 Ballastless tracks to facilitate operation of high-speed trains

The Indian Railways will switch to ballastless tracks on seven routes, including the Chennai-Bangalore sector, identified for operating highspeed trains, said A.P. Mishra, Member, Engineering, Railway Board, on Friday. Ballastless tracks that allow operation of high-speed trains and have the benefits of lower maintenance requirements and increased service life are the choice by default for these high-speed rail corridors, tunnelling projects and tracks near platforms, Mr. Mishra said. Feasibility studies are at various stages of completion on the highspeed routes, including ChennaiBangalore, Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Chandigarh sectors. According to Mr. Mishra, new tracks would have to be laid for the Chennai-Bangalore route where the plan is to operate trains at speeds in excess of 250 km per hour. The average speed on the Delhi-Mumbai route, where existing tracks are being used for trials of high-speed trains is about 200 kmph. Concept: Advantage of ballastless track over traditional tracks: A disadvantage of traditional track structures is the heavy demand for maintenance, particularly surfacing (tamping) and lining to restore the desired track geometry and smoothness of vehicle running. Weakness of the subgrade and drainage deficiencies also lead to heavy maintenance costs. This can be overcome by using ballastless track. In its simplest form this consists of a continuous slab of concrete (like a highway structure) with the rails supported directly on its upper surface (using a resilient pad). There are a number of proprietary systems, and variations include continuous in situ placing of a reinforced concrete slab, or alternatively the use of pre-cast pre-stressed concrete units laid on a base layer. Many permutations of design have been put forward. However ballastless track is very expensive in first cost, and in the case of existing railroads requires closure of the route for a somewhat long period. Its whole life cost can be lower because of the great reduction in maintenance requirement. Ballastless track is usually considered for new very high speed

or very high loading routes, in short extensions that require additional strength (e.g. rail station), or for localised replacement where there are exceptional maintenance difficulties, for example in tunnels.

Govt moves to make three key cancer drugs cheaper

In a move that will benefit thousands of cancer patients but is likely to upset pharma MNCs, the Department of Pharmaceuticals has started the process of issuing compulsory licences for three commonly used anti-cancer drugs, Trastuzumab (or Herceptin, used for breast cancer), Ixabepilone (used for chemotherapy) and Dasatinib (used to treat leukaemia). The first drug to be issued a compulsory licence in India was Bayers Nexavar (sorafenibtosylate), a drug for liver cancer, last August. After the CL, Nexavar is available for Rs 8,880 per pack of 120 tablets (a months dose), over 95% cheaper than its pre-CL price. Trastuzumab, Ixabepilone and Dasatinib are all more expensive that Nexavar, costing Rs 50,000, Rs 70,000-80,000 and Rs 15,000 respectively for a months dose. Officials at the Department of Pharmaceuticals said it was too early to predict the post-CL price of these drugs. Dr ShyamAggarwal, consultant oncologist at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said, Even after the recent cut in the prices of Trastuzumab and Dasatinib, they are still way too expensive for the common man. It is a very good move and will not just benefit Indians but possibly also bring down cancer drug prices in countries where the pharma market is not controlled by the US and western European nations. Concept: compulsory licensing Compulsory licensing (CL) by the government allows a domestic company to manufacture and sell a generic version of a patented drug with or without the consent of the patent-holder. Sections 84 and 92 of the Indian Patents Act, 1970, provide for CL in cases where the patented drug is unavailable, unaffordable, or if there are problems with its supply in India. CL reduces the price of a drug manifold, and is a practice in many developing countries. Ion beam hope for cancer patients West Bengal may soon get cheaper and cost effective cancer treatment facilities with the help of

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proton ion beam as a team of Saha Instititute of Nuclear Physics is now working on a research project indigenously on how ion beams could be used in treating cancer patients. A team of 20 scientists of molecular mechanism of disease branch of SINP has initiated the research recently. The therapy is likely to be made available in Bengal next year. Milan Sanyal, director Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, said till now cancer treatment through proton ion beam for treating cancer is used in Germany and parts of UK and if proton ion beams could be indigenously created in Bengal, it can help in treating millions of cancer patients. Till now in Bengal radiotherapy is used for treating cancer cells and as a result, apart from cancer cells many other cells get damaged. With the help of ion beams we can give radiation to only cancer affected cells Sanyal added. Experts on radiation therapy are of the opinion that radiation through proton beam therapy will be more localised and the cost of treatment will be 1/4 th less than the original. Dr JaydipBiswas, director of Chiittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI) said that if proton beam therapy is used in treatment of cancer patients, its main advantage would be that normal cells of the patient will not get affected. In most of the cancer cases, surgery cannot be conducted in critical areas, especially in the prostate gland or blood vessels connecting main organs like liver and lungs. Proton beam therapy will be helpful in such cases, Biswas said. tions, are being targeted. A mapping system has been develo-ped to ensure that all newborns in these areas are vaccinated, and that no one slips through the net. While the success of the polio campaign is a model of focussed attention, the attention is now being turned on increasing routine immunisation coverage, according to those involved in public health administration. A joint statement from the WHO, the CDC, the UNICEF, the End Polio Now campaign, and the Central government, indicates that the sensitivity of surveillance in India now surpasses the globally recommended standards. Credit is being accorded to the commitment of the Centre for pushing ahead with the programme in the face of major hurdles. However, equally important is the seamless partnership between the government, and the Rotary International, the WHO, the UNICEF and private paediatricians for it was the scale of this alliance that managed to mobilise vast quantities of field-level workers. In the final call, this probably swung the balance in favour of humans over the wild polio virus. Poliomyelitis Polio; Infantile paralysis; Postpolio syndrome: Poliomyelitis is a viral disease that can affect nerves and can lead to partial or full paralysis. Causes, incidence, and risk factors: 1. Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. The virus spreads by: 2. Direct person-to-person contact 3. Contact with infected mucus or phlegm from the nose or mouth 4. Contact with infected feces 5. The virus enters through the mouth and nose, multiplies in the throat and intestinal tract, and then is absorbed and spread through the blood and lymph system. The time from being infected with the virus to developing symptoms of disease (incubation) ranges from 5 - 35 days (average 7 - 14 days). Most people do not develop symptoms. Risks include: 1. Lack of immunization against polio 2. Travel to an area that has experienced a polio outbreak 3. Outbreaks can still occur in the developed world, usually in groups of people who have not been vaccinated. Polio often occurs after someone travels to a region where the disease is common. As a result of a massive, global vaccination campaign over the past 20 years, polio exists only in a few countries in Africa and Asia. Symptoms 1. There are three basic patterns of polio infection: subclinical infections, nonparalytic, and paralytic. Most people have subclinical infection, and may not have symptoms. 2. SUBCLINICAL INFECTION SYMPTOMS 3. General discomfort or uneasiness (malaise) 4. Headache 5. Red throat 6. Slight fever 7. Sore throat 8. Vomiting 9. People with subclinical polio infection might not have symptoms, or mild symptoms may last 72 hours or less. 10. Clinical poliomyelitis affects the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), and is divided into nonparalytic and paralytic forms. It may occur after recovery from a subclinical infection. Indian Action: Pulse Polio is an immunisation campaign established by the government of India in 1995-96 to eradicate poliomyelitis (polio) in India by vaccinating all children under the age of five years against polio virus. This project deals with the ways to fight poliomyelitis through a large scale immunisation programme, co-operating with various international institutions, state governments and Non Governmental Organisations. The Pulse Polio Initiative (PPI) aims at covering every individual in the country. It aspires to reach even children in remote communities through an improved social mobilisation plan. 1. Not a single child should miss the immunisation, leaving no chance of polio occurrence. 2. Cases of Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) to be reported in time and stool specimens of them to be collected within 14 days. Outbreak Response Immunisation (ORI) to be conducted as early as possible. 3. Maintaining high level of surveillance.

