Political and Social Issues:

Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) will offer skill development programmes from next year for employees in the textile industry in the Southern States.
The association planned to train a lakh workers and executives in another five years through three types of training programmes.
The first would be for workers in the spinning and weaving units. The second programme would be one year post diploma and post graduate diploma courses in spinning or weaving management.The third course proposed by the association was textile mechatronics and spinning fitter training to be offered through the SIMA-PSG Technical Training Institute.

The Supreme Court on Monday called for deterrent punishment of life imprisonment in cases relating to kidnapping for ransom, particularly involving children, and asked all the courts not to show any leniency to the accused in such cases.
It is relevant to point out that Section 364 A (kidnapping for ransom) had been introduced in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by virtue of an amendment in 1993.

A historic Buddhist stupa of Satavahana period and one of the 30 walled cities mentioned by Megasthenes dating back to 2nd century BC were found damaged by unidentified miscreants reportedly for a ‘treasure trove'
Though the Archaeology Department had discovered the stupa in 1975 in Dhulikatta village adjoining a picturesque rivulet, it has been neglected since then.
Of late, the damages caused by the miscreants in search of treasure had become a cause of concern for the historians, who have been striving to protect the ancient relics.

The Supreme Court on Monday made it clear that it would not go into the policy aspects relating to the safety of all nuclear plants in the country as it was the domain of Parliament and a Bill was already pending consideration.
We are conscious of the facts that it concerns Article 21 of the Constitution (right to life). But we can't go into the safety aspects of all nuclear plants as we don't have the expertise.
Justice Kapadia told counsel: “Have a public debate. Come out with a concrete solution till Parliament considers the Bill and suggest a regulatory model or a framework and then we can consider.”

In a bid to overcome problems posed by difficult Hindi words, the Union Government has asked section officers to use their “Hinglish” replacements for easy understanding and better promotion of the language.
It recommended that difficult Hindi words be replaced with English alternatives in Devanagari script for official work.
Home Ministry said ‘ misil ' can be replaced with ‘file', ‘ pratyabhuti ' with ‘guarantee', ‘ kunjipatal ' with ‘keyboard' and ‘ sanganak ' with ‘ computer '.