Daily News Notes: 14th April, 2012

· The President of India led the nation in paying homage to the Bharat Ratna Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar popularly known as Baba Saheb Ambedkar, on his 121st birth Anniversary today. Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar known for fighting against untouchability was a great social reformer throughout his life. The chief architect of AIR Constitution played a significant role in the freedom struggle of the country. He emphasized that opportunities (for employment, social status and human rights) should be provided equally to each and every caste without any discrimination. Knowing education can do wonders, he chose it as a weapon to fight social evils in our society. In today’s turbulent times, when our nation needs full literacy rates to become a developed one, education is a must. To achieve the trophy of a developed country, our first step should be towards education. In fact that is the best tribute we can pay to the emancipator of humanity.
· In a first major initiative of involving corporate India in developmental work, the Government of India has sought its partnership in setting up the Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF). Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has written letters to corporates like Tatas, Reliance, Wipro and Infosys to join the Foundation as contributing partners, to improve the livelihood of tribals, mostly living in Central and Eastern India. Public sector NABARD and the National Dairy Development Board have also been roped in. The government hopes that such initiatives will promote inclusive growth by taking the fruits of development to the tribal population living in remote areas. Since these tribals have remained mostly excluded from the benefits of growth, they have become vulnerable to Maoist propaganda. “BRLF will not be a government body, and instead run on professional lines, with a Chairman and a full time CEO. The foundation will support developmental activities in the areas of watershed management, dairy, fisheries, agriculture, forestry, skill-development, among others.” [Click here for Photic News]
· The Union Minister for Rural Development has stressed the need for expanding the women’s Self-Help Group movement, as a tool of empowerment and promoting economic well being. The Minister said “the National Rural Livelihood Mission would connect at least one woman from every poor household across the country with self-help groups in five years. Presently we have 3 crore women who are members of SHGs and we have to raise it to 7 crore in five years". Mr.Ramesh noted that at present the southern states of Tamilnadu, Kerala, AP and Karnataka account of 70% of women Self-Help Groups and 80% of credit flow, making it highly geographically distorted scenario. He remarked that the focus of the new initiative will be on Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and even Gujarat and Maharashtra. The Minister stressed the need for developing an organized and well regulated micro-finance institutions network but felt that the Microfinance Bill, in its present form has too many loopholes. Mr Jairam Ramesh also inaugurated that ‘Aajeevika Cell’ in NABARD which will work in close coordination with the Ministry of Rural Development in achieving the goals of the National Rural Livelihood Mission. The NABARD CMD Mr. Prakash Bakshi said the Aajeevika Cell will facilitate convergence of wide variety of approaches and best practices to mobilize poor households into Self-Help Groups.
· RBI has decided to issue the currency notes of Rs 1,000 denomination in non-sequential numbering. Earlier the same decision was taken for ` 500 notes also. The move will possibly enhance the operational efficiency and cost effectiveness in banknote printing at banknote presses. Apart from that, this might also help in security enhancement and RBI might be moving in future towards the checksum feature of the Euro notes. As of now, the non-sequential notes in India are published for ` 500 notes and Star Series notes only.
· The 12th Five-Year Plan is most likely to include dementia care as a health priority of the country as a sizeable population of the elderly is affected by it. The World Health Organisation in a report ‘Dementia: a public health priority' released on Wednesday has quoted extensively from the Country Report 2010 on dementia submitted by the Alzheimer's and Related Disorders Society of India to highlight the problem, which was likely to become one of the key issues of morbidity in terms of health care and financial burden. The WHO report mentions that globally, the cost for treatment and care for dementia patients was pegged at more than $604 billion annually. According to WHO report, worldwide, over 3.5 crore people lived with dementia. This number was expected to double by 2030 (6.5 crore) and more than treble by 2050 (11.54 crore). “Dementia was the progressive degeneration of the brain cells, mostly affecting the memory of the person, behaviour and ability to perform everyday activities. Alzheimer's was the most common cause of dementia, and possibly contributed to up to 70 per cent of cases.” Societal changes have increased the stress of the families who need to take care of dementia patient, hence government intervention to make dementia care available at the primary health centre level would be an ideal setting to tackle this health care problem.
· The people of Assam are celebrating Rongali Bihu to welcome the Assamese New Year 1419 which begins today. The festival is also known as the 'Bohaag Bihu' as it marks the beginning of the Assamese month-Bohaag. From today, people of the State start sowing crops in the field and plant saplings. Meanwhile, the National Aids Control Organization (NACO), in association with the Assam State AIDS Control Society, has taken up a novel scheme by roping in some leading singers and performers of Bihu functions to help generate awareness about HIV/AIDS.
· West Bengal celebrates New Year's Day today. The State Governor Mr. M. K. Narayanan has greeted the people on the occasion. The first day of the Bengali New Year known as Poila Baishakh. Traders opens new books of account which is known as Hal-Khata. Many businessmen are seen to go the Dakshineswar and Kalighat temples with their personal computers for puja in which they maintained their account instead of traditional ledger book.
· The harvest festival of Vishu and Astronomical New Year of Kerala is being celebrated by Keralites living all over the world today. The day symbolizes agrian prosperity of the bygone era of God's own country.