12 Janaury 2013 Polio Free India:

It is two years since India has had a polio case. One more before the country can say Goodbye, Polio!.... The battle against the wild polio virus is poised interestingly in the nation that not long ago, in 2009, accounted for nearly half the worlds polio cases. To prevent polio from re-emerging, the government has planned to keep up intensive campaigns, especially in high-risk areas. Two nationwide campaigns and four sub-national polio campaigns will take place in 2013. High-risk areas, including blocks in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and migrant popula-

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4. Performance of good mop-up operations where polio has disappeared. 5. India to be polio-free by 2005. Steps involved 1. Setting up of booths in all parts of the country. 2. Initialising walk-in cold rooms, freezer rooms, deep freezers, icelined refrigerators and cold boxes for ensuring steady supply of vaccine to booths. 3. Arranging employees, volunteers and vaccines. 4. Ensuring vaccine vial monitor on each vaccine vial. 5. Immunising children with OPV on National Immunisation Days. 6. Identifying missing children from immunisation process. 7. Surveillance of efficacy. India free of polio 2012 The last reported case of polio in India was in West Bengal on January 13, 2011. On 25 February, 2012, India was officially struck off the list of polio-endemic countries by the World Health Organization (WHO). Judicial members must have been judges of the Supreme Court or High Courts. Expert members have to possess technical qualifications and expertise, and also practical experience. The Tribunal shall hear only substantial question relating to the environment. Substantial questions are those which (a) affect the community at large, and not just individuals or groups of individuals, or (b) cause significant damage to the environment and property, or (c) cause harm to public health which is broadly measurable.

Use of alternative materials mooted for road projects

Several road projects in the country are facing constraints such as inadequate funds and non-availability of materials, Director-General (Road Development) and Special Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways C. Kandasamy said here on Saturday. The annual session of the Indian Roads Congress (IRC), which concluded here on Friday, highlighted that roads should be designed not just for vehicles but for people, safety and services. We are trying to effect policy changes. The IRC would do pilot projects on road safety and the government would facilitate these projects through the required guidelines. The Chamber president R.R. Balasundaram said that the bypass road connecting Tiruchi Road and Mettupalayam Road in Coimbatore should be taken up immediately. The four-lane work on NH 47 from Chengapalli to Walayar should be expedited and completed within the stipulated time. The NH 67 stretch from Sulur to Coimbatore should be made into a fourlane one on a priority basis. Concept: what can be used to make roads? 1. Fly Ash: Fly ash a finally divided mineral residue of burning of coal exhibits excellent geotechnical as well as pozzolanicproperties that make it very suitable for all construction activities including roads, embankments andreclamation of low lying areas. Fly ash based construction materials including cement, concrete, bicks, blocks, tiles, pavers, kerb stones, prefabricated door frames, window frames, beams, slabs are becoming favourite of construction industry, being durable, economical, eco-friendly, easy to use & of consistent quality. Fly ash also holdspotential to improve the socio-economic status of rural areas by generation of employment & business through manufacture of fly ash based products, their usages in rural development schemes,development of fly ash supply chain, improvement of agriculture yield and land resource management, etc. with fly ash. 2. Other materials include:cement and lime kiln dust, steel slag, rice husk ash, baggase ash 3. Jute geotextiles are used in reinforcing roads in India.

Key Issues and Analysis

The criteria to determine what a substantial question related to the environment are open to interpretation. The Bill may reduce access to justice in environmental matters by taking away the jurisdiction of civil courts. All cases under laws mentioned in the Bill will now be handled by the Tribunal which will initially have benches at only five locations. The Bill does not give the Tribunal jurisdiction over some laws related to the environment. The qualifications of judicial members of the Tribunal are similar to that of the NEAA. The government has been unable to find qualified members for the NEAA for the past three years. The Green Tribunal Bill gives an explicit option to the government to appoint members with administrative experience as expert members. The Bill does not specify the minimum number of members the Tribunal and also does not mention of the composition of the Selection Committee for selecting members. Some other laws that establish tribunals specify the persons who shall decide, or be consulted.

Green Tribunal halts all construction activity in Noida and Greater Noida
In an order that is expected to bring to a halt all construction activity, the National Green Tribunal has restrained all builders in Noida and Greater Noida from extracting any quantity of underground water for purposes of construction or otherwise till the next date of hearing. Concept: National Green Tribunal Bill, 2009 In order to provide quick clearance for cases related to environmental damage, this Bill sets up the National Green Tribunal. The tribunal will hear cases related to major environmental damage as well as appeals under various environmental Acts.

Renowned poet gets Assam Literary Award

Renowned Assamese poet Sameer Tanti has been awarded the prestigious Assam Valley Literary Award for the year 2012. The award, instituted by Williamson Magor Education Trust, is given to preserve and promote the rich literary heritage of Assam, said a release issued by the trust here on Saturday. Fifty-eight-year-old Tanti has to his credit 12 collections of poems, four critical and literary essay collections, two translations of African poems and love songs and Japanese love poetry and two story collections.

Highlights of the Bill

The National Green Tribunal Bill, 2009 aims to set up specialised environmental courts in the country. The Bill replaces the existing National Environmental Appellate Authority and has wider jurisdiction than the NEAA. It will hear initial complaints as well as appeals from decisions of authorities under various environ-mental laws. The Tribunal shall consist of both judicial and expert members.

