Daily News Notes: 9th April, 2012

· The government today said that the second round of talks between the Centre and United Liberation Front of Assam, ULFA were constructive and positive. However, there are some issues of pertaining to reservation for sub-poverty. Earlier, pro-talk ULFA Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa said that government has given them several assurances and they have raised many issues including constitutional amendments. He said, next round of talks will be held in two months. The pro-talk faction had submitted its charter of demands to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in August last year which was followed by the first round of talks with the Union Home Ministry in October. The 12-point charter of demands, include constitutional amendments to give Assam greater control over its natural resources, revenue generation, participation in the planning process, ensuring a secure demographic situation, besides accelerated and balanced development.
· Employing people for manual scavenging and cleaning of septic tanks and sewers will attract a hefty penalty once the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012 is passed. The Bill that seeks to prohibit employment as sanitary workers is to be tabled in Parliament in the monsoon session. The proposed law suggests that every insanitary latrine will have to be demolished or converted into sanitary latrines within nine months of the notification of the law. It prohibits any agency or individual from employing manual scavengers and those already in this kind of job — directly or indirectly — will have to be discharged irrespective of any contract, agreement, custom or traditional commitments. Insanitary latrine is defined where excreta is cleaned or manually handled before complete decomposition either in situ or in an open drain or a pit into which excreta is discharged or flushed. Though there is no accurate data available on the number of people involved in this kind of work, manual scavenging in India is prevalent and even municipalities do hire people for cleaning septic tanks. The National Commission of Safai Karmacharis will monitor the implementation of the Act, while district magistrates will be responsible for implementing and ensuring that there are no insanitary latrines in their jurisdiction.
· Inaugurating the new campus of the Direct Taxes Regional Training Institute (DTRTI) in Bangalore, the Union Finance Minister has called upon tax officials to find ways to “plug loopholes” in Indian tax laws that are exploited by “sophisticated tax planners”. He said the brightest students no longer joined the Indian Foreign Service or the Indian Police Service but were keen on joining the Indian Revenue Service. He also informed that the DTRTI would trains tax officials from Karnataka, Goa and Andhra Pradesh.
· The Ministry of Water Resources since this year has endeavoured to celebrate India Water Week annually as an international event to focus on water issues. The first international event in the series of India Water Week on “Water, Energy and Food Security: Call for Solutions” will be organized during April 10-14, 2012 at New Delhi. An exhibition ‘Water Expo 2012’ is also planned during the India Water Week as a technology show case to meet future challenges for the overall development of water, food and energy sector. A significant exposition of WARIS (Water Resources Information System) – a fully web based information system for India will also be showcased. High level delegations from Tanzania, Oman, Nepal and other countries are participating. Two important publications, ‘Water Resources Development Scenario in India’ and ‘History of Irrigation Development and Management in India’ have been prepared for the occasion. The outcome of the event is expected to pave way for generating new implementation strategies for the ongoing programmes and also provide an insight into the approaches for framing future programmes.
· As announced by the Union Finance Minister in his Budget speech, a Study Team has been set-up by the Government, under the leadership of Shri. M. K. Gupta will examine the feasibility and suggest a draft Common Tax Code for service tax and central excise that can be implemented under the present Constitutional scheme, keeping in view the challenges in the context of impending Goods and Service Tax (GST). The Study Team has also been directed to address issues relating to input tax credits with a view to simplify the existing scheme and to mitigate cascading to the extent possible, and to harmonize existing procedures and processes to make them more trade-friendly. The Study Team may also suggest any other measure that will help in reducing the cost of compliance for business or transition towards a comprehensive GST. Government has directed the Study Team to submit its report by the 30th of September, 2012.
· Madhya Pradesh registered a growth of 32% in number of houses in last decade. According to census 2011’s data for Housing, Household Amenities and Assets in the state, there were 1,00,040 houses in the state in 2001 while this number increased to 1,85,000 in 2011. It futher reported that about 23% families are getting drinking water from tap in Madhya Pradesh. The state registered a growth of about 26% in this area. 65% families are getting electricity as a source of light. About 29% families have toilets in premises of their house while 71% families don't have facility of toilet at all. About 18% families are using LPG in the state. 46% families have facility of phone or mobile phone. The state registered a growth of whopping 920% in use of phone or mobile.
· Assam has registered a 14 per cent increase in the Rhinos population in last three years. The number of Rhinos in the state is now over 2,500 in the latest census. The World Heritage site, Kaziranga National park sheltered the highest rhinos at 2,290 followed by 100 rhinos in Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park and another 93 in Pobitora Sanctuary. Assam has already known as the home of highest number of one-horned rhino in the world. Defying all odds, the state has recorded an increase of over 800 rhinos in the last 10 years.
