Current Affairs: National - Minor Issues 10 to 18 August 2010

CAG Weekly
(Current Affairs & GK)
By Om Prakash (Goldy sir)

National - Social/Political (Minor Issues)

Khalijia captain blames Chitra

  • The blame-game between MSC Chitra and MV Khalijia III came to light on with the captain of Khalijia alleging negligence on part of Chitra. Laxman Dubey of Khalijia has said in his anticipatory bail application, which was heard, that the collision was “due to the negligence and fault of the Master of the vessel MSC Chitra.
  • Speaking to reporters, Mr. Dubey, who was present in court said: “The vessel [Chitra] was trying to enter my side. It was speeding. When I realised that, I stopped. There was no response from VTMS [Vessel Traffic Management Systems].”
  • Polluters must pay and will pay: Jairam-The government  assured the Rajya Sabha that fishermen who could not carry on with their vocation after the August 7 Mumbai oil spill would be given compensation after the impact on them was assessed.
  • A study of the environmental impact was also being undertaken.

Eastern India to get its first film city

  • While there have been several announcements for developing film cities on sprawling campuses across West Bengal, the first film city in eastern India is expected to throw open, on the outskirts of Kolkata, its doors to filmmakers this winter itself.
  • Purple Movie Town is built on a modest 5.5 acres of land as compared to the extensive Ramoji Rao film city, its inspiration, but will accommodate four state-of-the-art studios and ready-to-shoot sets, of an airport, railway station, hospital, college, temple, courthouse and several other locations staple to most films.

Rahman sings the CWG theme song

  • Music maestro A.R. Rahman has lent voice to the Commonwealth Games theme song, ‘Swagatham', which exudes energy and talks about winning and not giving up.
  • Presenting the story of making the song, at a news conference here, Mr. Rahman said: “When you hear the song you feel like India is calling you. I want the crowd to sing along. We have put in a lot of hard work and we are all very excited to turn it into a memorable experience. I am still working on it and am curious to know how older, intelligent people, who have years of wisdom, will react to it.”
  • The song, essentially in Hindi with a sprinkling of English words, has been approved by the Group of Ministers.

Karnad withdraws from Goa council

  • Noted theatre and film personality Girish Karnad has withdrawn from the Goa government's Golden Jubilee Development Council, headed by scientist R.A. Mashelkar.
  • The council, formed by Chief Minister Digambar Kamat in Goa's golden jubilee year of liberation, is mandated to formulate a vision for Goa for the next 25 years.

Supreme Court asks Parliament to revisit dowry-related legislation

  • The Supreme Court on Friday asked Parliament to revisit the provision relating to cruelty and dowry harassment, pointing out that a large number of frivolous complaints are filed and courts are flooded with such matrimonial cases.
  • The courts are receiving a large number of cases emanating from section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code (Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty).
  • It is also a matter of common knowledge that exaggerated versions of the incident are reflected in a large number of complaints. The tendency of over implication is also reflected in a very large number of cases.”

Major Jyotin Singh awarded Ashok Chakra posthumously

  • Major Laishram Jyotin Singh, who sacrificed his life in the February terror attack in Kabul this year, has been awarded the Ashok Chakra, the highest peacetime gallantry award announced on Saturday, the eve of 64th Independence Day.
  • The Ministry of Defence also announced the Kirti Chakra posthumously to Captain Davinder Singh Jass and Superintendent of Police Vinod Kumar Choubey.
  • It is probably the first time that the Ashok Chakra has been awarded to an officer for an act of bravery while on a foreign land.
  • Major Jyotin Singh, 38, from Manipur, was commissioned in the Army Medical Corps in 2003 and selected to serve on deputation to the Indian Medical Mission in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Taslima's visa extended by a year

  • The government has extended the visa of controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin by another year from August this year, changing its earlier stand of asking her to leave India and apply afresh to stay in the country.

Bill to amend Cr.PC on arrest provisions

  • A Bill which seeks to amend a section of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.PC) with regard to the arrest of a person was passed by the Lok Sabha, with the government asserting that it would reduce “arbitrariness” in the apprehension of people and bring about transparency.

