Daily News Notes: 6th March, 2012

• ·         Assembly election result: INC leads in Manipur; Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh; SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab; BJP/INC in Uttarakhand and BJP in Goa.
• ·         Addressing the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Food Processing Industries, Agricultural Minister said that the implementation of Vegetable Initiatives for Urban Cluster (VIUC) has been successful in mobilizing farmers into Farmer Interest Groups (FIG) and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO) along with their tie up with market aggregators and Financial Institutions. The scheme was launched in this financial year (2011-12) to set in motion a cycle of enhanced production and income for farmers and an assured supply of vegetable to consumers by addressing all issues in the vegetable production, supply and distribution chain. Starting with a base line survey to assess the existing vegetable supply chain in select urban cluster, it was also mandated to identify the bottlenecks, suggest remedial measures and look at the potential areas from where vegetable supply could be augmented. The scheme is being implemented under the Rastriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) with the objective to cover one city in each State.
• ·         An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), decided to allocate 700 MHz spectrum for offering fourth-generation or 4G telecom services. According to officials in the Department of Telecom, spectrum in 700 MHz band require probably half the investment to roll out services as compared to what was required for rolling out services in wireless broadband spectrum auctioned in 2010.In other major issue, on the vacation of 1700 MHz to 2,000 MHz spectrum band between Defence and Telecom Ministry, Defence Ministry had shown interest to give DoT only 150 MHz and retain the balance 150 MHz while DoT has been pushing the Ministry to give it 230 MHz and retain 70 MHz in the civilian areas to operate sophisticated equipment but allot all 300 MHz in the urban areas.
• ·         The Andhra Pradesh will soon have a toll-free telephone number to make it even easier for the common man to seek information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act or ask any query related to the Act. The Centre for Good Governance is working on it. As several States have evinced interest in opting for a toll free number, the Centre is considering giving a number, which will become synonymous with the RTI across the country. Since the introduction of the Act in 2005, the awareness among people has improved even in rural areas. While initially 11 per cent of applicants under the RTI Act hailed from rural areas, their ratio rose to 43 per cent last year.
• ·         Four private and public financial institutions — ICICI Bank (31%), Citi Financial (29%), Bank of Baroda (30%) and Life Insurance Corporation (10%) — on Monday joined hands to set up India's first $2 billion (about Rs.10,000 crore) Infrastructure Debt Fund (IDF) to meet the financing needs of infrastructure projects in the country. It will start operations in the next fiscal [beginning April 1, 2012].
• ·         Rural Electrification Corporation is the latest government-owned company to come up with secured tax-free bonds.
• ·         India is persuading Sri Lanka to allocate oil exploration blocks in the waters that separate them as it considers the location too strategically important to allow companies from other nations to base themselves in this area. After the war with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) ended in 2009, Cairns, which was allocated a block two years earlier, was encouraged by New Delhi to take up exploitation in earnest. This was the first time in 25 years that a company had prospected for oil in an area whose seas were considered no-go areas during the heyday of the LTTE. India plans to step up its efforts in view of the international interest in the area after the war ended. Russian, Vietnamese and Malaysian companies have held meetings on the subject with senior Sri Lankan officials while China has also expressed its desire to get involved. While Russia, Vietnam and Malaysia are considered friendly countries, New Delhi would not like to court adverse publicity at home if Chinese companies are successful. India is also keen to take up exploration in the Cauvery basin, which is not far from its own offshore oil-bearing area by the same name. Here too, India is reluctant to allow other foreign companies to get in. India says ONGC's experience in the Cauvery basin would come in handy here, as similar geological characteristics would reduce the lead time for exploration and production.
• ·         China on Monday set its growth target for 2012 at a lower-than-expected 7.5 per cent, in an indication that its focus during a year that will see a crucial leadership transition would be on addressing imbalances and curbing inflation, rather than on achieving high growth. The economy was not meeting energy conservation targets, cautioning that it had become “more urgent but also more difficult'' to address structural problems. However, the Chinese economy usually grows faster than the annual targets set by the government, and has been forecast to grow beyond the 8 per cent figure this year as well. The economy grew by 9.2 per cent in 2011, down from 10.4 per cent in 2010.
• ·         In Yemen, 140 persons including 107 soldiers and 33 Al-Qaida militants have been killed over the past 48 hours in the ongoing clashes in the South Eastern region of the country. The region has been a stronghold of Al-Qaida.
• ·         The Secretary General of football's world governing body, FIFA has apologized to Brazil for his comments on preparations for the 2014 World Cup. Last week, Mr. Valcke said that Brazil needed a kick up the backside as the country appeared more concerned with winning the World Cup than organizing it. 
• ·         The western game plan of involving Afghanistan's neighbours in tackling the post-2014 situation, by which time the bulk of its troops would be back home, seems to have struck a stumbling block with Russia expressing its reluctance, said diplomats focussed on the Af-Pak region. But it was Russia which was a cause for concern because its “proxies,” as a western Af-Pak envoy who visited India recently described Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyztstan and Kazakhstan, are also likely to align with Moscow because of the closely guarded NATO plans of leaving behind a military presence. Only Turkmenistan, which styles itself as the “Switzerland of Central Asia” (because of its ‘neutral' position), seems enthusiastic. Despite the U.S. and European Union's attempts to bring Iran to its knees by hitting at its mainstay of oil exports, diplomats described Tehran as “not a bad partner” in stabilising Afghanistan due to its shared concerns of narco-trafficking, Taliban's viciousness in the social sphere and anti-Shia orientation. However, China did not support the Russian position at the Bonn conference. Thus, the West has great expectations from the cash-flush China in contributing to the upkeep of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) as well as development projects.
• ·         China would strengthen its military's capabilities to win “local wars under information-age conditions. China will spend $111.4 billion on public security, which includes police and state security forces, in the coming year — an amount that exceeds even the defence budget. Military spending for 2012 was announced a day earlier at $106.4 billion, marking the second consecutive year in which the internal security budget has surpassed the outlay on national defence. The boost to internal security comes amid recent unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang. At least 25 self-immolations by monks and nuns have been reported in the past year. The focus of military spending, is defending its “core interests” in both the South China Sea and the Taiwan issue, and is partly a response to the United States' “pivot” to Asia and its strengthening of military alliances in the region. China also has long-running territorial disputes with both India and Japan.