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7 January - 14 January 2013 Provisioning norms for NBFCs will hit profitability: Assocham
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) has suggested to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that the proposed norms on prudential regulatory framework of nonbanking finance companies (NBFCs) could have a negative impact on overall profitability of NBFCs due to higher provisioning requirements for standard assets and revision in non-performing assets (NPA) norms. As a liquidity coverage requirement, the industry organisation suggested the RBI to treat bank deposits with maturity period beyond 30 days, where pre-mature refunds are allowed without any penalty, as good as bank balances for all practical purposes. Provisioning on standard assets Further, the panel has proposed to raise the provisioning on standard assets from 0.25 percentage points to 0.40 percentage points of the outstanding amount with effect from March 31, 2014, for all NBFCs. The chamber has also suggested to the RBI that the time limit of three years may be considered instead of implementing it from March 31, 2014. This is important in the case of factoring companies which have just been governed by the Factoring Bill passed by Parliament. The operational cycle for most of the infrastructure projects is more than three months, and considering the difficulties related to implementation, operational and other issues raised by IFCs, three months period for the declaration of NPA may be inadequate. So far as infrastructure companies are concerned, the period should be kept as 180 days, Assocham added. Further, it said that NBFCs do not enjoy the same benefits as provided to banks under the Income-tax Act. Therefore, it was suggested by the industry that given the objective to bring parity with banks, NBFCs should be provided the same benefits under SARFAESI (Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest) Act and Incometax Act and benefits under Debt Recovery Tribunals. Income tax benefits should also be brought on a par with banks for NBFCs. Banks get benefits on their entire provisioning while NBFCs get that benefit on written-off books only. NBFCs are to be considered on a par with banks and financial institutions for availing of refinance and take-out finance from IIFCL to ensure level-playing field, the chamber added. Concept: NBFCs in India QUES -1. what is a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC)? ANS -1. A Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) is a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 and is engaged in the business of loans and advances, acquisition of shares/stock/bonds/ debentures/securities issued by Government or local authority or other securities of like marketable nature, leasing, hire-purchase, insurance business, chit business but does not include any institution whose principal business is that of agriculture activity, industrial activity, sale/purchase/construction of immovable property. A non-banking institution which is a company and which has its principal business of receiving deposits under any scheme or arrangement or any other manner, or lending in any manner is also a non-banking financial company (Residuary nonbanking company). QUES 2. NBFCs are doing functions similar to banks. What is difference between banks & NBFCs? ANS 2. NBFCs are doing functions akin to that of banks; however there are a few differences: 1. an NBFC cannot accept demand deposits; 2. an NBFC is not a part of the payment and settlement system and as such an NBFC cannot issue cheques drawn on itself; and 3. deposit insurance facility of Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation is not available for NBFC depositors unlike in case of banks. QUES-3. Is it necessary that every NBFC should be registered with RBI? ANS 3. In terms of Section 45-IA of the RBI Act, 1934, it is mandatory that every NBFC should be registered with RBI to commence or carry on any business of non-banking financial institution as defined in clause (a) of Section 45 I of the RBI Act, 1934. However, to obviate dual regulation, certain categories of NBFCs which are regulated by other regulators are exempted from the requirement of registration with RBI viz. Venture Capital Fund/Merchant Banking companies/Stock broking companies registered with SEBI, Insurance Company holding a valid Certificate of Registration issued by IRDA, Nidhi companies as notified under Section 620A of the Companies Act, 1956, Chit companies as defined in clause (b) of Section 2 of the Chit Funds Act, 1982 or Housing Finance Companies regulated by National Housing Bank. QUES 4. What are the different types of NBFCs registered with RBI? ANS 4. Originally, NBFCs registered with RBI were classified as: 1. equipment leasing company; 2. hire-purchase company; 3. loan company; 4. investment company. However, with effect from December 6, 2006 the above NBFCs registered with RBI have been reclassified as (i) Asset Finance Company (AFC) (ii) Investment Company (IC) (iii) Loan Company (LC) AFC would be defined as any company which is a financial institution carrying on as its principal business the financing of physical assets supporting productive/ economic activity, such as automobiles, tractors, lathe machines, generator sets, earth moving and material handling equipments, moving on own power and general purpose industrial machines. Principal business for this purpose is defined as aggregate of financing real/physical assets supporting economic activity and income arising therefrom is not less than 60% of its total assets and total income respectively. The above type of companies may be further classified into those accepting deposits or those not accepting deposits.

Uses of proteins in Humans

Protein is essential for your body to build hormones, enzymes, antibodies and every cell. After age 40 your body has to work harder to maintain muscle mass, so its important to make sure you get enough muscle-building protein in a steady supply throughout the day. Our recommendation: Aim for a minimum of 46-56 grams of protein per day.

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And most important, protein doesnt mean saturated fat! Stay clear of all red meats. Opt for fish and lean poultry if you arent vegetarian. But everyone should rely on lean, protein-packing beans, hummus, low-fat dairy, 100 percent whole grains, soy foods and egg whites. How our bodies use protein: The body doesnt have a large storage depot for protein, as it does for carbohydrate and fat. The protein we eat from food has to be handled as we eat it. Like rookies sitting on the bench waiting for their chance to play, the amino acids in the pool are ready and waiting to be utilized. Either the amino acids are used within a limited time to build a body protein, or they are transformed. If amino acids in the pool arent needed to become a protein, the body is equipped to reconfigure them either back to glucose to be used as energy or into fat. To transform an amino acid, the liver strips off the nitrogen, which may then be incorporated into DNA, RNA, or a nonessential amino acid. Excess nitrogen may also be incorporated into urea, or ammonia, both of which are excreted in the urine. In order to eliminate these, water is needed, so a high protein intake can result in excess fluid loss. The remaining part of the stripped-down amino acid may be reconfigured into glucose, and it is burned for energy. 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. These nations will also focus on the research and development, manufacturing of affordable health products and capability to conduct clinical trials while emphasising on the importance of child survival through progressive reduction in the maternal mortality, infant mortality, neo-natal mortality and under-five mortality, to achieve Millennium Development Goals. BRICS is a platform of nations with developing economies representing 43 percent of the worlds population. BRICS, originally BRIC before the inclusion of South Africa in 2010, is the title of an association of emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. With the possible exception of Russia, the BRICS members are all developing or newly industrialised countries, but they are distinguished by their large, fast-growing economies and significant influence on regional and global affairs. As of 2013, the five BRICS countries represent almost 3 billion people, with a combined nominal GDP of US$14.9 trillion, and an estimated US$4 trillion in combined foreign reserves. Presently, India holds the chair of the BRICS group. spurred economic activity. He said that, in the current scenario, the nation was caught in a situation where, due to fiscal constraints, ensuring sufficient public investment to facilitate the 12th Plan annual growth target of above eight per cent had become difficult. The challenge was to find resources for public investment and, at the same time, roll out policy initiatives that would change the private investor sentiment. He said it would be very difficult for a government to build credibility after it had lost it. The Centre had set in motion a slew of policy initiatives over the past six months to get the economy on the path of accelerated growth.

13 Janaury 2013 Kendu Leaves (Tendu)

Kendu leaf is also a nationalized product like Bamboo and Sal seed. It is called green gold of Odisha. Botanical name of Tendu (Kendu) leaf is DiospyrosMelanoxylon. Tendu leaf is one of the most important non-wood forest products of Odisha. The valuable leaves are used for wrapping Bidis, popular smoke especially among poor natives. The states producing BIDI leaf in India comprises mainly MP, Chhatisgarh, Odisha, AP, Jharkhand, Gujarat and Maharastra. Odisha is the third largest producer of kendu leaf next to M.P. and Chatisgarh.The annual production of Bidi Leaf in Odisha is around 4.5 to 5 lakhs quintal, which is about 20% of the countries annual production.

