National
Asha
Bhosle receive 'Hridayanath Mangeshkar Award
Lata Mangeshkar
presented 'Pt Hridaynath Lifetime Achievement Award' to her sister Asha Bhosle.
In 2012,
the same award was
given by Amitabh Bachchan to Lata Mangeshkar. Hridaynath Mangeshkar is a
composer and singer
hailing from Maharashtra. He is better known as Balasaheb in the industry and
is the
younger brother of
two music icons of India: Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle.
First
non-IPS officer to head BSF operations at Indo-Bangla border
For the first time
in its 47-year history, the Border Security Force (BSF) has appointed a non-IPS
officer as its
commander for the
eastern theatre which guards the Indo-Bangladesh border. 1975-batch BSF cadre
officer
Ravi Kumar Ponoth
has been promoted and appointed as the new Additional Director General (ADG)
for the
forces' eastern
theatre which is tasked to guard the 4,096-km Indo-Bangladesh border. The post
of ADG is
usually occupied
by an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer and the cadre officers of the
paramilitary rarely get
an opportunity to
head this top post, third in the hierarchy of the border guarding force after
the Director
General (DG) and
Special DG, both posts reserved for senior IPS officers. The incumbent of this
post, IPS
officer B D Sharma,
has been transferred to the BSF headquarters in New Delhi. He is only the third
BSF
officer to be
elevated to the post of ADG and the two earlier officers had served in
headquarter units and not
at an operational
formation.
Women
constitute only 5.33% of police forces in India
The country has
just 5.33 per cent women in police forces despite growing demands for more
representation
in law enforcement
agencies. According to Home Ministry statistics, out of 15,85,117 personnel
working in
state police forces,
only 84,479 or just 5.33 per cent are women. Besides, there are just 499
all-women
police stations in
the country out of a total 15,000 stations. Uttar Pradesh has 2,586 women
police personnel
which is just 1.49
per cent of the total 1,73,341 personnel while Andhra Pradesh has 2,031
policewomen, just
2.27 per cent of
its total 89,325 police personnel. There are 1,485 policewomen (2.18 per cent)
in Bihar out
of the total
67,964 police personnel. There are 3,010 policewomen (3.93 per cent) in Madhya
Pradesh out of
the 76,506
personnel. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Union Territory of Chandigarh have
relatively better
representation of
women in their police forces.
India
to set up Food Testing Labs, processing units in African countries
Grabbing the
opportunity in extending a helping hand for developing nations in the African
Union, Ministry of
Food Processing
Industries has decided to establish Food Testing Labs (FTL) and Food Processing
Business
Incubation Centres (FPBIC) in the member countries. Each FTL will be
established at an estimated
cost of Rs. 10
crore. These will come up in Zimbabwe, Gambia, The Republic of Congo, Rwanda
and
Nigeria.
Similarly, the FPBICs would be established in Uganda, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali and
Angola at an
estimated cost of
Rs. 7.3 crore. Medak-based International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid
Tropics
(ICRISAT) has
already initiated the feasibility study and preparation of business plans
towards the
establishment of
FTLs. ICRISAT has also been selected by the Government of India as the
implementation
agency for FPBICs.
A food processing cluster can process about 2.5 lakh tonnes of raw material per
year will
come up in one of
the AU nations at an estimated cost of Rs. 117 crore.
Beef
exports up 44% in 4 years, India is top seller
The Centre's Pink
Revolution to promote meat production and export has led to a 44% increase in
meat
consumption and
export in four years, but it has failed to regulate the industry. According to
data compiled by
the animal husbandry
departments of all states, meat from registered slaughterhouses increased from
5.57
lakh tonnes in
2008 to 8.05 lakh tonnes in 2011. Export earnings from bovine (beef and cattle)
meat
expected to touch
Rs 18,000 crore in 2012-2013. India became the world's top exporter of beef in
2012.
Uttar Pradesh is
the top buffalo meat-producing state with 3 lakh tonnes in 2011. According to
the US
Department of
Agriculture, India became the largest exporter of beef edging out Australia and
New Zealand
in May 2012.
International:
In
China, singles can’t buy second home
In a bid to curb
rising property prices, authorities in Beijing, put in place new real estate
curbs that bar single
residents from
buying a second apartment. The new rules, which also mandate higher down
payments for
second home
purchases, have triggered wide debate in recent days. The measures had been
expected after
the government
announced earlier this month that it would put in place curbs to bring down
housing prices.
The new rules were
met with angry reactions from members of China’s active Internet community.
Oklahoma
gives federal approval on killing horses for meat
Oklahoma Governor
Mary Fallin has reportedly signed a bill that permits livestock owners to
slaughter
horses for food as
long as their processing plants are authorized by the US Department of
Agriculture. A
congressional ban
on killing horses for meat was lifted in 2011, but 58-year-old Fallin gave
slaughterhouses
federal approval
to prepare and package horse meat for export. The slaughter of horses for food
had been
illegal in
Oklahoma since 1963 and was carried out only in Texas and Illinois until
Congress stopped it in
2006.
