{News Notes} Daily News Notes: 25th Dec, 2012

Christmas is being celebrated all over the world today, marking the birth of Jesus Christ. Pope Benedict celebrated the traditional Roman Catholic Christmas eve mass before a packed congregation in St Peter's Basilica. The Pope appealed for a solution to the Arab Israeli conflict and an end to the civil war in Syria.
The Chhattisgarh Government has launched a widespread campaign to distribute homoeopathic medicines door-to-door with the objective of preventing and treating malaria in rural areas.
Legendary South Indian composer Ilayaraja is among nine artistes from the field of music who will receive the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 2012 for his creative and experimental music, while Grammy Award-winning percussionist T. H. Vinayakram, veteran playwright Ratan Thiyam and violinist N.Rajam are the three personalities chosen for the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowship. The Akademi has selected 36 persons from the fields of music, dance, theatre and puppetry for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2012. The Fellowship of the Akademi is restricted to a very limited number at a given time. At present, there are only 40 such Fellows. Nandini Ramani and Arun Kakade will receive Akademi Award 2012 for overall contribution/scholarship in performing arts.
Delhi High Court Chief Justice said 5 fast-track courts for which approval had been given, to deal with sexual assault cases, would become operational in the first week of January 2013, after the winter vacation. About the feasibility of day-to-day hearing, he said: “The Administrative Committee [of the High Court] has issued directions to all additional sessions judges in Delhi that cases of sexual assault should be tried on a day-to-day basis from the date of commencement of trial. This gang rape [case] will also be conducted on a day-to-day basis to ensure speedy trial.”
Opposing the death penalty as punishment for those found guilty of rape, several women’s groups have sought changes in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2012, as there is no evidence to suggest that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to rape. The activist said the death penalty was often used to distract attention from the real issue. The women’s groups said the Bill must not be passed in its current form because of loopholes and lacunae which included no amendment to the flawed definition of consent under Section 175 of the IPC and it does not recognise the structural and graded nature of sexual assault, based on concepts of hurt, harm, injury, humiliation and degradation. The Bill also does not use well-established categories of sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault and sexual offences.
India and Russia have moved to strengthen their economic ties by inking a pact on a Kremlin-backed $2 billion investment fund and agreeing to open talks on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that will also involve Belarus and Kazakhstan. Russian sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) signed a pact with State Bank of India (SBI) for setting up a $2 billion investment consortium for promoting investments (including mutual investments) between the two countries. The RDIF and SBI would each invest up to $1 billion in the consortium. The emphasis would be on projects geared towards higher purchasing power of the population, creation of value addition in the extraction and processing of natural resources as well as development of manufacturing businesses and service sector companies. Further, both countries have also agreed to take the first steps towards operating a “ranging station” that will help accurately fix the location of satellites. A military side agreement on receiving precision signals from Glonass was signed last year, following active interest shown by National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon. Also, Russia and India resolved to further extend their partnership in the energy sector, which has moved beyond investment (Sakhalin-I) to direct trade (Gazprom-Gail) and is now seemingly set for joint investment in downstream and upstream sectors. India put its interest areas on the table — equity participation through ONGC-OVL in the existing and new projects in Siberia, Russia’s Far East and the Arctic Shelf, besides interest in acquiring equity stake in discovered or producing assets and in proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects in Russia. However, there was no substantial progress on issues of discord — delay in commissioning aircraft carrier Gorshkov, stalemate on clinical trials in Russia, applicability of the Nuclear Limited Liability Act to six new reactors to be put up by Russia at Kudankulam, inability of Russian companies Sistema and Severstal to move ahead with their investment plans in India and the tax imposed on Imperial Energy, an Indian company operating in Russia.
The U.N. General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to restart talks on a treaty regulating the global trade of conventional arms, after a similar effort failed in July. Talks in July collapsed largely because of U.S. reluctance to move forward with plans to establish a treaty that would impose the regulations on a 60 billion dollar industry.
NATO member Turkey has agreed to lift its veto on non-military cooperation between the alliance and Israel which it imposed over a deadly raid on a Turkish aid ship to Gaza in 2010, said a diplomat. Ankara took the retaliatory measure after the Israeli army stormed the ship carrying humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip while it was in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, leaving nine Turks dead. The agreement comes after NATO agreed early this month to deploy Patriot anti-aircraft missiles along the Turkish border with Syria.
NASA scientists are planning to capture a 5,00,000 kg asteroid, relocate it and transform it into a space station for astronauts to refuel at on their way to Mars. “The feasibility is enabled by three key developments: the ability to discover and characterise an adequate number of sufficiently small near-Earth asteroids for capture and return; the ability to implement sufficiently powerful solar electric propulsion systems to enable transportation of the captured asteroid; and the proposed human presence in cislunar space in the 2020s enabling exploration and exploitation of the returned asteroid,” NASA said. It would be the first time a celestial object has ever been moved by humans. An 'asteroid capture capsule' would be attached to an old Atlas V rocket and directed the asteroid between the Earth and the Moon. From here space explorers would have a stationary base from which to launch trips deeper into space. The technology would also open up the possibility of mining other asteroids for their metals and minerals.