BRICS countries agree to collaborate on health issues

Recognising 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 marginalised and vulnerable sections of society, the health ministers of these countries on Friday agreed to collaborate and cooperate for development of capacity and infrastructure to deal with the disease. Adopting Delhi Communique at the end of the two meeting of BRICS nations, the health ministers 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 notifiction

Wrong to consider India a single economic entity

Sanjaya Baru,columnist and senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, has said it will be wrong to consider India as a single economic entity, in the case of which a uniform strategy can be adopted for inclusive growth. Delivering a lecture on reviving the Indian economy: problems and prospects, organised by the State Planning Board here on Friday, he said due to historical reasons, the forces that drove the economy in different parts of the country were different. The foundation on which growth happened differed drastically from region to region. All industry leaders in the country wanted to have their presence in Gujarat, while they were all running away from West Bengal. It was not the policy at the Centre alone that

Retail inflation rises to 10.56 percent

1. Rising for the third consecutive month, retail inflation breached the double-digit mark at 10.56 percent in December, driven by higher prices of vegetables, edible oil, pulses and cereal. 2. The retail inflation was 9.90 percent in November and 9.75 percent in October. 3. The vegetables basket in December recorded the highest inflation of 25.71 per cent among all the constituents that make the Consumer Price Index (CPI). 4. Vegetables were followed by the oil and fats segment at 16.73 percent. Sugar turned more expensive by 13.55 percent. 5. Pulses and cereals became dearer by 13.46 percent and 13.70

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percent on an annual basis. Meat, fish and egg rose becoming 11.64 percent more expensive. 6. Clothing and footwear witnessed 10.74 percent increase in prices. 7. In urban areas, retail inflation rose to 10.42 per cent in December from 9.69 per cent in the previous month. The CPI for rural population increased to 10.74 percent during the month from 9.97 percent in November. 8. All India provisional General (all groups) CPI numbers of December 2012, for rural, urban and combined are 126.8, 124 and 125.6, respectively. 9. The Reserve Bank of India(RBI) is expected to take into account the double-digit retail inflation when it comes out with its third-quarter policy review later this month. 10. Wholesale price based inflation for November was at 7.24 percent, much higher than the RBI comfort level of 5-6 percent. 11. Concerned over the persistent inflation, the RBI has kept key interest rates unchanged since April, 2012. 12. Industrial output growth rate had contracted by 0.1 percent in November, from a robust 8.3 percent in October. New CPI (consumer price index): launched with base year 2010 The indexwhich uses 2010 as the base year with a starting value of 100read 106 for January, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation said. The reading for urban areas was 104 and that for rural areas 107. The move is part of a wider effort by the government to address inefficient and archaic data-collection processes and outdated inputs that have hampered obtaining timely and accurate readings of price trends essential to central bankers, government officials and financial market participants. Economists expect the new index to help ease difficulties in assessing price situation in Indias diverse economy, where consumption preferences vary vastly across regions. The new index also analyses price trends in services, which account for about 60% of Indias gross domestic product but arent covered in the existing consumer price index, said Sujan Hajra, chief economist at Anand Rathi Securities. The index monitors a wider sample set than the prevailing archaic CPI issued by the Ministry of Labor, which the new gauge ultimately seeks to replace. The government hasnt said when it will stop issuing the old set of CPI data, but analysts said they will likely continue for about a year until the new data suffice to analyze yearearlier trends. Currently, the wholesale price index is the most widely watched inflation gauge in Asias third-largest economy as the government reports producer price data more comprehensively than consumer prices. The new consumer price index has five major groups. 1. Data showed the group of food, beverages and tobacco, which has almost a 50% weight in the index, was at 108. 2. The index for miscellaneous items like education, transport and medical care with a weight of 26.31%, was at 104. 3. The housing index was at 100, while the group for fuel and light read 106. Both carry a weight of about 9.5%. 4. Clothing and footwear, the smallest group with a 4.7% weight, was at 107. deposits sharply, which now hover over 10 percent, while banks were lowering rates for domestic deposits. 6. Following the steep fall in the rupee, which began with the downgrade of the US rating by S&P in August 2011, in November, the RBI had raised maximum interest rates on NRE accounts for one-year-plus to Libor plus 275 bps. 7. Non-resident external and nonresident (ordinary) accounts are two different types of rupee-denominated bank accounts allowed by the government for the diaspora. 8. While NRE funds are repatriable, NRO money cannot be remitted abroad. On the other hand, FCNR accounts are denominated in forex and the funds are fully repatriable. Different types of NRI accounts: a. The Non Resident External (NRE) Savings Account is meant for Indians residing abroad. It allows you to transfer foreign earnings easily to India.The following are the few important points regarding the NRE account. 1. NRE account can be opened as Savings and Fixed deposit accounts. 2. There is no tax on interest earned from these accounts. Also there is no wealth tax. 3. That the above tax exemptions are available only for an NRE Account held by an individual and not for those maintained by OCBs (Overseas Company Bodies) 4. The currency maintained in this account is Indian Rupee. 5. Can open Joint account with any Non-Resident Indian. Cannot open Joint account with Indian Resident . 6. You can easily transfer money to India. 7. Nomination is allowed in NRE Accounts. 8. Cannot deposit Indian Currency in to this account. b. NRO Savings Fixed Deposit Account 1. The following are the key points on NRO account. 2. NRO account can be opened as the Savings or Fixed Deposit account. 3. Currency maintained in this account is Indian Rupee. 4. Can open this account with any Indian Resident. 5. Interest earned in this account

Amid volatile rupee, NRI deposits nearly double, says RBI data
1. Continuing rupee fall and higher interest rate have seen NRI deposits nearly doubling in the first eight months of 2012-13 to $ 11.24 billion from $ 6.39 billion a year ago, according to the Reserve Bank data. 2. However, the non-resident (ordinary) rupee accounts and foreign currency non-resident accounts saw an outflow this year as against an inflow last year, according to the central bank data. 3. It can be noted that the rupee had hit an all-time low of 57.32 to the dollar on June 14. However, last Friday, the rupee ended at 54.76 to the dollar, which is 4.67 percent stronger from its all-time low. 4. Even though the currency has appreciated from its all-time low, inflows into NRI deposits continue on the back of higher interest rates. 5. It can be noted that, following the rupee fall in December 2011, the RBI had deregulated interest rates on NRI deposits, forcing banks to hike rates of such

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is 30% taxable and surcharge and education cess will be included. It is applicable for both savings and fixed deposit accounts. 6. You can use this account to pay any bill and expenses in India. 7. Enjoy the convenience of banking at any of our branches in India. 8. Nomination is allowed in NRO Accounts. 9. Can deposit Indian Currency in to this account. c. The following are the key points for Foreign Currency Non-Resident (FCNR) Fixed Depositbank account: 1. Earn Indian Interest Rates on your Foreign Currency deposits with our Foreign Currency Non-Resident Fixed Deposit. 2. The entire deposit (principal and interest) is exempt from tax 3. Open the deposit jointly with any other NRI 4. Get an overdraft on your Savings / Current account against your FCNR Fixed Deposit 5. Nomination Facility available 6. Joint accounts with Indian Residents not allowed. 7. Following currencies are allowed in this account: a. US Dollars b. Pounds Sterling c. Euro d. Japanese Yen e. Australian Dollars f. Canadian Dollars 8. Can not deposit Indian Currency in this account. 9. Minimum 1 year and maximum 5 years is allowed. declined to control levels as a result of EPIs efforts. But polio did not come under controlshowing 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 yearto 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 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 expec-ted. Sewage samples are collected every week from several wards of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Patna. During 2011 and 2012, all sewage samples were consis-tently negative for wild polioviruses (but with plenty of vaccine viruses). In northern India, the last footholds of wild polio-viruses, 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 Wild polioviruses are highly contagiousillustrated 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 bordercrossing with Pakistan: two in Jammu-Kashmir, 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 Indias money went into the lions share of expenditure for polio eradication in the country, thus easing up global funds for use in other countries that needed them 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

