{News Notes} Daily News Notes: 21st & 22nd Dec, 2012

Daily News Notes

The Report of the National Initiative for Allied Health Sciences (NIAHS) “From Paramedics to Allied Health Professionals: Landscaping the Journey and Way Forward” was released. Highlights of the report are as follows: [1.] Allied Health Professionals are defined and interpreted differently within and among countries. Largely known as ‘paramedic’ in India, the term refers to a professional providing emergency care and ambulance services in the rest of the world. Hence, it is essential to address the issue of perception urgently and thus it is imperative to standardize a comprehensive definition of AHP, along with a defined career pathway, salary structure and cadre formation to ensure their growth prospects; [2.] A considerable regulatory gap in the allied health space is attributed to the lack of a comprehensive regulatory framework and absence of centres for excellence or apex bodies for professional development and training of AHPs. A number of councils such as the Medical Council of India (MCI), Dental Council of India (DCI) to name a few, have already been established by Act of Government for regulating the standards of education and training, as well as the registration of practitioners in respective fields. The aim is to prevent unqualified people from practicing and also for maintain the standards of these professions. However, there is no central regulatory mechanism for AHPs. Thus, it is recommended to set up a National Board for Allied Health Sciences as an interim measure to undertake the work of capacity augmentation and re-organization for this group of the healthcare workforce; [3.] The lack of planned courses and institutions non-uniform nomenclature for the existing courses, diverse standards of practice and lack of qualified faculty pose a threat to the quality of education and skills of the AHP, thus there is a need to standardize the course duration, curricula, training methodologies and other such components pertaining to the education and training of allied health professionals; [4.] A supply-demand analysis undertaken using an access-efficiency factor for urban and rural population based on best practices of HRH norms reveal a total national shortage of approx. 64 lakh AHPs with highest gaps in the states of UP, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Bihar and AP. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare aims to address the shortage by establishing one national and eight regional institutes of allied health science across the country, which will serve as the centres of excellence based on the lines of AIIMS in medical education; [5.] For effective management of the institutes, it is recommended that the national and regional institutes of allied health science may be established as autonomous bodies fully funded by GoI; [6.] New methods of teaching and training should be introduced in the public sector to keep up with changing technologies and new age educational methods such as e-learning, web tools, SIM models and others.
In Manipur, normal life was today crippled due to the indefinite statewide bandh called by a social organisation demanding the arrest of a NSCN-IM ultra, who allegedly molested a regional film actress at a public function. All shops, markets, business and entertainment houses remained closed while transport services between Manipur and neighbouring states and within the State were cancelled.
Accreditation for all higher educational institutes will soon be mandatory as lack of mandatory accreditation and increase in number of private universities are presently posing a problem for students, making it difficult for them to judge the standards of an institute before taking admission. University Grants Commission, UGC, and All India Council for Technical Education, AICTE, are set to issue regulation guidelines by early next year in this regard.
The Madhya Pradesh Government has set up a Senior Citizen Commission to look into problems of the elderly in the State. The Commission will after a look at the problems of the senior people of the state, produce an ideal pro-forma for old persons policy for the welfare and solution of their problems.
As part of its developmental trials, Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM), Astra was successfully launched from Chandipur, Odisha to validate its reconfigured propulsion, control and guidance systems. The launch was carried out against an electronic target, although Pilotless Target Aircraft Lakshya was used to check the effectiveness of systems such as the ground radar. ASTRA: The 3.8-metre long Astra is the smallest of the missiles developed by DRDO. Designed to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft at supersonic speeds (1.2 to 1.4 Mach) in head-on and tail-chase modes, the missile uses solid propellant and can carry a conventional warhead weighing 15 kg. It can be launched from different altitudes and cover 110 km when fired from an altitude of 15 km, reach 44 km when launched from an altitude of eight km, and 21 km when launched from the sea-level. After completion of all developmental trials, Astra will be eventually integrated with combat fighter aircraft Sukhoi-30, MIG-29 and the Light Combat Aircraft.