· The Government of India conveyed to the Gujarat government that it is all set to begin the procedure for setting up the second ultra mega power plant (UMPP) in the state within three months. A high-level delegation consisting of senior officials of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and the National Power Finance Corporation Ltd said they had “finalized” 500 hectares of land for setting up UMPP at Lodhwa village in Junagadh district and will now begin implementing the project. To be a 4,000 MW imported coal-based project, Gujarat became the first state in India where Government of India has decided to set up the second UMPP. Already, a surplus power state by 2,000 MW, Gujarat government officials are not sure on whether to sign a power purchase agreement with the proposed developers of the second UMPP. Currently, power plants in Gujarat have the capacity of 13,500 MW. The place where the second UMPP is to come up is next to the proposed multi-purpose port being developed by Shapoorji Pallonji at Chhara in Junagadh district.
· Chinese environmentalists want to learn from India's experience in protecting mangrove forests even as they face an uphill struggle to save their country's wetlands from increasing developmental pressures. China's first mangrove nature reserve which lies on the tropical southern Chinese island province of Hainan, environmentalists are fighting off a tourism push and new development plans to protect the island's rich and unique ecosystem. According to the Mangrove Action Project (MAP), China's biggest reserve, the 31,000-acre Zhanjiang national nature reserve in Guangdong, was also facing a threat from “the recent rapid expansion of shrimp aquaculture” driven by a boom in the lucrative shrimp production industry.
· “India, with its billion-strong population, plays a very important role in the Shanghai regional group, where it has an observer status, and therefore India has expressed the desire to be involved in the organisation much more than it is today,” Mr. Krishna said in the trilateral Foreign Ministers Meet. Russia's Foreign Minister supported granting full membership to India, as well as to Pakistan, “which has also sent in its application.” He said the SCO came up for discussion at the RIC meeting and it was reiterated that the group was an “open” organisation. However, earlier this year Russian diplomats said the SCO still lacked consensus on expansion.
· The Indian Ambassadors from Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen are meeting in Abu Dhabi. The meeting comes in the backdrop of Arab Spring and the developments in the region and the challenges for the India’s foreign policy. Issues on the agenda include among others strategic co-operation with the countries in the gulf region, curbing the maritime piracy, countering terrorism. Enhancing trade and commerce ties, ensuring the oil supplies and the role of Indian diaspora are expected to figure prominently in the deliberations. Gulf region is home to an estimated 7.5 million Indians in various sectors.
· The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has projected a further slowdown in world trade, pegging the economic growth at 3.7 per cent for 2012. World trade expanded in 2011 by 5 per cent, a sharp deceleration from the 2010 rebound of 13.8 per cent. It attributed the slowdown to the global economy losing momentum due to a number of shocks, including the European sovereign debt crisis. It also said that India had the fastest export growth (in volume terms) among major traders in 2011, with shipments rising 16.1 per cent. China had the second-fastest export growth of many major economies at 9.3 per cent. India also emerged as the second-fastest importer after China growing at 6 per cent in 2011. WTO economists said the weak import demand from the Europe and the U.S. would adversely affect the emerging and developing countries such as India. The U.S. and the European Union together account for nearly 35 per cent of India's exports of $245.9 billion in 2010-11, as per India's trade data.
· In a trilateral meetin g of Foreign Ministers of RIC (Russia, India and China), they voiced “regret” over North Korea's rocket launch on Friday but opposed new sanctions against Pyongyang and called for restraint from neighbouring countries and the U.N. Security Council. The three Ministers voiced “serious concern” over the situation involving Iran's nuclear programme. They recognised Iran's right to peaceful use of nuclear energy and called for “exclusively peaceful resolution of the problem on the basis of the available decisions of the IAEA and the Security Council.” Russia, India and China backed Afghanistan's request to join as observer in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and described the group as the “optimal platform for regional cooperation on Afghanistan.”
· A four-year British girl has been hailed as a “child genius'' after being ranked just one point below Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking in IQ. Heidi Hankins has an IQ of 159 as against the average adult IQ of 100. She has become the second youngest ever child to be accepted into the elite Mensa society for people with high IQs. She taught herself to read and was able to count to 40 at an age when most children struggle with numbers. The record for the youngest Mensa member remains with Oscar Wrigley who was just two and a half years old when she was accepted into Mensa with an IQ of 160.
· A Congressional Bill that bars U.S. companies outsourcing call centre jobs from receiving federal grants and loans now has as many as 106 lawmakers as its co-sponsors. The U.S Call Centre and Consumer Protection Act, if passed by the Congress and signed into law, would require the U.S. Department of Labour to track firms that move call centre jobs overseas; the firms would then become ineligible for any direct or indirect federal loans or loan guarantees for five years. The Bill also requires overseas call centre employees to disclose their location to U.S. consumers and gives customers the right to be transferred to a U.S.-based call centre upon request. “Recent reports of theft and misuse of sensitive information from the British and Australian customers of the Asian call centres are deeply disturbing, and it is impossible to believe that the financial and medical information of Americans has not been similarly compromised,” Congressman said. “It is clear that overseas call centres simply cannot provide the same level of security for sensitive personal data as facilities in the U.S., and Americans should be guaranteed the option of a domestic call centre to conduct their business.”