Two years without polio

In 1988, India joined the global movement for polio eradicationat 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 viruseswhich 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

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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 personfor 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. about 3,600 of the 5,000 M dwarf stars present in Keplers field of view, researchers calculated that each of these stars had an 87 percent possibility of having Earthsized exoplanets, and nearly six percent of the M dwarfs studied could be in the habitable zone. M dwarfs account for about 75 percent of the stars in the Milky Way. The chance of discovering a habitable-zone super Earth transiting [passing] a low-mass star in the immediate future is tremendously high, notes a 2010 paper. Another preliminary study estimated that one in six stars in our galaxy has an Earth-sized exoplanet, increasing the abundance to an astronomical 17billion. But not all are in the habi-table zone. With the addition of 461 new candidate exoplanets identified by Kepler during the last 22 months, the total number of candi-dates has shot up to 2,740. Of these, 105 have been confirmed as planets. Advanced and sophisticated methods have helped in not only discovering exoplanets orbiting sun-like stars and M dwarfs but also in studying their atmospheric composition, accurately calculating their size and mass, and also the temperature at different altitudes (gradient). The launch in 2018 of the James Webb Space Telescope increases the possibility of studying the atmospheres of a few M dwarf stars. Having succeeded in studying the atmospheres of exoplanets, scientists have moved on to get a deeper understanding of their atmospheric biosignatures to ascertain the possibility of life. But the search for alien life has traditionally been based on our knowledge of living forms on Earth, which are carbon based. But can silicon-based life be completely ruled out? Similarly, should oxygen be present for life to exist? After all, the earliest life forms on Earth existed well before oxygen became dominant. Extremophiles on Earth have been found in hostile environmentsextremely hot, cold, acidic, alkaline, dry and desiccating conditions, deriving energy from hydrothermal vent chemicals and certain elements found in rocks. Hence there is a possibility of alien life on exoplanets. The only limitation in identifying them, if they exist, is our technological capability. And sense of imagination. Concept: Stellar classification: Most stars are currently classified using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K, and M, where O stars are the hottest and the letter sequence indicates successively cooler stars up to the coolest M class. Useful mnemonics for remembering the spectral type letters are Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me or Oh Boy An F Grade Kills Me. According to informal tradition, O stars are called blue, B stars are called blue-white, A stars are called white, F stars are called yellowwhite, G stars are called yellow, K stars are called orange, and Mstars are called red, even though the actual star colors perceived by an observer may deviate from these colors depending on visual conditions and individual stars observed. The current non-alphabetical scheme developed from an earlier scheme using all letters from Ato O; the original letters were retained but the star classes were re-ordered in the current temperature order when the connection between the stars class and temperatures became clear. A few star classes were dropped as duplicates of others.

Oscar nomination, a high note for Carnatic music

Carnatic vocalist Bombay Jayashri who has been nominated for an Oscar along with Mychael Danna in the Original Song category for Pis Lullaby in the film Life of Pi tells K.T. Jagannathan that she hopes this will make more people listen to Carnatic music. Excerpts. Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. It is one of two main sub-genres of Indian classical music that evolved from ancient Hindu traditions; the other sub-genre being Hindustani music, which emerged as a distinct form because of Persian and Islamic influences in North India. In contrast to Hindustani music, the main emphasis in Carnatic music is on vocal music; most compositions are written to be sung, and even when played on instruments, they are meant to be performed in gyaki (singing) style.

First world atlas on renewable energy launched

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) on Sunday launched the worlds first atlas on clean energy which will offer openaccess information on countries renewable energy potential. The Global Atlas is the largest ever initiative to help countries assess their renewable energy potential, and companies bringing together data and maps from leading technical institutes and private companies worldwide, IRENA said. It currently charts solar and wind resources, and will expand to other forms of renewable energy over 2013 and 2014, the agency announced as it began its two-day annual general assembly in Abu Dhabi. Site The online atlas is available on www.irena.org/GlobalAtlas

Searching for Earths twin

The recent announcement at the American Astronomical Society meeting in California dramatically increases the possibility of finding Earth-sized extra-solar planets, or exoplanets, and in particular, those that are in a habitable Goldilocks zoneneither too close nor too far from a star, so liquid water might be present on the surface. One study looked at the number of habitable Earth-sized exoplanets (those one-half to twice the size of the Earth) orbiting the smaller and cooler M dwarf stars. By studying

MoEF sets deadline to declare eco sensitive zones around national parks, sanctuaries
1. A decade after the National Board for Wildlife envisaged declaring areas within 10 km of the boundary of national parks and sanctuaries as eco-sensitive 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.

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2. 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. 3. 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, MoEF officials said. 4. Likewise, the eco-sensitive zones could extend beyond 10 km width in cases of sensitive corridors for connectivity of ecolo-gically important patches crucial for landscape linkage, officials emphasised. 5. As per procedure, the forest department would first consider the requirement for an eco-sensitive zone to act as a shock absorber, suggest best methods for management and broad based thematic activities to be included in the master plan of the region while demarcating the eco sensitive zones. Based on this, the Chief Wildlife Warden would have to group the activities under three headsprohibitive, restricted with safeguards and permissiblethat could be taken up. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and they continued to be excluded from formal development credit regimes despite specific guidelines and circulars from the Reserve Bank of India. Coordinating body Mr.Shariff recommended the establishment of a coordinating body under the Prime Ministers Office to monitor implementation of socially inclusive development programmes. He also controversially argued that socially inclusive development efforts needed to move away from special purpose vehiclessuch as the National Commission for Minorities and the National Minorities Financial Development Corporationso that they could be integrated into mainstream ministries. The suggestion was strongly opposed by participants who felt this would amount to snatching away whatever little Muslims got by way of welfare. The research for the paper was partially funded by the Institute of Objective Studies. Muslims have almost no presence in MGNREGS, says paper Communitys education growth rate remains lowest between 2004-05 and 2009-10, it says Sachar committee highlights: 1. Setting up an Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) to look into grievances of deprived groups like minorities. 2. Working out nomination procedure to increase participation of minorities in public bodies. 3. Providing legal mechanism to address complaints of discrimination against minorities in matters of employment, housing, schooling and obtaining bank loans. 4. Establishing a delimitation procedure that does not reserve constituencies with high minority population for SCs. 5. Initiating and institutionalising a process of evaluating contents of textbooks to purge them of explicit and implicit material that may impart inappropriate social values, especially religious intolerance. 6. Creating a national data bank where all relevant data for various socio-religious categories are maintained. 7. Setting up an autonomous assessment and monitoring authority to evaluate the extent of development benefits which accrue to different socio-religious categories through various programmes. 8. Encouraging the University Grants Commission to evolve a system where part of allocation to colleges and universities is linked to diversity in student population. 9. Facilitating admissions to the most backward amongst all socioreligious categories in regular universities and autonomous colleges and evolving alternate admission criteria 10. Designating Arzals Muslim group as most backward classes as they need multifarious measures, including reservation. 11. Increasing employment share of Muslims, particularly where there is great deal of public dealing. 12. Working out mechanisms to link madrassas with higher secondary school board. 13. Recognising degrees from madrassas for eligibility in defence, civil and banking examinations. 14. Opening high quality Urdu medium schools wherever they are in demand and ensuring high quality textbooks for students in the Urdu language. 15. Setting up a national Wakf Development Corporation with a revolving corpus fund of Rs 500 crore. 16. Creating new cadre to deal with specific Wakf affairs.

