Employment News Today 18 August 2013

Employment News Today 18 August 2013 , Part 1

China to phase out use of prisoners’ organs

China has ordered phasing out of organ harvesting from executed prisoners from November.

A total of 150 hospitals have been asked to start looking for alternative sources and gradually end their dependence on prisoners.

The purpose is to encourage all hospitals across the country to stop using organs from prisoners.

Nearly two-third of organs used for transplants in China is believed to come from prisoners.

China has been widely criticized by human rights groups, who say this amounts to forcible removal of organs as condemned prisoners have little choice.

The move comes at a time when the Supreme People's Court is constantly pressing lower courts to reduce the number of death penalty verdicts , and there is a growing trend of Chinese courts awarding suspended death sentences. Such sentences leave an option for review after two years, and the sentence is usually turned into life imprisonment.


One of the reasons put forward by Huang earlier was that prisoner organs are often unhealthy and recipient patients are at a risk of getting infections.

$125 mn Exim Bank LOC for Sudan project

The Export-Import Bank of India has extended a $125 million Line of Credit (LOC) to the Government of Sudan for financing the Mashkour Sugar Project in Sudan.

This is the second and final tranche of the total credit commitment of $150 million for financing the project, according to an official statement.

The LOC agreement was signed here Monday between EXIM Bank Chairman and Managing Director T. C. A. Ranganathan and Sudan Finance Minister Ali Mahmoud Mohamed, in the presence of India's Minister of State for External Affairs Praneet Kaur.

The LOCs have supported export of items like electricity equipment, photovoltaic cells, diesel locomotives, textile machinery, pumpsets, supply of bogies and spares, and setting up of 4x125 MegaWatt Kosti combined-cycle power plant in Sudan through the Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd.

Under the LOC for Mashkour Sugar Project, Exim Bank will reimburse 100 percent of the contract value to the Indian exporters, upfront upon shipment of goods.

Presently, Exim Bank has in place 175 LOCs covering 76 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and CIS with credit commitments of over $9.27 billion, available for financing exports from India.

Over 1,000 govt sites hacked

MTNL Mumbai portal night became one of the 1,300-odd websites run by the government or allied agencies that have been hacked into since 2009.

The MTNL site was defaced by self-proclaimed Pakistani hackers around Thursday midnight. The MTNL website was disrupted by a hacking group last year as well.

MTNL executive director Piyush Agrawal on Saturday ruled out any laxity in securing the website. Agrawal said MTNL periodically trained network maintenance staff through professional network security companies.

MTNL claims that only the webpage and server logs-files created by the server of the activities performed by it-were damaged, but cyber experts do not rule out the possibility of hackers having obtained subscribers' addresses, phone numbers and other data.

MTNL does not have as many cellphone users as other service providers, but it is the dominant player in the broadband and landline telephony market.

Venkatesh Varma appointed Ambassador to UN Conference on Disarmament

D.Bala Venkatesh Varma on 26 July 2013 was appointed as the next Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to the UN Conference on Disarmament, Geneva.

Bala Venkatesh Verma is an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of the 1988 batch.

D Bala Venkatesh Verma, Joint Secretary Disarmament in the Ministry of External Affairs was conferred with the first S K Singh Award for excellence in the Indian Foreign Service on 6 January 2012.

The award was presented to him by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi in recognition of his extra-ordinary efforts to strengthen India's position during the Indo-US nuclear deal.

He had earlier worked in India's Permanent Mission in Geneva and in the Prime Minister's Office.

SC uses ‘cure or care’ formula

The Supreme Court has used "cure or care" differentiation to separate medicinal products from cosmetics for levy of central excise duties.

It is of seminal importance to producers of cosmetics to classify their products as medicaments, which attract a central excise duty of 15% as against cosmetics that face 15% levy.

How to classify a product as medicament or cosmetic? This question was raised before a bench of Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya and Justice Kurian Joseph by central excise, Mumbai, which wanted to tax the product " Moisturex" as cosmetics, even as the producer claimed it to be a medicament.

The bench found that preparations for the care of skin, beauty or make-up preparations were the ones to be classified as cosmetics but it had clarified that cosmetics with medicinal preparations used to treat certain skin complaints could be categorized as medicaments or products containing pharmaceutical substances used for medical, surgical, dental or veterinary purposes.

The bench said: "If a product is sold without a prescription of a medical practitioner, it does not lead to the immediate conclusion that all products that are sold over/across the counter are cosmetics. There are several products that are sold over-the-counter and are yet, medicaments."

Election Commission to use paper trail method in Nagaland by-polls

For the first time, the Election Commission or EC would be using the paper trail system along with the Electronic Voting Machines in the Nagaland by-election scheduled to be held on September 4.

The system, called the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail system (VVPAT), will accompany the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). 

When the voter presses a button on the EVM to select the party he wants to vote for, a small slip bearing the name and symbol of the party will briefly appear for about 10 seconds on the VVPAT system, after which it fall into a secure box, thus maintaining a paper trial of all the votes cast. 

This is the first time this new system will be tried in real time election. Depending upon the outcome, this system will be used in future elections," 

The Election Commission had recently convened an all-party meet to explain the new system and all of them agreed to try the new set-up. 

This system comes into effect after Dr Subramanian Swamy approached Supreme Court complaining that the present EVM system leaves voters doubtful of the party they have voted for. The government has also made necessary changes in the rules to use the new paper trail system.

Hyderabadi breaks Guinness Record

NRI based in the US, Sridhar has shown remarkable resilience with runs like the one from the northern tip of India to its southern-most point — a distance of 3,500 miles.

Sridhar is also a well-known artist focusing on black and white portraits, which has drawn acclaim from celebrities in different walks of life. Interestingly, Sridhar’s brother and a familiar face in Taekwondo, M. Jayanth Reddy, is a seven-time Guinness world-record holder in martial arts.