Daily News Notes: 28th May, 2012

· The government said that it has no immediate plan to raise the retail prices of diesel, Kerosene and domestic gas (LPG). Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister has said that in the inter-ministerial grouping on inflation he focused on the price of diesel and its impact on inflation as a whole. Chief Economic Adviser Kaushik Basu was also present at the meeting.
· Inaugurating the Annual Conference of the Disaster management Secretaries from the States and Union Territories in New Delhi, Home Secretary R.K Singh urged the states to enhance Disaster mitigation preparedness for the South-West monsoon season. He expressed disastisfaction that some states have not set up Disaster Management Centres or used up funds alloted by the Centre for the purpose. He said, the modernisaton of the Fire force has to be speeded up to equip it to respond to hazards of all nature.
· Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution says the centre is planning to bring in a legislation to standardise food products packaging, to avoid consumer misleading. He said the Bureau of Indian Standards has recently finalised the Indian Standard on basic requirements for street food vendors.
· The multiplicity of entrance examinations that a student intending to pursue a course in engineering has to appear for has been a cause of concern to society. The burden imposed on the students in terms of time, payment of examination fees and the stress caused in scheduling and preparing for each examination is tremendous. The students have to perforce restrict their choice of institutions for which they can compete. Thus, after a process of deliberations and consultations spanning over two years, a meeting of the Joint Councils of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and other Central Educational Institutions have approved the conduct of a common admission examination process with weightage to performance in the Class XII Board examinations. Another serious problem with the present system is the neglect of the Class XII examination process while admitting students to engineering institutions. This has led to the almost complete disregard to the secondary school system and neglect of education imparted in schools impacting quality and access. Parents and children have been forced to seek access to outside-the-school instruction methods to enable the student to prepare for the multitude of entrance examinations. The proposed reform attempts to bring focus back to the schooling system by giving weightage to performance in Class XII Board examinations normalized on percentile basis. The reform would, in the longer term, have an impact on the quality of secondary education and enable better quality access. The proposed changes will be effective from the year 2013 and both CFTIs and CBSE would work jointly. A meeting of State Education Ministers’ is proposed for 5th June where the participation of States in the common national test process would be deliberated upon. [Click Here to read more]
· In a significant ruling, the Delhi High Court has held that marks obtained by a student in Central Board of Secondary Education Board exams cannot be revealed under the transparency law as it would “defeat” the purpose of the new grading system.
· To accelerate the process of procurement for the Armed Forces, the Defence Minister Shri AK Antony gave his ‘in principle’ approval to a three-fold hike in the delegation of financial powers to Service Headquarters. The decision was taken in a meeting which was als attended by the three Service Chiefs – Admiral Nirmal Verma, General V.K.Singh, Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne and the Defence Secretary Shri Shashikant Sharma.
· For the first time, India's food regulator FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) has finalised draft standards for all categories of alcoholic beverages such as wine, beer, whisky, rum, gin and vodka, to set the maximum permissible limits of alcohol in these drinks and thus, mandate safety standards. The draft standards will come up for final discussions at the coming meeting of the FSSAI, which plans to notify these by July 1. So far, there was no benchmarking in place for prescribing safe and permissible limits of alcohol in drinks, but there are some standard which says “the current levels in India allow a maximum of 45.5% alcohol content in distilled spirits such as whisky, rum, gin or vodka, 12% for wine and 8 per cent for beer.” The move has a potential to impact sales of the alcohol industry, a major revenue earner for the States, with the total annual sales pegged at over $10 billion in the country. While the FSSAI says setting of standards for food products is part of its mandate by law, alcoholic beverage manufacturers say the Authority has no such power and the State governments alone had the legislative competence to govern the manufacture and sale of these products.