IHF, IWHF initiate merger process

  • The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) and the Indian Women's Hockey Federation (IWHF) initiated the process of their amalgamation.
  • The general houses of both the bodies met here and unanimously passed resolutions for the merger of the two.
  • IWHF Secretary-General Amrit Bose claimed that 30 out of 33 IWHF units were present, while an IHF source said 90 per cent of its members attended the meeting.
  • After the Union Sports Ministry de-recognised Hockey India (HI) and backed the IHF as the National federation of the game in India, both IHF and IWHF got together for their unification as it was mandatory to get the International Hockey Federation (FIH) recognition.
  • Composition-The composition of the executive body of the IHF would allow the representation of men and women in 60:40 ratio.

Indian scientist proposes solution to math problem

  • A mathematics problem with a $1-million prize attached to it and one which has major implications in computer applications, like security and machine intelligence, is claimed to have been solved by an Indian working in the United States.
  • Vinay Deolalikar, a scientist working at HP Labs in California, has proposed a solution to the problem, commonly called by mathematicians as ‘Is P=NP?,' in a paper he has published online. The problem is one of the seven listed by the Clay Mathematics Institute for the Millennium Prize worth $1 million, which will be awarded to the successful solver of each problem.

Southern States to share information on extremism

  • The Directors-General of Police of Southern States have decided to appoint nodal officers from intelligence and crime wings in each State for facilitating sharing of information on real-time basis, for effectively tackling left wing extremism, terrorism and other organised crimes.
  • The officers will share photographs of left wing extremists, terrorists and other offenders daily.
  • Alerts will be issued through mail on offenders and, whenever a terrorist or organised crime module is busted, the nodal officers will be informed about all the details.
  • In the third meeting held, the DGPs, along with police chiefs of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala, resolved to take up the issue of fake notes being circulated by gangs from Malda with their West Bengal counterpart.

Narco test won't be made compulsory

  • The Centre has no plans of imposing narco-analysis test upon an accused for the sake of seeking evidence, and would follow the Supreme Court's recent ruling on the matter, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said in the Rajya Sabha.

Panipat to Paris: Muslim women and the veil

  • In 1947 my mother and other women of the family decided to shed the burqa. Our family comes from Panipat, which was at the time a flourishing district of Punjab with a large population of Muslims.
  • The distinguishing feature of this erudite, Sufi-dominated town was the primacy of women. Our homes were known by the name of the woman of the house; for example, Bi Maimuna ki Haveli (much later I was pleasantly surprised to see in Marrakesh the same formulation: Riad dar Maimuna). The decision of these Panipat women to remove the veil was accepted and respected by the men of my family. They were agents of their own fate. When several of these women reached Pakistan (per force they had to migrate), they did not revert to the veil. They were not asked to wear them or remove them, either by the state or their families.
  • Sixty-three years later, on July 13, 2010, France's Lower House of Parliament voted to ban the wearing of face-covering veils in public places. The vote was passed 336 to 1, with the Left parties abstaining. In its report, the French parliamentary committee said that requiring women to cover their faces was against the French Republican principles of secularism and equality and deemed such practice as a “a symbol of the repression of women and of extremist fundamentalism.”

India Inc is buying jets like there is no tomorrow

  • Around a billion dollars’ worth of new private aircraft are expected to land here over the next one year — 157 of them at last count.
  • When inducted, these planes will catapult this country to fourth position in the world market for corporate jets, according to industry estimates.
  • India is currently the 18th largest base for corporate jets, with 111 registered mini planes. In that respect India is, in fact, much ahead of China, which has just about half the number of corporate jets though it has more billionaires!
  • Aviation experts opine that buyers want the luxe factor, but are also mindful of the savings to be made by switching from commercial airlines. It’s cheaper to move say a dozen odd executives in a business jet than flying them business class in a commercial airline.
  • Luxe factor: Besides the comfort of tailormade travel plans and timings, the high quality fittings and equipment offered by aviation companies adds to the allure of private jet travel for the Indian billionaires. Mood lighting and blended wood finishes for the private suites in mid-size and bigger jets, digital projectors for power point presentations, state-of-the-art communication networks, including satellite phones and internet connectivity in the air, are standard features that go into these private jets.

