Daily News Notes: 18th April, 2012

· The Supreme Court today upheld the criteria of the Election Commission, EC for granting symbols to unrecognised registered political parties. According to the EC's order, permanent symbol is granted to those political parties which have garnered atleast five per cent votes in assembly elections or have managed to win two assembly seats or one seat in parliamentary elections from the state.
· India is all set to join the elite club of nations (US, Ru, Fr, Ch) having Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) with the scheduled test launching of the 5,000 km-range Agni-5 missile from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) of Dhamra on Wheeler Island off Odisha coast this afternoon. It have the capability of targeting all of Asia and large parts of Europe. However, on the timeline fixed for fully developing Agni-5, another one year of testing will be involved. In November last year, DRDO had successfully test fired the 3,500 km range Agni-4 missile giving muscle to India's deterrent capability against the military adversaries.
· The Department of Information Technology, DIT (Ministry of Communications and Information Technology) has been renamed Department of Electronics and Information Technology (in Hindi it is Electroniki aur Soochana Praudyogiki Vibhag), DeitY. In the early days, the Department of Information Technology was called Department of Electronics. In October 1999, it was initially made Ministry of Information Technology. But with the merger of Departments of Telecommunications and Posts in the Ministry, in December 2001, the Department acquired its current name of Department of Information Technology. The Department and a new National Policy on Electronics is in the process of initiating several measures to renew the thrust to the Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) in the country.
· Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has taken initiative for developing an international standard related to IT enabled Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), etc. Besides, our country is also seeing a steady growth in the services sector, which is already exceeding 50 % of the GDP. The Indian consumers are looking forward to services of international quality in sectors such as health, banking, finance, insurance, tourism, hospitality, transportation and education. With a view to improving its services quality, at the initiative of Government of India, BIS has prepared the Indian Standard on `Quality Management Systems – Requirements for Service Quality by Public Service Organizations’.
· Assam government has initiated a series of measures to achieve 100 percent enrollment of girls in class ninth and tenth under Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan by 2017. Assam at present has recorded 52 percent Gross Enrollment against the national average of 46 percent.
· The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, TRAI, has issued the new regulations for mobile banking in order to ensure faster and reliable communication for banking through mobile phones. The Regulator said that the mobile companies have to enable banks to complete a transaction within ten seconds under the new rules. Telecom companies have to give banks and customers the option to transact using Short Message Service (SMS), Interactive Voice Response( IVR) or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD). USSD, is used by operators to inform pre-paid card users about their balance on a real-time basis. The service providers can also optionally facilitate the bank to use WAP or Sim Application Toolkit (STK). The regulations mandate that if the SMS sent by the bank is not delivered to the customer due to network or handset-related problems, then a USSD communication confirming the completion of the transaction should be sent.
· Retail inflation (based on the Consumer Price Index) rose to 9.47 per cent in March because of higher prices of milk (rose by 15.22%), vegetables, protein-based items and edible oil products (costlier by 14.20 %).
· A Class X student of a school in West Bengal was caught in the classroom with a country-made pistol. The student brought the firearm after the Principal had reprimanded him for carrying a mobile phone to the class. The incident caused concern in the wake of attacks on teachers by students in a fit of rage in certain schools elsewhere in the country.
· The Supreme Court posted to September for final hearing on whether stray dogs can be exterminated by authorities if they cause “nuisance” to people. Earlier, the apex court had on January 23, 2009, stayed a Bombay High Court judgment that allowed municipal authorities in Maharashtra to kill stray dogs causing “nuisance”. It was pointed out that two sets of legislations existed on treatment of stray dogs in Mumbai. The Animal Birth Control Rules (ABC Rules) formulated under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960 mandated killing of only rabid, incurably ill or mortally wounded dogs. On the other hand, the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act allowed discretion to the Civic Commissioner to exterminate the animals. It was contended that if a dog is rabid or mortally wounded or incurably ill it has to be killed by the authorities by following rules and guidelines. Further it was submitted that stray dogs should be sterilised and not exterminated.
· India today said it cannot be the target of regime based restrictions and pitched for full membership of export control entities. Foreign Secretary Rajan Mathai expressed confidence that India can fulfil the requirement of these export control regimes and the logical conclusion for it is to get the full membership of the four multilateral regimes- Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement. Mr Mathai said India has the ability to produce, manufacture or supply a vast majority of items that are controlled by these regimes. He also informed that India has signed civil nuclear cooperation agreements with France, US, Russia, Canada, Argentina, UK, Namibia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. Negotiations are taking place with Japan on a bilateral Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.
· Japan's Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank is set to be the first in the world to offer a cardless ATM that uses palm scanning technology. The bank plans to roll out the technology to 10 branches from September this year. The ATM machine will run on Fujitsu palm-scanning biometric technology, which recognises the unique pattern of veins in a palm. Bank customers will just need to scan their hand to get cash and access account details.
· Happy, optimistic people have a lower risk of heart disease and stroke, say US experts. The findings have been reported in the Psychological Bulletin. While such people may be generally healthier, scientists think a sense of well-being may lower risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. Factors such as optimism, life satisfaction, and happiness appeared to be linked with a reduced risk of heart and circulatory diseases, regardless of a person's age, socio-economic status, smoking status or body weight.
· Indian management schools have drawn more overseas students last year than five years ago. Many Asian MBA aspirants, particularly from central and south Asia showed interest in studying in India rather than the US.
· Korean-American physician Jim Yong Kim, who has been selected as new President of the World Bank, has said he will seek a new alignment of the body with a rapidly changing world. The World Bank picked Seoul-born Kim over Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Mr. Kim (52) will take over at the beginning of July, after Robert B Zoellick, steps down at the end of his five-year term.
· Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced withdrawal of most of the Australian troops from Afghanistan by mid next year (2013), while rolling out her future plan of Canberra's role in the war-torn country. About 130,000 NATO troops are serving in Afghanistan from 50 contributing nations, including Australia. Most of them are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.