The Chhattisgarh State government’s Food Security Act passed on Friday goes further than the UPA’s bill by extending food security to nearly 90% of the State’s population. Further, the Chhattisgarh Act clearly states that the entitlements shall be on household basis with a family size of 4.47 in rural and 4.79 in urban areas. This is opposed to the central government limiting provision of foodgrains for the Public Distribution System to per person rather than per household. Going beyond the Centre’s definition of Antyodaya, the Chhattisgarh government has declared as “Antyodaya households” all families of “vulnerable social groups” including tribal groups, widows or single women, terminally ill persons, physically challenged persons, elderly-headed households with no assured means of subsistence and persons freed from bonded labour. Pregnant women, lactating mothers, malnourished children, children between six months and 14 years and all students in hostels or ashrams will get mandatory subsidised foodgrains. The Chhattisgarh Act provides for exclusion of all households that are income tax payees. In non-scheduled areas all such households that own more than 4 hectares of irrigated land or eight hectares of non-irrigated land have been excluded from the Act. In addition, in urban areas all such households that own a pucca house (concrete roof) of carpet area of more than 1,000 sq ft and are liable to pay property tax have been excluded. The State has 78 per cent rural and 22 per cent urban population. “The objective of the Bill is to ensure adequate food at affordable prices for all eligible households in the State with dignity and in pursuance of their right to be free from hunger and other deprivations associated with lack of food,’’ states the statement of objects and reasons of the Bill. The Act will be notified in six months.
Booker-nominated Jeet Thayil and Bengali novelist Subrata Mukhopadhyaya were among the 24 authors selected for this year’s Sahitya Akademi Awards, which was dominated by poets. Twelve of the 24 awards went to works of poets, which included K Sachitandandan, late Bal Krishna ‘Bhaura’ and Makhan Lal Kanwal.
Following an assurance from the Centre that the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2012 (UAPA) was not targeted against any community, religion or caste, Parliament passed legislation that seeks to expand the definition of “terrorist act” by incorporating offences that threaten India’s economic security, including circulation of high value counterfeit currency and financing of terrorist activities. The Bill amends the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 to make it more effective in preventing terrorist activities and to fulfil the obligations made with the Financial Action Task Force — an Inter-governmental Organisation set up to devise policies to combat money laundering and terror financing. The Bill amends the original Act to expand the definition of a ‘person’ to include an individual, a Hindu undivided family, a company, a firm, an association of persons or a body of individuals, every artificial juridical person, any agency, office or branch owned or controlled by any person falling within any of the preceding subclauses. It defines the “proceeds of terrorism” as “property which is being used, or is intended to be used for a terrorist act or for the purpose of an individual terrorist or a terrorist gang or a terrorist organisation,” including property intended to be used for terrorism. As per the Bill the punishment for raising funds for terrorist acts shall not be less than five years, which may be extended to imprisonment for life.
Narendra Modi (BJP) swept back to power in Gujarat for the third time in a row. The “below expected” score allows his opponents within to resist the clamour to make Mr. Modi the BJP's prime ministerial candidate for 2014; but the fact that he has registered his third decisive win is enough to get all the party's national leaders to brace themselves for a challenge. Further, voters in Himachal Pradesh once again voted against the incumbent government and brought the Congress to power, giving it 36 of the 68 Assembly seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which was plagued by infightings and poor distribution of ticket, could win only 26 seats.
The Delhi government has put out public notices declaring that an Aadhaar card will be compulsory for access to every government service from January 1. The notice has left people confused for lakhs of Delhiites are yet to be enrolled under the Aadhaar programme.
Nandan Nilekani had represented the UIDAI at the launch of Delhi Government’s Annshree Yojana which is cited as the first Aadhaar UID-enabled scheme. He had informed the audience that Delhi has seen an enrollment of 1.30 crore people in Delhi and of this number UID numbers have been issued to around 1.20 crore. In all Delhi has an estimated population of about 1.67 crore. Thus over 35 lakh are yet to be enrolled. The public notice goes on to point that Aadhaar ID will provide services like opening of a bank account, Annshree Yojana, new mobile connection, LPG connection, old age pension, BPL card and scholarship for students.
The much-awaited bill on land acquisition has been pushed back to the Budget session. Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh failed to move the amendments to the land bill after protests from opposition. Ramesh has made 154 amendments to the bill that was tabled earlier in the lower House and was vetted by the standing committee. The bill was approved by the Cabinet last week to meet the deadline of the winter session.