14 Janaury 2013 Indian scientists devise 16 disaster management drugs

1. Preparing to deal with any future chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) incidents, Indian scientists have devised 16 drugs that can be used for disaster management. These include an anti-cyanide drug, an anti-nerve gas drug and an antitoxic gas drug. 2. Several radioactive decorporation agents and drugs for anticyanide, anti-nerve gas and toxic gas injuries have been approved by the Drug Controller General of India as trial drugs. 3 Developed by scientists at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) here, the drugs have passed the efficacy test and will be cheaper than those currently available in the market. 4 Sixteen new drugs have been approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) as trial drugs for disaster management. These include an anti-cyanide drug, an anti-nerve gas drug, an

Six years after Sachar report, Muslim lot no better

In 2006 RajinderSachar Committee placed the socio-economic and educational status of Muslims below that of the Scheduled Castes. Six Years After Sachar: A Review of Inclusive Policies in India, by economist and chief scholar at the U.S.-India Policy Institute Abusaleh Shariff. The paper said there was no perceptible improvement in the status of Muslims since the Sachar Committee made its recommen dations: Despite the governments publicised support for the Sachar Committee Reports recommen dations to increase diversity in public spaces and to ensure the minorities proportionate benefits from mainstream institutions, the governments record is notably lacklustre. The paper said Muslims had almost no presence in the

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anti-toxic gas drug and several radioactive decorporation agents, AseemBhatnagar, in charge of the project at INMAS, told IANS. 5 These will be used as samples for the users, including the armed forces, the paramilitary, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Ministry of Health. 6 Batch production of these drugs is being undertaken in collaboration with the pharmace-uticals industry through contract manufacturing. About 50,000-200,000 doses (licensed for human use) are expected to be manufactured by March 2013, Bhatnagar said. 7 Several of these drugs have been patented by the defence ministry. 8 INMAS previously made and supplied drugs against nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) incidents during the 2010 Common wealth Games and to meet an emergency requirement of the Indian Navy. 9 We also plan to keep some with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for usage during any disaster, Bhatnagar said. 10. Scientists say that research and development and coordination will enhance the shelf life of NBC drugs by 60-100 percent and this project is planned in coordination with other government agencies. 11. A mission mode project is planned to establish nuclear security in the national capital region by way of drugs, equipment and training to six echelons of medical services around Delhi under a project for seven years, Bhatnagar added. 12. INMAS had developed a skin radioactivity decontamination kit (shudhika) that was given for production to a company in Pune. That question changed Shantanoos life. He realised that all the technology used to help people during calamities was proprietary. And, as a result, very expensive. We provided people readymade solutions, but never transferred the knowledge, says this bio-engineering volunteer who was in town to take part in the Indian Roads Congress. He read up on the Internet for flood prevention solutions and chanced upon the name vetivera hardy, native Indian grass known for its extensive root system. In 2009, armed with enough material about vetiver, he tried using it to prevent erosion and flooding along the Kolong and Pagla (mad river called so because it is unpredictable and prone to flash floods) rivers in Assam. It was a colossal failure. Thats when the need for a customised solution, based on topography, struck him. Failure and poverty are great teachers, he says. So, Shantanoo went back to reading and research. He saw the limitations of the methods he used. No tool is magic. It works in certain cases, and does not in others. He applied the vetiver system on NH 39 (the Nagaland stretch) and NH 40 (GuwahatiShillong) in partnership with other organisations. The root worked its magic. Varied uses In just three years, he has used millions of vetiver plants to prevent soil erosion, strengthen river banks and stabilise hills slopes in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim and Orissa. In Orissa, he worked with the Tatas to tackle mine overburden (waste from mining that is piled up, sometimes as high as 100 metres.) They look like scars on the hills. We used cow dung and panchagavya, sourced from Coimbatore, to raise the vetiver. Now, the piles are stable and green. And, many companies nearby have stared using vetiver in their mines too, he says. Today, Shanthanoo is sought after by many countries, including Vietnam and Nepal, to help them combat Natures fury using natural methods. You could call it bioengineering. We use a green tool in combination with new-age technology. These systems have been around since ages. We just need to tap into that native knowledge and prove their use, scientifically, he says. He continues to work extensively in the North East. The region receives heavy rainfall and has a high precipitation rate. Cloud bursts are common. Then, there are the rain cuts, where the water cuts a swathe through the slopes. They drag everything down. Among his success stories using vetiver are strengthening the high embankment in Majuli (the largest river island in the world), and a 500-metre stretch of the Brahmaputra, said to be the most difficult river to tame.

Flash rules the memory world

Sandisk is working with new technologies to succeed NAND flash memory Sandisk Corporation, which produces flash memory, the device that goes into the USB memory that is ubiquitous among computer users, is the largest manufacturer of such devices. Judy Bruner, chief financial officer and an executive vice-president of administration, SanDisk Corporation, spoke to The Hindu about the new technologies the company is working on, the performance of the companys different lines of business and about the plans the company is making to move away from NAND memory, the staple technology since Toshiba introduced it in the late 1980s. Sandisk, the leader in the flash memory business, earned revenues of $5.7 billion in 2011. Excerpts: What is the kind of memory that Sandisk makes for the computing business? There are two major categories in the computing solid-state drives (SSD) marketclients and enterprises. A lot of the enterprise SSDs are going into data centres, which is the main driver of demand for flash memory in the computing segment. In the client side, growing demand for SSDs in notebooks, which enable instant-on capability, longer battery life, and are more rugged and lighter, is the main driver. What are the alternative technologies you are investing in to move to a post-NAND flash memory world? I will give you an example. In 2006, we acquired Matrix Semiconductor, a start-up that had developed three dimensional resistive RAM technology. The technology basically tries to build vertically on the wafer, potentially having eight

Stopping the Floods using vetiver

In July 2008, Shantanoo Bhattacharyya was erecting a Bailey bridge in flood-ravaged Lakhimpur, Assam. Walking back to his quarters that night, the executive engineer with the Public Works Department was stopped by a retired school teacher. Every year, you come to help during the floods. Why cant you create a system that can be replicated by the common people? he asked.