Business & Economy:
Supreme
Court dismisses plea of Novartis for patent of cancer drug
The Supreme Court
has dismissed Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG's attempt to win patent protection
for its
cancer drug
Glivec, a serious blow to Western pharmaceutical firms who are increasingly
focusing on India
to drive sales.
India's domestic drugs market is the 14th largest globally, but with annual
growth of 13-14 per
cent and the
world's second biggest population, it has massive potential at a time when
traditional developed
markets have slowed
down.
Madhya
Pradesh pips Bihar to clock highest growth: Report
Madhya Pradesh has
decrowned Bihar from its number one position in terms of highest growth of
gross state
domestic product.
Quoting the provisional data released by the Central Statistical Organisation
for 2012-13,
the paper said
that Bihar registered single digit growth of 9.48% this fiscal as compared to
13.26% in 2012.
However, Madhya
Pradesh has registered 10% growth in 2013.Bihar’s GDP growth stands at Rs
157,957
crore in the
current fiscal which is up Rs 13,679 crore from its previous fiscal’s growth at
Rs 144,278 crore.
Job
creation shows upswing, grows 9% in eight key sectors
Employment
generation in eight key manufacturing and services sector grew by over 9 per
cent between
July and December
2012 compared to the first half of 2012, indicating that green shoots may
indeed be
taking root in the
economy. A bi-annual survey of the Labour Bureau revealed that 1.68 lakh new
jobs were
created in the
eight sectors in the six months to December 2012 as against 1.54 lakh jobs
added during
January to June
2012. Prior to this, the highest number of jobs in the eight selected sectors
were created in
the second half of
2011 at 5.41 lakh, as seen in the table.
HDFC
Bank to charge customers for InstaAlert SMSes
Country's second
largest private sector lender HDFC Bank will begin charging its customers for
its InstaAlert
SMS service, under
which the bank provides real-time alerts on account activities. The bank's
InstaAlerts
service allows
customers to keep a track of various payments and receipts, get reminders for
timely payment
of utility bills
and receive intimations when balance falls below a pre-specified limit, among
other account
activities.
Customers registered for InstaAlert service with 'SMS' as the delivery channel
will be charged Rs
15 per quarter in
case of salary or savings accounts, while the charge would be Rs 25 per quarter
for Current
Account customers.
SpiceJet
pips AI to become 3rd largest domestic carrier
SpiceJet’s 'Big
Sale' scheme of offering million tickets at Rs 2,013 across the country was a
super hit. It
helped the budget
carrier overtake Air India to grab the third position in domestic airlines
market share in
February 2013.
Indigo has retained it’s numer- uno position with a market share of 27.4
percent. It was
followed by Jet
Airways together with JetLite in the second spot at 25.4 percent and Air India
slipped at fourth
position from 20.3
percent to 18.9 percent. At third spot, Spice Jet garnered 20.4 percent market
share.
Sci. & Tech:
Green
meteorite in Morocco may be from Mercury
Scientists have
discovered that the green meteorite found in Morocco in 2012 may be the first
ever to have
originated from
Mercury - the closest planet to the Sun. The latest study unveiled at the 44th
annual Lunar
and Planetary
Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas suggests that a space rock called
NWA 7325
came from Mercury,
and not an asteroid or Mars. NWA 7325 is actually a group of 35 meteorite
samples
discovered in 2012
in Morocco. They are ancient, with scientists dating the rocks to be 4.56
billion years old.
2,000
black holes on Milky Way galaxy
Two thousand black
holes kicked away from their homes are now living on the outskirts of the Milky
Way
galaxy, according
to a study conducted by researchers of the University of California, Santa
Cruz.
Sport:
Kheta
Ram wins 5000m amid controversy
It was a ‘world
class’ time in the 5000 metres that caught the officials napping, and robbed a
full race for the
competitors, as
the domestic athletics season opened with the Indian Grand Prix at the National
Institute of
Sports (NIS) in
Patiala. The winner Kheta Ram knew that something was amiss when he stopped the
timer in
his watch at 13
minutes 15.32 seconds at the finish. For, it was too good a time, as may be
gleaned from the
fact that Britain’s
Mo Farah had clocked 13:41.66 in winning the gold at the London Olympic Games.
Andy
Murray beats David Ferrer to win Miami title
Andy Murray save a
championship point before rallying past David Ferrer 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (1) in the
WTA Miami
final. Murray also
won the title in 2009. His path to this year's championship was made easier
because
Roger Federer and
Rafael Nadal skipped the tournament and Novak Djokovic lost in the fourth
round.
Bolt
wins 150 meter race at Copacabana beach
Usain Bolt started
his season by winning a 150-meter race on a track set up at Copacabana beach in
Rio de
Janeiro. Bolt
cruised to victory in 14.42 seconds, falling short of the world-best mark of
14.35 he set on the
streets of
Manchester in 2009. Brazilian sprinter Bruno Lins was second in 14.91, ahead of
Ecuador's Alex
Quinones and
Antigua and Barbuda's Daniel Bailey. Bolt, the first man to successfully defend
the 100 and
200 titles at the London Olympics.
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