China is listed as the leading source of global outflows of tainted money with India ranking eighth in the list compiled by a Washington-based think tank, Global Financial Integrity. China lost $2.74 trillion and India lost $123 billion to international outflows of illicit cash between 2001 and 2010, it said. Some 150 developing countries lost $5.9 trillion by way of illegal outflows in those 10 years, the Global Financial Integrity said in a report, which showed that the financial crisis has not adversely affected the production and flow of corrupt money. Malaysia with $64 billion in illegal outflows took the second position followed by Mexico. The bulk of illegal money flows accounting for 61% came from Asia. It is followed by just over 15% from the Western hemisphere and just over 10% from West Asia-Gulf and North Africa. The report, co-authored by an economist of Indian origin, Dev Kar, said the global outflows rose from $776 billion in 2009 amid the financial crisis to $859 billion in 2010. The all-time high of $871 billion was in 2008.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the second review of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) between India and Singapore is likely to be concluded soon and would further liberalise bilateral trade and give a fillip for deeper economic engagement. “We are looking for opening up of the banking sector, which it seems has been done. Also, we are looking at reforms in the labour sector and also very bullish about cooperation in the aviation sector. India needs to look at the sub-continent and liberalise its aviation policies further,” he said. Mr. Lee said the ASEAN-India free trade agreement (FTA) was now a comprehensive agreement in line with the other ASEAN +1 FTAs. He welcomed India’s full participation in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a mega FTA which ASEAN was working with dialogue partners. The RCEP talks were launched at the recent ASEAN Summit in Cambodia. Economic relations have also blossomed, with ASEAN-India total trade rising more than 25 times between 1993 and 2011.
Global rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has said that it expects India to grow by 6.5 % during 2013 (China: 8% and World: 3%). It said that China going through a so-called soft landing. What it means is that China was growing at a very rapid pace, sometimes too rapid, after the financial crisis. Further, S&P said that it expected rating stability and even some positive trends in the emerging world. The rating agency said that many emerging Asian economies were using their growth productively to strengthen their infrastructure, and thereby increase long-term growth potential, while still maintaining manageable debt burdens.
The foreign investment ceiling in asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) has been increased to 74 per cent from 49 per cent, a move aimed at bringing more foreign expertise in the segment. Further, the foreign investment limit of 74 per cent in ARCs will be a combined limit of FDI and FII. The government had opened the ARC segment for FDI in 2005 as domestic companies did not have any experience in setting up this business. At present there are 14 ARCs in the country, of which nine have no foreign investment. ARCIL, a public sector ARC, is handling about 60 per cent of the asset restructuring business in the country. ARCs: The word asset reconstruction company is a typical Indian word - the global equivalent of which is asset management companies. The word "asset reconstruction" in India owes its origin to Narsimham-I which envisaged the setting up of a central Asset Reconstruction Fund with money contributed by the Central Government, which was to be used by banks to shore up their balance sheets to clean up their non-performing loans. This idea never worked, so Narsimham-II thought of asset reconstruction companies, the likes of which had already been successful in Malaysia, Korea and several other countries in the World. To keep the tune the same as the original idea of asset reconstruction fund, as also to give an impression that ARCs are not merely concerned with realisation of bad loans but they are going to do "reconstruction", that is, try and resurrect bad loans into good ones, the word ARC has been used in India. [Click here to read more on ARC]
Germany has emerged as the top trading partner of India within Europe with around $23.8 billion or 18.3 billion euro turnover during 2011-12. Germany has been pushing for an early conclusion of the India-EU free trade agreement (FTA) saying it will be mutually beneficial and in line with the current reforms of the Union Government. The India-EU free trade agreement, officially dubbed as the Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA), seeks to sharply reduce tariffs on goods and liberalise services and investment provisions. Talks for the agreement were to conclude in 2011 but differences between the two sides on the level of opening of the market delayed the BTIA. The two-way trade stood at $91.3 billion in 2010-11. A recent FICCI report said that trade between the two sides was likely to more than double and would exceed $207 billion by 2015, if the trade pact was formalised.
