Daily News Notes: 25th Feb, 2012

• ·         About 10,500 new Primary Schools have been opened across the state under Centrally-sponsored flagship programme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) till the end of 2011. Nearly 6000 Primary Schools have also  been upgraded  since the commencement of the programme in 2002.  The scheme also involves a number of other components which include opening and maintenance of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas, teacher training, setting up of Computer Aided Learning Centres, distribution of free text books to ensure primary education to every child.
• ·         Inaugurating the Polio Summit 2012 in New Delhi today, Dr. Singh stressed the need to accelerate the efforts for providing universal access to health care. He said easy access to safe vaccines is only one of the many strategies for preventing diseases and promoting good health among children. The Prime Minister also emphasized the need for providing nutritious food, safe drinking water and proper sanitation to them. Earlier, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced that World Health Organisation has taken India's name off the list of Polio endemic countries and this has been done in the view of remarkable progress that India has made during the past one year. There were four countries in the list including Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. India will now have to remain Polio free for the next two years to achieve the Polio free status.
• ·         A drug that will overcome the drug resistance of leukaemia is a major area of research taken up by the Amrita Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine. It had identified the molecular mechanism of drug resistance in leukaemia and a blood protein-based nano particle had been developed to overcome this resistance. Right now, the drug is at the toxicity screening stage, after which it will be tested on animals.
• ·         Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has blamed American NGOs for fuelling protests at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. Licenses of three NGOs have been cancelled by the home ministry. They are also thinking of taking further action. In fact the people who are agitating near the plant have been continuing their agitation for the past three months. People are being brought there in trucks from various villages. The Prime Minister has also blamed these NGOs for opposing genetically modified foods and the use of biotechnology to increase food production in the country. "Biotechnology has enormous potential and in due course of time we must make use of genetic engineering technologies to increase the productivity of our agriculture. But there are controversies. There are NGOs, often funded from the United States and the Scandinavian countries, which are not fully appreciative of the development challenges that our country faces,"
• ·         National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) survey titled “Strategic Review 2011” says the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies are now going away from the main metro cities to the hinterlands in search of talent as well as to economise the cost of their operations. If one were to go by the survey, IT-BPO firms are set to increase the total rural BPO employee base by more than 10 times over the next three years. Rural BPOs are now compelling business ventures for outsourcing companies due to factors such as availability of talent, low attrition rates, affordable real estate, cheap labour and minimal operational costs. Business process outsourcing jobs are moving away to low-cost countries such as the Philippines and Egypt.
• ·         In Maharashtra, police raided the farms with Opium crop spread over 32 acres and registered cases against 40 farmers owning this land. These farmers were reported to be doing opium farming for the last 8 years, and selling their produce in the markets at various places in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana.
• ·         The Ukraine government has decided to liberalise visa regime for service travellers from India. Bilateral trade between the two countries grew ten-fold in the last few years to reach US $ 3 billion. Sectors like higher education, pharmaceuticals, IT, bio-technology and aeronautics were among the areas offering new opportunities for Indo-Ukraine trade engagement.
• ·         In Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood claimed it has got an outright majority in the elections for Shura, the upper house of parliament.