· The coveted World Heritage Site tag may remain elusive for the Western Ghats as the IUCN technical evaluation report says the “property does not meet conditions of integrity or protection and management requirements for serial properties.” The 36^th session of the WHC, which will begin at St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 24, will consider the report. India had nominated 39 serial sites of the Ghats including Agasthyamalai, Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Padinalknad reserved forest, Kerti reserved forest, Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary, Kudremukh National Park, Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary, Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, Mannavan Shola, and Silent Valley National Park for declaration as World Heritage Site. While staking its claim, India had stated that there would be a three-tier management system for all the 39 sites. However, IUCN observed that there was “no overarching management plan for the nominated property” despite the three-tier coordination mechanism proposed by India.
· India’s first laboratory to study the formation of clouds and their interaction with the environment is taking shape at the popular hill station of Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra. The location of the research centre, about 1,500m above the mean sea level, will give scientists an opportunity to study the clouds and study their interaction with the environment. Mahabaleshwar offers a unique location as it receives nearly 500 mm of rains every year while the surrounding plains are usually drought prone. Construction of the laboratory is expected to start after the monsoons in October, and is likely to be completed by June next year.
· Kerala’s official mentor, and the prime minister’s adviser on public information infrastructure and innovation, Sam Pitroda, wants the states to jettison the Kerala Model and explore a drastically different growth trajectory, one that leverages the knowledge sector and the state’s traditional strengths like nursing. Pitroda's 10 point agenda includes his plans to set up the first-of-its-kind ‘knowledge city’ in the country in the states capital. The knowledge city will have research and service hubs for financial services, media, bio-technology, healthcare and management education that will not only attract local talent but also high-skilled migrants. Pitroda pointed out that in the health sector alone there is a shortage of one million nurses in the country and another half a million vacancies abroad. The state capital is suited for setting up this city as it has a clean eco-system and better access to transportation.
· In Rajasthan, the holy ritual of "Qul" of the 800th Urs of Khawja Muinuddin Hasan Chisti was held this afternoon. Thousands of devotees reached Ajmer to participate in the Kul ki Rasm.
· The Sikkim Governor Mr. Balmiki Prasad Singh has called for establishing a small formation of the Indian Air Force in Sikkim to meet out the emergencies in the wake of natural disasters like last year’s devastating earthquake, more effectively. He said that such an air formation can be easily materialized after completion of the first ever airport of this land locked State at Pakyong near Gangtok in December next year.
· UP Chief Minister in his meeting with the forest department officers had issued directions to raise green belts in districts to compensate the colossal loss of trees in the state for various development and construction projects in the last few years. Considering the fact that it will be difficult to find vacant sites in cities, the scheme lays more emphasis on rural plantation. The criterion has also been fixed for roadside plantation. Every district will have to identify some three to four such sites where plantation could be done for raising green belts. Such a scheme has been planned by the department for the first time. And, plantation for raising green belts might begin on June 5, the World Environment Day. In order to give the scheme a people-connect, department will encourage plantation in green belts by people, to mark occasions like ‘Van Mahotsav’ on July 1.
· A number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), hardware makers and websites, including a few from India, will start running IPv6, a new generation Internet protocol, permanently from June 6. It is part of a global effort to move away from the IPv4 regime that now rules the cyberspace. Version 4 is made up of a set of numbers that helps to identify web addresses, facilitating communication from one point to the other. With the rapid expansion of Internet, the sets of numbers that could be used as digital addresses started getting exhausted. This necessitated a new version that offers an almost inexhaustible address pool.
· In a significant move that could show the way for putting in place a liberal visa regime between them, India and Pakistan have agreed to do away with requirement of a visa to cross the border on both sides within a radius of 400 metres at the Attari-Wagah point in Punjab for Customs and other related border officials. It was agreed that officials monitoring and administrating trade would be issued “special permits'' to work within the 400-metre radius. At present, such permits are issued to drivers and workers to drive in and out of the border carrying goods and unloading them. Interestingly, in a step forward, Pakistan recently notified that big containers and 22-tyre trucks from India would be allowed to cross over into its territory. Pakistan had enhanced the list of goods that could be traded through the Wagah border from 63 to 137 items.