With India and Pakistan committing themselves to triple their trade in three years, many residents of Amritsar are hoping that their status will revert from being a mere border town to what the city once was – a great trading hub connecting Central Asia and India. People in this region are asking for improved infrastructure to facilitate the trade. A real estate boom is also currently on. Needless to say people’s investments here have appreciated manifold as land prices along the borders have shot up in the last couple of years. From around Rs. 25 lakh an acre in 2009, on the Amritsar-Wagah road, land prices have gone up to more than a crore for an acre.
The President of India has conferred the Presidential Awards for Classical Tamil to a 92 year old Prof. C. Govindarajanar (Tolkappiyar Award) and French Scholar Prof. Francois Gros (Kural Pitam Award for the year 2008-09). Prof. Govindarajanar is an eminent archeologist who did fieldwork for 17 years in the historically important region from Pumpukar to Vanci which led to the identification of the Kannaki temple. Presidential Awards for Classical Tamil are instituted to give due recognition and honour to distinguished scholars who have made outstanding contribution to Classical Tamil language and literature.
The Obama administration has appointed yet another Indian-American to a key administrative post naming Smita Singh as the Member of the President's Global Development Council. The Council will inform and provide advice to the President and other senior US officials on American global development policies and practices, support new and existing public-private partnerships, and increase awareness and action in support of development by soliciting public input on current and emerging issues in the field of global development. The Global Development Council was established in February through an executive order of the President. Along with Ms Singh, President Obama also announced names of eight other members of the Council including its Chair Mohamed El-Erian. Personality: Ms. Singh was the Special Advisor for Global Affairs and the founding Director of the Global Development Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she worked from 2001 to 2010. From 1998 to 2001, she was a scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. Previously, Singh consulted for the World Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa. She was the first Program Officer for Higher Education Innovative Projects at the Commission on National and Community Service, now known as the Corporation for National and Community Service.
According to Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) report on gender and employment, there is a worldwide increase in women's participation in the labour force but considerable gaps remain in working hours, conditions of employment and earnings. Across the member countries of the OECD, women on an average spend 21 minutes more in total work each day than men do. Overall, the gap is the widest in India, where women spend on average 94 minutes more time than the men on total work each day, the OECD report said. However, in some countries – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and New Zealand – men spend slightly more time than women on total work per day. In Britain and Germany, women and men spend almost equal time on total work each day. The report also presented new evidence of the gender gap in entrepreneurship as per which, the proportion of women-owned businesses is around 30 per cent in OECD countries. Self-employed women also earn 30 to 40 per cent less than their male counterparts.
The High Court of UK rejected a bid by a Pakistani national to force the British government to disclose its role in providing intelligence to the U.S. for its drone attacks in Pakistan. Noor Khan (27), whose father was killed in a U.S. drone attack in North Waziristan last year, had sued the British foreign office arguing that Britain was responsible for his father’s death. Human rights lawyers acting for him claimed they had “credible, unchallenged” evidence that British Foreign Secretary William Hague oversaw a policy of passing intelligence to U.S. forces. Britian refuses either to confirm or deny any role in assisting U.S. drone operations arguing that to do so would risk national security. The court said it could not force the government to reveal its policy or rule on the legality of any intelligence-sharing in this regard. The oversight of intelligence arrangements was for Parliament to decide, not courts. The court ruled that merely passing on intelligence could not amount to an offence under the Serious Crime Act 2007 unless a particular state of mind could be proved against the provider.
The stage is set in Sri Lanka for a showdown between the legislature and the executive on one side, and the judiciary on the other,with the Court of Appeal, in a landmark decision, holding that it had the jurisdiction to hear a case against the findings of a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC). In effect, it ordered a stop to the parliamentary impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake. Earlier, the PSC had found the Chief Justice guilty of misconduct and had submitted its findings to Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, a brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Buoyed by the support she received from opposition groups and civil society, Dr. Bandaranayake had challenged the findings of the PSC in the Court of Appeal. Also, at the December 15 meeting, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), passed a resolution which said that the Bar would refrain from officially welcoming any new Chief Justice appointed on the basis of a vacancy created by “wrongful impeachment”.