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different levels on the wafer. After developing the technology further we believe that it is a prime contender to succeed NAND flash memory when it can no longer scale up any further. We have developed the technology in association with Toshiba and we believe the technology can come into play before the end of the decade. We are the only flash memory company that does chip design in India, in Bangalore, where we employ 350 employees. Flash memory is an electronic (i.e. no moving parts) non-volatile computer storage device that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. Flash memory was developed from EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory). There are two main types of flash memory, which are named after the NAND and NOR logic gates. The internal characteristics of the individual flash memory cells exhibit characteristics similar to those of the corresponding gates. Whereas EEPROMs had to be completely erased before being rewritten, NAND type flash memory may be written and read in blocks (or pages) which are generally much smaller than the entire device. The NOR type allows a single machine word (byte) to be written or read independently. discrimination on the basis of gender, not providing adequate health benefits, and more recently bribery, particularly in the context of Mexico. In the case of India, it was unclear what it was hoping to get from this foreign investor. Indias situation was particularly interesting and different from other countries. Right now India is exporting capital. It needs to increase its savings rate more. India has a very large supply of entrepreneurs. It is exporting entrepreneurs to America and countries all over the world. Within the country too there is strong entrepreneurship. Moreover, retail technology was widely available. And one of the successes of Indias entrepreneurs is they know how to apply our technology. Companies in Bangalore know how to improvise systems, do operations research, Prof.Stiglitz pointed out. The evidence that despite this company [Walmart], there have been benefits to small producers is lacking and this is telling, he said. In the area of financial products too, the Nobel laureate had a word of caution for India. India has to ask before opening its markets to financial products, what they are going to do for promoting growth. The evidence is so overwhelming that these instruments will promote instability that a lot of caution is needed. Prof.Stiglitz called for a greater role for the state in promoting and regulating capitalism, and restructuring the economy. In the context of corporate governance, failure of the U.S. government to play that role led to the economic crisis Between 19291933, farm incomes fell drastically. The economy could not restructure itself until the U.S. government restructured it by moving people from agriculture to manufacturing. Markets dont develop on their own, they need governments to create them, he said. According to him, the problem before the U.S. today was moving towards a service sector economy. A balance between capitalism, State and civil society was vital for success and growth based not on the obsession with GDP or the metrics of success, but taking into account issues of sustainability, distribution and general well-being. Governments have to undertake policies which are people-friendly. Growth cannot be based on crony capitalism. The role of the state in providing social protection and social justice was all-important, he said.

Financial responsibility report by RBI

The latest Financial Stability Report (FSR) of the Reserve Bank of India, the sixth in the series, is a half yearly assessment by an expert committee of the outlook for the stability and resilience of the financial sector. The report also suggests policy actions that are needed to contain the risks to stability. Compared to the previous report, the threats to financial sector stability have increased. While the environment of global and domestic macroeconomic instability remains unchanged, there is a realisation that the highly unconventional tools relied upon by governments and central banks across the world at the beginning of the crisis are losing some of their edge and effectiveness. The space for fiscal and monetary action is getting squeezed. Besides, some of the unintended consequences of the policy tools employed, such as the ultra soft monetary policies of the U.S., have started manifesting themselves in countries like India. For instance, the accretion to global liquidity has pushed up commodity prices, and with it the threat of imported inflation in India. Global uncertainties, notably the delay in resolving the euro-debt crisis and domestic policy uncertainties, have caused a deceleration of economic growth in recent quarters. There has been a noticeable fall in the level of domestic savings, inflation has remained persistently high and these along with regulatory and environmental issues have caused a fall in investment demand and moderation in consumption spending. Despite all of this, financial markets in India have remained largely stable. But the corporate sectors ability to service its debt has been falling since 2009-10. Some infrastructure companies have substantially increased their leverage. These and a few other factors are responsible for the increased stress on the asset quality of the banking system. A large number of loans have been restructured recently. The banking sector on the whole has remained resilient to credit, market and liquidity risks and is capable of withstanding macroeconomic

Tread FDI path cautiously, Stiglitz tells India

Also think before opening markets to financial products, says the Nobel laureate India, with its abundance of entrepreneurs, must tread the path of foreign direct investment with caution, in the light of the over whelming evidence other countries have to offer on the issue, economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said here on Monday. He was giving a lecture on Rede-fining Capitalism, organised here by the Asian Development Research Institute. Professor Stiglitz said he was not against FDI as it was an important instrument of economic growth. However, its purpose was to reap capital, technology, access to markets and training. Without naming the supermarket giant Walmart, Prof.Stiglitz said, One retailer, which has been widely discussed, has the reputation for bad labour relations,

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shocks given their comfortable capital adequacy. However, new provisioning norms require banks to tie up a larger amount of capital to take care of distressed assets. In the context of the imminent shift to Basel III norms, some banks may face challenges in mopping up additional capital. Financial inclusion, financial literacy and consumer protection are interconnected threads in the pursuit of financial stability. Given the strong linkage between stability and inclusion, it is only right that the FSR should highlight, for the first time, the several regulatory initiatives taken and the progress achieved so far. piracy has not been met with warmth by global agencies. After the piracy menace spread to near Lakshadweep, the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard had embarked on a sustained antipiracy campaign in the East Arabian Sea. A top Coast Guard officer is categorical in pointing out that false piracy alarms received at the Mumbai-based Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) at the rate of one every fortnight not counting, there has been no incident of piracy in the region over several months in the past. Buoyed by the let-up in piracy, India unsuccessfully demanded a revision of HRA delimitation (return to west of 65 degree east longitude) at the Maritime Safety Committee of the IMO. But, BMP4 is an industry document, not a matter for IMO per se, said Natasha Brown, IMOs External Relations Officer, in an e-mail to The Hindu. A key official at Indias Directorate General of Shipping rues that notwithstanding an advisory it issued cautioning ships against mistaking frenetic fishing activity up to 50 nautical miles from the countrys coastline for acts of piracy, cargo ships continue to transgress fishing zones, raising concerns. At least two recent incidentsthe first, some 17 nautical miles off Vizhinjam in Kerala in November last when a cargo vessel resorted to firing to force a fishing boat alter course and the second, at the mouth of the Cochin Port in December when flares were shot in the air to distract a boatpoint to the fact that conflict between fishermen and merchant vessels has sadly become the order of the day. The reason: the region is still designated a High Risk Area as per BMP4. Jiyoung Kim, Foreign Affairs official of South Korea that chairs the CGPCS WG3, which worked closely with the industry in completing the BMP4 guideline, maintained that the appeal of India and Egypt for a revision of the scope of HRA would be discussed on an objective and transparent basis at Tuesdays meeting. It is industries, as editors of the BMPs, that define and revise the scope of the HRA At the latest WG3 meeting, industries expressed that they do not consider the revision of the BMP4 including the scope of the HRA, in spite of the proposal of India and Egypt. WG3 chair suggested holding a meeting on the HRA within parties interested in order to continue the discussions on the scope of HRA, he replied in an email communication. Separately, the Indian National Shipowners Associations plea to the Joint War Committee, a forum of insurance undertakers based in London, for a review of the Listed Areas for insurance set by Lloyds and the Joint War Risk Committee has not received a positive response. The situation is being monitored but the area is unchanged for now, Neil Roberts, senior executive-underwriting of Lloyds Market Association, confirmed in an email. The fallout of the classification was an exorbitant hike in insurance premiums of vessels bound for zones with enhanced risk. The premiums came down following deployment of armed guards on their ships, as most providers of security collaborated with insurance groups. It is paradoxical that the short-term expedient, which has helped thwart pirate attacks, is posing other challenges, including legal issues, said an industry observer.