· India and Pakistan are now planning to open a new land corridor across the two Punjabs to boost trade between the two countries. The route connecting Hussainiwala in Ferozepur district in Indian Punjab connects Ganda Singh Wala, in Kasur district of West Punjab in Pakistan. Trade between India and Pakistan transits only through the Attari-Wagah border connecting Punjab on both the sides. The two nations are in advanced talks to open Munabao in Rajasthan, India, and Khokharapar in Sindh, Pakistan. The rail line connecting the two towns had fallen into disuse after the 1965 India-Pakistan war, when the town itself was captured by Pakistani troops. However, it re-opened in 2006 with Thar Express running once in a week between the two stations. The process of enhancing trade ties between the two countries have gained traction in recent times, after being stalled in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks in 2008. In the past 12 months, the Pakistan cabinet has approved a proposal to ease trade with India by switching to a negative list-based import regime and following it up with a most favoured nation (MFN) trade status by the year-end. India had given MFN status to Pakistan 16 years ago. Under the negative list regime, notified by Pakistan in March, import of only 1,209 products will be barred from India. Till now, Pakistan traded with India under a positive list regime that allowed import of less than 2,000 items. However, this resulted in higher cost of Indian products imported into Pakistan through other countries. Bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $2.7 billion in 2010-11 with exports from India at $2.3 billion, while imports from Pakistan at nearly $400 million. Major exports from India include sugar and confectionery items, dairy products and vegetables.
· India signed a MoU with Myanmar for a credit line of 500 Million USD. The MoU was signed between the export-import bank of India and Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank. A total of 12 agreements and Memoranda of Understanding have been signed between the 2 countries: [1.] Border area development; [2.] Setting up Myanmar Institute of Information Technology; [3.] Setting up Advance Centre for Agricultural Research and Education at Yezin Agriculture University; [4.] Establishing Rice Bio Park; [5.] Establishing of border haats across the border between the two countries; [6.] Cooperation b/w Indian council of world affairs and Myanmar institute of strategic and international Studies; [7.] Kolkata University and Dagon University Yangon to collaborate on higher studies and research; [8.] air services agreement. The visit of the Prime Minister the first after 25 years is a historic milestone in the relations between India and Myanmar.[Click Here to read more]
· Dubai has set a new record with Princess Tower (Ht. 1,356 feet, 101 floors) as the world's tallest residential building. Dubai already has famous Burj Khalifa, the 2720 ft high tallest structure in the world.
· Austrian Director Michael Haneke has bagged the Cannes film festival's top prize for the second time as his movie Love has been named the winner of the Palme d'Or. Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen won the best actor prize for The Hunt, while the best actress prize was shared between Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan for Romanian movie Beyond the Hills. British Director Ken Loach collected the Jury Prize for The Angels' Share.
· Consensus could not be reached among Nepal’s main political parties, the UCPN (Maoist) , Nepali Congress , CPN-UML and the union of the Samyukta Loktantrik madhesi Morcha as they were unable to resolve the differences in the constitution drafting, thus they fails to write Nepal’s Constitution. The major cause of opposition was their differences on restructuring of states. Formation of 14 states based on ethnicity was proposed but the idea has been rejected.
· In Afghanistan, 21 Taliban militants have been killed and 19 others arrested during NATO-led coalition military operations in different provinces during the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry has voiced concern over the slow pace of progress in the deployment of Afghan Air Force across the country. He added that the fifteen “C 27” transport aircraft provided by the US cannot be deployed as they are very old and their spare parts are also not available.
· In Pakistan, at least seven people have been killed in a US drone strike. In another incident, 3 persons were killed and 6 others injured when militants opened fire on a bus in Pakistan.
· Iran is to build a new nuclear power plant, alongside its sole existing one in the southern city of Bushehr, by early 2014. The current Bushehr nuclear plant was started by German engineers in the 1970s, before Iran's Islamic revolution, and was completed by Russia.