Panchayats overhaul soon to smoothen rural schemes

  • With a huge amount of funds riding on various rural development programmes, the Manmohan Singh government has now turned its sights on reforming and strengthening the panchayati raj system. And the task is going to start at the level of the gram panchayats, which are the vehicle for the implementation of most of the rural development projects.
  • With decentralisation and capacity-building serving as the broad parameters, the rural development ministry is working on developing and augmenting three critical aspects — human resources, infrastructure and connectivity. The government proposes to build mini-secretariats in all the two-and-a-half lakh gram panchayats across the country, which would serve as the nodal point for the execution and monitoring of all the rural development programmes.

Whistleblowers now get protection

  • A proposed legislation to protect whistleblowers and provide for severe punishment to those exposing the identity of people disclosing information was approved by the Government on Monday.
  • The Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosure Bill, 2010 provides the Central Vigilance Commission powers of a civil court to hand down harsh penalty to people revealing the identity of whistleblowers.
  • The Bill is expected to encourage disclosure of information in public interest and people who expose corruption in government.
  • The CVC will be the nodal authority to handle complaints against the state, Central government or PSU employees.

Killing of Maoist Azad improper, says Mamata

  • Ms. Mamata Banerjee displayed her disdain and mistrust for law enforcing agencies when she described the killing of CPI(Maoist) politburo member Cherukuri Rajkumar, alias, Azad, in a police encounter as cold-blooded murder.
  • In the process, the Union minister, who occupies the power well at the Centre, advertised that she was not in agreement with the Centre’s strategy to deal with Red terror.
  • Azad, No 3 in the CPI(Maoists) hierarchy was involved in dozens of murders including that of Congress legislator Narsa Reddy and a failed assassination attempt on former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Janardhan Reddy. He had carried a reward of Rs 12 lakh on his head.
  • Coming as they do from a Union Minister, these comments do no good for the concept of collective responsibility of the Union Cabinet. This is the price the country pays for having a coalition government.

Now it is ISRO's spectrum deal that is under the lens

  • The law ministry has told the department of space, or DoS, that it could annul a contract under which 60 MHz of airwaves was leased to a private company five years ago. The DoS had asked the government’s legal arm for its views on an obscure deal between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Devas Multimedia, in which the firm paid Rs 600 crore for the airwaves.
  • The law ministry has reportedly described the contract as ‘illegal’, and said the government should take back the spectrum citing ‘national interest’.
  • This deal, hitherto virtually unknown, attracted the attention of several ministries during the recent auctions for third generation (3G) and broadband wireless airwaves, which raised over Rs 1.06 lakh crore.
  • Before the auction, several operators had pointed out that India was auctioning broadband spectrum in the 2.3 GHz band while in most countries this service was offered in the 2.5 GHz band. The 2.5 GHz band is considered to be superior and there are over 125 WiMAX operators globally who offer broadband services in this frequency band.
  • Companies such as chip maker Intel and some telcos had demanded that India too auction broadband spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band, but the telecom department washed its hands of the issue saying the bulk of these airwaves were with the space department.
  • Industry analysts say the Centre could have increased its revenues by an additional 50% if the broadband auctions had offered airwaves in the 2.5 GHz band.

America consumes less and saves more

  • For the first time since the start of the financial crisis in August 2007, US investors own more Treasuries than foreign holders.
  • Mutual funds, households and banks have boosted the domestic share of the $8.18 trillion in tradable US debt to 50.2% as of May, according to the most recent Treasury Department data.

British Queen furious about CWG scandal

  • The never-ending reports of corruption in the Commonwealth Games are now threatening to sully the country’s image outside its shores as well. A British media report has said that the British Queen is in “cold fury” over allegations of financial irregularities involving a British firm and the Commonwealth Games baton relay.
  • The CWG organising committee is alleged to have paid AM Films, an Indian-owned firm in London, over 450,000 pounds for services during the Queen’s Baton Relay inaugural without proper tendering and paper work.