· A vast urn-burial site has been found in Kancheepuram. The importance of the site, archaeologists say, is that it belongs to a period earlier than the Megalithic Age or Iron Age in Tamil Nadu. They estimate that the site is datable to 1,800 BCE to 1,500 BCE, that is, 3,800 to 3,500 years before the present. The site could be as ancient as the Adichanallur site, another urn-burial site in Tamil Nadu. “Cairn circles are big stones, i.e., liths, placed in a circle on the surface of the soil and urns are kept below them. The urns are also kept inside cists, which are compartments made of granite slabs. Since big stones/liths mark the urn burials below, they are called Megalithic Age burials.”
· More channels, encompassing different mobile technologies, are to be made operational soon for delivering various government services through the Mobile Services Delivery Gateway (MSDG), with the Framework for Mobile Governance prepared by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEIT) having been notified earlier this year. The gateway started working in July 2011; now it is used for the delivery of 40 SMS-based services of 30 Central and State government departments and agencies. At present, SMS services are being offered for a number of activities, such as tracking of the status of applications, sending alerts for transactions and for delivery of services, grievance registration and redress. Other services, based on such technologies as Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), are to be made operational in the coming months. USSD can be used for providing interactive value-added services, while IVR can be used for automated voice-based services. GPRS facilitates data and forms-based services. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has nearly completed the technology platform development but the pace of implementation has to be augmented. The MSDG will also have Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for the creation of value-added services by different providers, besides mechanisms, including an Aadhaar-based one, for authentication of the users of various services. It will be equipped with an integrated mobile payment gateway. The framework also proposes the creation of a Mobile Governance Innovation Fund to support the development of applications by not only government departments and agencies but also by third-party developers, including start-ups.
· The Supreme Court is to decide whether prisoners performing ‘soft' jobs during their sentence in jails are entitled to wages or not. A Bench of Justices agreed to examine this issue on a special leave petition by Phool Kumari, who served her sentence in the Tihar Jail was denied wages for the ‘soft' job she performed during her jail term. She was allotted the work of assisting doctors in the out-patient department. The jail authorities took a stand that only those subjected to rigorous imprisonment and performing arduous jobs were entitled to wages.
· Two students have come out with an innovative wastewater discharge system in railway coaches and have named it as “re-engineering of discharge system in Indian railway coaches”. Their project assumes importance in the context of railway authorities' decision to have bio-toilets in coaches. [However, former Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi, while presenting the budget, had stated that bio-toilets, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, were under extended trial.] “The major portion of water used by passengers is through wash basins in each compartment. Hence, we have attached a new pipe which connects all the three wash basins of each compartment through which water is being collected in the RO tank.” The water saved in the tank would be recycled through the process of reverse osmosis and sent to the upper tank where the water could be used for flushing. “Thus, through our system, we can save 75 per cent of the water through the RO tank,” they claim.
· Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh has returned home from today. He comes back after undergoing three cycles of successful chemotherapy in United States for a rare germ cell cancer between his lungs.
· Power Minister of India is leading a delegation to US (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington) to meet investors and explore other opportunities in the energy sector. He will also visit Istanbul in Turkey to address the World Energy Leaders' Summit organised by World Energy Council. India which currently generates over 1,87,000 MW of electricity plans to add 76,000 MW in the next five years.
· India's Oil Minister and Qatar's Energy Minister signed an initial pact for cooperation in refining as well as oil and gas exploration. The agreement was signed after Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi this morning. Qatar, which holds the world's third-largest natural gas reserves after Russia and Iran, has an LNG export capacity of 77 million tons a year.
· Eighty-year-old ailing Pakistani microbiologist Mohammed Khaleel Chishty, serving life term in an Ajmer jail in Rajasthan in a murder case of 1992, was today granted bail by the Supreme Court, considering his old age and the fact that he has been held up in India for the last 20 years after a murder case was lodged against him when he came on a visit to Ajmer. Chishty was granted bail a day after his case was discussed between the authorities of the two countries during Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari visit to India. The court also agreed to hear Chishty's plea to allow him to go back to Karachi and asked him to file a separate application for it. During a visit to Ajmer in 1992 to meet his ailing mother, Chishty had got embroiled in a dispute and, in the brawl, one of his neighbours was shot dead, while Chishty's nephew got injured.
· Having once stayed with Asif Ali Zardari in the Karachi Central Jail, Mehboob Elahi, a former Indian spy, was keen to meet the Pakistani President during his visit to Delhi to raise the issue of Indian prisoners of war languishing in jails across the border. Pointing out that there are hundreds of Indian PoWs living a life of complete neglect and deprivation, Mr. Elahi said he wanted to request Mr. Zardari to release those Indian prisoners who had completed their jail terms.
