Parliamentary Standing Committee
current affairs 16 january 2013
current affairs 16 january 2013
Panel
recommends food entitlements for 67 p.c. of population
The Parliamentary
Standing Committee on Food and Consumer Affairs has suggested that food
entitlements
under the National
Food Security Act be made available to 67 per cent of the population, leaving
out the 33
per cent who pay
taxes, have a 'pucca' house and so on. It wants the ‘priority’ (Below Poverty
Line) and
‘general’ (Above
Poverty Line) categories to go and be replaced with “inclusion” and “exclusion”
categories.
The identification
of beneficiaries for subsidised rice and wheat under the Public Distribution
System will be
done by State
governments. The committee, headed by Vilas Muttemwar, has decided to speed up
submission of its
report to the Lok Sabha Speaker. The panel has assessed the total requirements
of
foodgrains at 62
million tonnes per annum with a subsidy bill of over Rs. 1.15 lakh crore.
R.B.
Grover presented DAE’s lifetime achievement award
Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh Presented the lifetime achievement awards of the Department of
Atomic
Energy (DAE) to
four of its veteran scientists. He paid special tributes to nuclear scientist
and Principal
Scientific Advisor
to the government, R. Chidamabaram for “guiding India’s atomic energy programme
with
such great
distinction”. The scientists who were presented the lifetime achievement are:
R.B. Grover, who
played a key role
in negotiating the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, K. Balaramamoorthy, who developed
nondestructive
testing
techniques, mathematician R. Balasubramanian, and S.K. Sikka, a key player in
the
nuclear tests of
1974 and 1998.
Four
States to follow A.P. model to hound Maoists
Alarmed at the
growing firepower of Maoists, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has cleared a
proposal
whereby the
worst-affected States of Chhattisgrah, Jharkhand, Odisha and Bihar will raise
specialised police
forces trained in
guerrilla warfare and equipped with modern weaponry to take on the rebels. To
be raised on
the lines of
Andhra Pradesh police’s much acclaimed ‘Greyhounds’ that neutralised Maoists in
the State, the
project has the
backing of the Centre, which has termed left-wing extremism India’s biggest
security threat
particularly as
Maoists possess modern weapons and communication equipment to take on even
wellequipped
paramilitary
forces.
US
‘President’s Volunteer Service Award’ for B. Suresh Lal
An Assistant
Professor of Economics, Kakatiya University, B. Suresh Lal, has received the US
‘President’s
Volunteer Service
Award’, a rare honour. Mr. Lal , presently the programme coordinator of KU
National
Service Scheme (NSS)
was presented the ‘Corporation for National and Community Service’ of United
States of America
award. The award was given in recognition of his services to the society.
Mukta
won Nargis Dutt Award
Jabbar Patel's
'Mukta' won the 1995 Nargis Dutt Award for National Integration.
Chemmeen
won the National Award
Chemmeen, released
in 1965, was the first Malayalam film to win the National Award for Best
Feature Film.
Diu
gets most promising new destination award
The tourism
department of Diu has been cherished with a "Most Promising New
Destination Award" at World
Tourism Fair 2013
at Bengaluru. It has been a gleaming day for the small union territory of Diu
wherein it has
been awarded
prestigious award at World Tourism fair 2013. Diu, union territory, located off
Saurashtra coast
is a famous
tourists' island. Every year thousands of tourists gather here to relax and
enjoy the scenic beauty
of beaches
surrounded by blue pleasant waves of Arabian Sea. Diu is one of the only two
places in the world
with the privilege
of having Sunrise and Sun set points, the other being Kanyakumari.
International:
Ex-Attorney
General made Chief Justice
Despite
international criticism and protest by lawyers over the dismissal of former
Chief Justice Shirani
Bandaranayake, Sri
Lanka’s former Attorney-General Mohan Peiris, who has never been on the Bench,
has
been appointed the
Chief Justice. Peiris took oaths as the new Chief Justice before President
Mahinda
Rajapaksa. He was
appointed the 25th Attorney-General in December of 2008. Parliament had voted
to
impeach the
country’s first woman Chief Justice Ms. Bandaranayake by a two-thirds majority,
despite Court
of Appeal quashing
the basis of the impeachment motion a report of a Parliamentary Select
Committee
(PSC). Ms.
Bandaranayake, the youngest judge when appointed to the Supreme Court, had
never been part
of the Bar before
becoming a judge.
India
among key ‘Red October’ victims
India and many
other countries across the world have fallen victim to an unprecedented cyber
espionage
attack uncovered,
but not yet neutralised by Russia’s leading internet security company.
Unidentified
criminals have
been siphoning off secret data from hundreds of computer systems used by
government
agencies, nuclear,
aerospace and military institutions and private companies, in dozens of
countries for the
past five years.
While Russia tops the list of countries with 38 detected infections, India
ranks fifth with 14
infections, after
Kazakhstan (21); Azerbaijan (15); and Belgium (15). The United States is also
on the list with
six attacks.
Termed ‘Red October’ or Rocra for short, the cyber spying campaign was launched
in 2007 and
is still active.