India wants rollback of piracy zone

Following increasing cases of piracy near Somalia that occasionally extended as far as Lakshadweep, industry bodies working in tandem with International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS)constituted in 2009 following a U.N. resolution with States and international bodies as members to work together to rid the seas of piracydecided to move the longitude marking off the highrisk area in the Arabian Sea from 65 degrees to 78 east. The new classification extended the highrisk area much closer to the Indian coast barring the nations territorial waters of 12 nautical miles. The guidelines for ships advise them on evasive action against piracy. Shipping experts say that the changed classification resulted in ships hugging the Indian coast and often cruising in Indian territorial watersfrom Mangalore to Kanyakumariwhile transiting the Arabian Sea. Many of these merchant vessels have armed guards as allowed by IMO. Initially, India wanted the longitude to be moved back to 65 degree but members of CGPCS balked. As a result, on Tuesday, at a meeting of a sub-group of Working Group-3 (WG3) of the CGPCS, India will make a fresh plea for exemption of its fishing zones from the danger zone listing in Best Management Practices for Protection against Somalia-based Piracy, an industry document endorsed by IMO and CGPCS. Global agencies cool Indias proposal that seas close to its western coast be removed from the list of High Risk Areas (HRA) for

Jharkhand Governor recommends Presidents rule

Jharkhand is all set for a spell of Presidents rule with no party or combination of parties in a position to form a government in the wake of fall of the BJP-led coalition last week. Governor Syed Ahmed is learnt to have recommended Presidents rule in the State by keeping the Assembly under suspended animation. The recommendation was made in his second report to the Centre on the political situation in the wake of the resignation of Chief Minister ArjunMunda who also sought dissolution of the Assembly after JMM withdrew support to his government, official sources said. Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who is away from the capital in the last two days, is expected to study the report after his arrival on Monday night. Concept: Presidents rule (or central rule) is a term used in India when a state is placed under direct federal rule. The former name comes from the fact that the President of India

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governs the state through the Governor with the help of the Union Government, instead of a Council of Ministers headed by an elected Chief Minister accountable to the state legislature. Presidents rule is enabled by Article 356 of the Constitution of India, which gives authority to impose it if there has been failure of the constitutional machinery in any state of India. During Presidents rule, the Governor appointed by the President assumes executive authority. Since such appointments are made on the advice of the central government, the states policies become de facto controlled by the federal ruling party. During Presidents rule, the Governor appoints advisors, usually retired civil servants, to assist him in the administration. The advisors take the functions of state ministers. When is Presidents Rule imposed? In practice presidents rule has been imposed under different circumstances such as these: State Legislature is unable to elect a leader as Chief Minister Breakdown of a coalition Irretrievable breakdown of law and order Rebellion or insurgency in a part of India Elections postponed for unavoidable reasons Most often, until the mid-1990s, it was imposed in states through abuse of the authority of Governors in collusion with the federal government. However, following a landmark judgment by the Supreme Court of India in March 1994, such abuse has been reduced drastically. That the market is elated by the much-awaited relief is clear from the fact that investors gave a thumbs-up to the Centres decision and the Bombay Stock Exchanges Sensex soared by 243 points to a two-year high of 19,906.41. Clearing the air on the applicability of the GAAR provisions at a press conference here, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said: The modifications that we have done are fair, non-discriminatory, just, and strike a balance between interest of revenue and interest of investors. So, all apprehensions should now be set at rest. Having considered all the circumstances and relevant factors, the government has decided that provisions of Chapter 10A of the I-T Act [dealing with GAAR] will come into force from April 1, 2016 as against April 1, 2014, he said. 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, published in Nature Geoscience, builds on an earlier study which showed that reactive iodine, along with bromine, in the atmosphere is responsible for the destruction of vast amounts of ozone around 50 per cent more than predicted by the worlds most advanced climate models 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 laboratory experiments. They showed that the reaction of iodide with ozone leads to the formation of both molecular iodine and hypoiodous acid. Using laboratory models, they show that the reaction of ozone with iodide on the sea surface could account for around 75 percent of observed iodine oxide levels over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Our laboratory and modelling studies show that these gases are produced from the reaction of atmospheric ozone with iodide on the sea surface interfacial layer, at a rate which is highly significant for the chemistry of the marine atmosphere, Professor Lucy Carpenter said. Our research reveals an important negative feedback for ozone a sort of self-destruct mechanism. The more ozone there is, the more gaseous halogens are created which destroy it. The research also has implications for the way that radionucleides of iodine in sea water, released into the ocean mainly from nuclear reprocessing facilities, can be re-emitted into the atmosphere, Lucy said in a statement. This mechanism of iodine release into the atmosphere appears to be particularly important over tropical oceans, where measurements show that there is more iodide in seawater available to react with ozone, Professor John Plane, from the University of Leeds School of Chemistry, said.

Students produce power with biogas from poultry waste

Five students from BCM Arya Model Senior Secondary in Shastri Nagar have successfully been able to produce electricity from biogas made from poultry waste. The project was recently showcased at the 20th National Childrens Science Congress held at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi. Adjudged outstanding with grade A among 22 projects out of a total of 616 projects presented, the department of science and technology has also selected the project for the fellowship programme. One of the project guidance teachers, AnujaKaushal, talking to Ludhiana Newsline, said: It was a research-based project worked on by Lovedeep Singh, Aishwarya Verma, Sanpreet Singh, Sharabh and Tanya, all Class X students. The theme given to us was energy harnessing exploration and what was unique in our project was that students were successful in producing energy from the biogas produced using poultry waste. It is a landmark achievement for poultry farm owners and shows a way for energy production from poultry waste.

GAAR will come into force from April 2016

Seeking to set at rest the concerns expressed by worried investors at home and abroad, the government on Monday announced the postponement of the implemen-tation of the controversial GAAR (General Anti Avoidance Rules) by two years to April 1, 2016. The postponement and other modifications in GAAR provisions marks the acceptance of the recommendations of the ParthasarathiShome Committee, which was set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh following concerns expressed by investors on the Budget provision in this regard and the subsequent withdrawal of portfolio investment by foreign investors.

New gas that triggers ozone destruction found

Scientists have found that a gas released from the oceans on Earth may play a significant role in the destruction of ozone layer. Researchers at the Universities of York and Leeds found that the principal source of iodine oxide can be explained by emissions of

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