· India has been ranked 69th among 142 nations in inherent capacity to leverage information and communication technologies (ICT) for progress, in the latest of a series of Networked Readiness Index reports brought out annually by the World Economic Forum and the business school, INSEAD. It ranked 48th in 2011, against 43rd the previous year. China, ranked 51st this year, occupied the 36th place in 2011. “Extensive red tape stands in the way of businesses, and corporate tax is among the highest of all analysed countries. For instance, it typically takes four years and 46 procedures to enforce a contract,” the report said. The low penetration of ICT was one of India's weakest aspects, with the country ranked 117th in individual usage. Mobile penetration had to be improved further, as also the percentage of the population that used the Internet. The report suggested skills and infrastructure upgrade. However, India fared better in the availability of new technologies and venture capital, the intensity of local competition and the quality of management schools.
· A whale was washed ashore at the Diveagar coast in Raigad district, the third to be found within a week near the Mumbai coastline. Recently, two dead humpback whales were washed ashore in Mumbai. It’s also said that along with the whale, 11 dead turtles were also found on Diveagar beach in the last five to six days. While environmentalist expressed concern that the whales were perhaps injured by propellers of big barges, or fell victims to toxic pollution in the sea, most marine experts strongly supported the propeller injury theory. Deputy conservator of Bombay Natural History Society said, “It is very likely that the same family of humpback whales comprising female adults and their calves were fatally injured by the rotating propellers of a barge or a ship. Since whales have to come to the sea surface to breathe in oxygen, they could have been hurt by a passing ship. In the last 30 years, I personally have not come across so many whale deaths in the Mumbai region at the same time. So these three incidents definitely need to be studied.’’ Almost 20 types of whales are found in the Arabian Sea. Marine biologist and chief conservator of forests (mangroves), said there are two basic types of whales – toothed and baleen. Baleen whales have a specialised filter in their mouths that blocks out dirt and other sea trash while these mammals drink the water. Humpback whales, which were washed ashore in and around Mumbai coast, belong to the baleen whale category. Among other whales include the sperm whale, blue whale, pilot whale, pygmy whale, melon-headed whale and killer whale. Humpback whales found in the Arabian sea are not known to migrate and are an exception to other species which migrate from tropical waters (to breed) to polar regions (to feed). Experts said only a post mortem of the animals could reveal the exact cause of death.
· The row over the venue of talks between Iran and world powers over Teheran’s disputed nuclear program has settled down. The next round of talks between Iran and the five permanent members of UN Security Council and Germany over Teheran’s disputed nuclear program will be held in Istanbul on Saturday, and in case there is a progress, next round may be held in Baghdad. Iran had earlier expressed reservations over holding talks in Istanbul because of Turkey’s role in opposing the Assad regime in Syria. Reports indicate ,US and its allies plan to call for closing and ultimately dismantling the Fordow nuclear processing facility and an end to the production of 20-percent enriched uranium. Head of Iran’s atomic energy organization, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, rejected any such demand. He told Teheran sees no justification for such a request. The last round of talks in January 2011 collapsed as the two sides couldn’t even agree on the agenda. Western nations fear Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons and it should stop uranium enrichment.
· UN peace plan to end the crisis in Syria has run into rough weather. Syrian Army Chief has rejected the Syrian Government's demand to hand over a written guarantee to stop its attacks. He told that the Free Syrian Army will present its guarantees and commitments to the international community and not to Assad regime. The Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman had demanded a written guarantee by the armed terrorist groups that they would stop attacking the Syrian army and civilians. The regime also said it was awaiting written guarantees from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on stopping their funding to terrorist groups. The main opposition, Syrian National Council has called for intervention by the UN Security Council to ensure the protection of civilians. UN Special envoy, Kofi Annan in a statement from Geneva reminded the Damascus regime to respect its commitments on pull out of troops from the affected cities and said the escalation of violence is unacceptable.
· Mali's President Amadou Toumani Toure, toppled in a military coup last month, has formally resigned, paving the way for the departure of the junta that ousted him. Under the terms of a transition deal with the West African bloc ECOWAS, the junta's leaders said they would allow a return to democracy once Mr Toure formally quit. The deal also provided for a lifting of sanctions imposed by ECOWAS, and an amnesty for those involved in the coup.
· The Afghan government and the U.S. signed a deal on Sunday governing night raids by American troops. Night raids involve U.S. and Afghan troops descending without warning on homes or residential compounds searching for militants. They are widely resented in this deeply conservative country. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had called repeatedly to stop the raids, saying that they make civilian casualties more likely and that international troops are disrespectful in the way they conduct the operations. The U.S. military has said such operations are essential for capturing Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders. The resolution of this dispute is a key step toward finalising a long-term “strategic partnership” to govern U.S. forces in Afghanistan after the majority of combat forces leave in 2014.