Russia,
Bangladesh seal USD 1 billion arms deal
Bangladesh has
inked its biggest arms contract worth USD 1 billion with Russia, which also
announced a
USD 500 million
loan to Dhaka for the construction of the country's first nuclear power plant
in northwestern
Ruppur.
Energy-starved Bangladesh signed an initial deal with Russian state-owned
nuclear agency
Rosatom in
November, 2011, to build a nuclear plant with two 1,000 megawatt reactors at a
cost of upto USD
2 billion each
against the backdrop of its dwindling reserve of natural gas.
New
York becomes first US state to enact new gun control laws
New York became
the first state in the US to take steps to enact tough new laws to confront
growing gun
violence in
schools in the country, by imposing new restrictions on assault weapons. The
state senate voted
overwhelmingly in
favour of a legislation that seeks to expand a ban on assault weapons and
prevent the
mentally ill from
possessing guns making it the first state to put in place "toughest, most
comprehensive" gun
laws in the
aftermath of the mass shooting in a Connecticut elementary school. The state
senate passed the
NY Secure
Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act (NY SAFE) with a 43 to 18 vote.
Technology:
Indian
scientists identify molecule to help cancer treatment
A team of Indian
researchers, led by Dr Sathees C Raghavan of the Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore,
have identified a
molecule which they claim will revolutionise the cure for cancer. The molecule
has been
named after
"Sathees as SCR7" and a detailed account of it has been carried in
the international scientific
journal
"Cell." Scientists world over believe that the double-strand break
(DSB) of DNA is one of the most
lethal form of DNA
damage, resulting in drastic consequences such as genome instability, and
cancer. DSB
is primarily
repaired by two pathways, homogeneous recombination and non-homogeneous end
joining,
which was
considered as a major route for the repair of DSBs in humans. The inhibitor
SCR7 targets nonhomogeneous
end joining and
offers a strategy towards the treatment of cancer.
New
'Moby Dick' lizard species found in Madagascar
A new lizard species
has been discovered in Madagascar and named "Moby Dick" mermaid skink
– after the
albino sperm whale
imagined by Herman Melville for its flipper-like forelimbs and unpigmented
skin, France's
National Centre
for Scientific Research said. "Sirenoscincus mobydick" presents a
unique combination of
anatomical
features that can be found in amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds. The
discovery, made by
French, Malagasy,
American and German researchers. The centre said the "Moby Dick"
lizard was
discovered in the
dry north-western forests of Madagascar. Because of its life underground, the
animal's skin
has lost
pigmentation and its eyes have almost disappeared. And although the lizard has
retained forelimbs,
its hindlimbs have
completely disappeared. The centre called it an "morphological
organisation" reminiscent
of cetaceans, the
carnivorous marine mammals such as whales and dolphins.
Business & Economy:
RINL
wins CII-ITC Sustainability Award
The Rashtriya
Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) has been given the CII-ITC Sustainability Award-2012
in
recognition of its
sustained focus on corporate social responsibility activity and environmental
aspects. The
Commendation
certificate for ‘strong Commitment’ was presented by President Pranab
Mukherjee. The
award is
instituted to identify and recognise industries for their exemplary performance
in economic,
environmental and
social dimensions by the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable
Development.
Tax-free
bonds from IRFC
Indian Railway
Finance Corporation Ltd (IRFC) is launching a tax-free bond issue to raise
Rs.8,886 crore to
augment resources
for buying rolling stock for the Indian railways. As per Central Board of
Direct Taxes
(CBDT)
notification, IRFC has been authorised to issue bonds up to Rs.10,000 crore
during 2013 financial
year. The bonds
have a tenure of 10 years and 15 years and have an interest rate of 7.18 per
cent and 7.34
per cent per annum
respectively.
Austrian
co to buy stake from ORL promoters
Austrian firm RHI
AG, a leading global refractories maker, has entered into an agreement to buy
43.6 per
cent of the
promoters’ stake in Orient Refractories Ltd. (ORL) for nearly Rs.230 crore. ORL
produces
refractories and
monolithics for use in iron and steel industry. Listed on the National Stock
Exchange and the
Bombay Stock
Exchange, the company had clocked Rs.300 crore sales in the last fiscal. ORL’s
manufacturing and
R&D facility is based in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan.
Kapil
Chopra, new President for Oberoi Group
Kapil Chopra has
been appointed as President, The Oberoi Group. Mr. Chopra will be responsible
for all The
Oberoi and Trident
Hotels in India.
Sport:
AIFF
lifts suspension of Mohun Bagan
The All India
Football Federation (AIFF) has lifted the two-year suspension and ‘deemed
withdrawal’ of
Mohun Bagan from
the I-League while putting certain conditions for the Kolkata club’s continued
participation
in the
competition. Acting on an appeal from Mohun Bagan against the two-year
suspension imposed by
Justice A.K.
Ganguly (retd.) for walking out of its match against East Bengal, the AIFF
Executive Committee
which met removed the suspension but
slapped a Rs. 2 crore fine on the club.
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