Daily News Notes

· In Gujarat, dismissing the state government plea, the Gujarat High Court has upheld the appointment of Lokayukta by the Governor. The state government had earlier challenged Governor Kamla Beniwal's appointment of Retired Justice RA Mehta as the state’s Lokayukta, deeming the move unconstitutional, unilateral and bypassing the state government. State govt. had also demanded for recalling the State Governor on this issue.
· The Central Statistics Office (CSO) had introduced a new series of Consumer Price Indices (CPI) on base 2010=100 for all-India and States/UTs separately for rural, urban and combined with effect from January, 2011. Monthly price data are collected from 310 selected towns by the Field Operations Division of NSSO for urban area and from 1181 selected villages by the Department of Posts for rural area.
· In Assam, 9 insurgent groups will lay down arms at Guwahati on the 24th of this month. The underground groups laying down arms include- All Adivasi National Liberation Army, Adivasi Cobra Militant of Assam, Birsa Commando Force, Santhal Tigers’ Forum, Adivasi People’s Army, Kuki Liberation Army, United Kukigram Defence Army, Kuki Revolutionary Army and the Hmar People’s Convention.
· In Assam, Mobile Medical Unit or “Hospital on Wheels”, under National Rural Health Mission, has given a boost to the health care services in the remote areas. MMUs hugely shared the burden of patients of government hospitals. It is the best answer for the equitable distribution of health services as many tribal, char, forest and tea garden areas are devoid of health care facilities. MMUs have all the required ultra-modern diagnostic facilities such as x-ray, ECG, Ultrasound test, breast and cervical cancer screening along with clinical detection of leprosy and TB in the health camps.
· Mr. Rajiv, an IPS officer of 1975 batch, has been appointed as the Director General of Central Industrial Security Force, CISF. Mr Rajiv is presently working as the Director General, National Disaster Response Force and Civil Defence.
· Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) today launched "HP ANYTIME, a 24x7 Integrated Voice Recording System, IVRS refill booking facility in the state of Goa to help people book their refills from any part of the state through innovative technology which will help to streamline the entire booking system.
· In Nepal, the Nepal Oil Corporation has increased the price of petroleum products. Petrol: Rs.115 per litre, Diesel and kerosene: Rs.85 per litre, LPG: Rs.1500 per cylinder. It said that even after the increase in the price the Corporation will be incurring a loss of eight hundred and sixty million rupees.
· The Wikipedia community has blacked out the English version of the Wikipedia website for 24 hours today to protest against the legislation being proposed by the U.S. Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). It maintained that, the SOPA and PIPA are real threats to the free and open Internet. The protest was also joined by the search engine website Google Inc, which did not shut down its site, but around midnight covered most of the logo on its U.S. homepage with a black box adding a link asking users to tell the US Congress to not to censor the web.
In Myanmar, the Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has registered to contest in the by-polls for a parliamentary seat. She was released from house arrest in November 2010, days after Myanmar's first elections in 20 years.