Two-day discussions among various Afghan factions including the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and government representatives began in Paris. The meeting is closed to the press and the exact location of the talks is not known. This is the first time that Taliban representatives are in direct talks with other factions that make up the political landscape. The talks have been organised under the auspices of the government-supported think tank, Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS). The principal aim of the meeting is to give the parties 48 hours in which to hold candid and free discussions on neutral territory that holds no danger. The talks will focus on the future stability of Afghanistan once NATO forces withdraw in 2014, referred to as the “2020 Horizon for Afghanistan”.
A vicious cold snap has claimed nearly 200 lives across Russia and eastern Europe, and forecasters say the freeze could last until Christmas Eve. Thermometers have been stuck below minus 20 degrees Celsius in Moscow and below minus 50 degrees in some parts of Siberia for a week. In Ukraine, where heavy snow has been falling for weeks, 83 people have died of cold including 57 who were found on the street. In Poland temperatures plunged to minus 10 degrees Celsius.
The capture of the most wanted sub-atomic particle in physics - Higgs boson, nicknamed the 'God particle' - has topped the chart of the year's ten biggest scientific breakthroughs. In July the team from the European nuclear research facility at CERN in Geneva announced the detection of a particle that fitted the description of the elusive Higgs. Scientists used the world's biggest atom smashing machine, the Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border, to track down the missing particle. The boson is believed to give matter mass via an associated 'Higgs field' that permeates space. Without the property of mass, the universe we live in could not exist. The God Particle is named after 83-year-old Peter Higgs, a shy, soft-spoken Briton who in 1964 published the conceptual groundwork for the particle. Belgian physicist Francois Englert, 79, separately contributed to the theory. The other major advances, according to Science, are: [2.] Scientists in Germany used a new technique to sequence the complete genome of an enigmatic group of humans called the Denisovans, based on a tiny sample teased from a finger bone some 80,000 years old found in a cave in Siberia. Nothing was known about the Denisovans other than that they were contemporaries of the Neanderthals, another "cousin" species of modern humans; [3.] Japanese scientists created viable egg cells using embryonic stem cells from adult mice. The breakthrough raises the possibility that women who are unable to produce eggs naturally could have them created in a test tube from their own cells and then implanted in their body; [4.] NASA engineers landed the 3.3 ton Mars Curiosity rover on the Red Planet by using an innovative landing system that dangled the vehicle, with its wheels out, at the end of three cables. "The flawless landing reassured planners that NASA could someday land a second mission near an earlier rover to pick up samples the rover collected and return them to Earth; [5.] Use of an X-ray laser, which shines one billion times brighter than traditional synchroton sources, allowed scientists to determine the structure of a protein involved in the transmission of African sleeping sickness. The advance demonstrated the potential of X-ray lasers to decipher proteins that conventional X-ray sources cannot; [6.] A new tool let researchers modify or deactivate genes in test animals. This technology could be as effective, and even cheaper, than current gene-targeting techniques and could let researchers focus on specific roles for genes and mutations in healthy and sick people; [7.] Scientists confirmed the existence of Majorana fermions, particles that can act as their own antimatter and destroy themselves. Scientists believe that "qubits" made of Majorana fermions could be used to more efficiently store and process data than the bits currently used in digital computers; [8.] The ENCODE Project, which showed that 80 percent of the human genome is active and helps turn genes on and off. The new information could help scientists understand genetic risk factors for diseases; [9.] A brain-machine interface that allows paralyzed humans to move a mechanical arm with their minds and perform movements in three dimensions. The experimental technology is promising for patients paralyzed by strokes and spinal injuries; [10.] Researchers in China discovered the final unknown parameter of a model describing how sub-atomic particles known as neutrinos change as they travel at near-light speed. The results suggest that neutrino physics may someday help researchers explain why the universe contains so much matter and so little antimatter.
Asian champion Parimarjan Negi snatched half a point as he drew with top seed Radoslav Wojtaszek of Poland in the AICF-AAI Cup category-18 chess tournament (1st Round) at New Delhi. The Polish GM tried hard but ran short of time, and a draw was agreed after 50 moves. Abhijeet Gupta played an exciting game, but failed to capitalise on the advantage, after exchanging a knight for a light bishop against the higher ranked K. Sasikiran.