Indian Current Affairs: 18.03.2007

We know that there are seasons. For everything. Even airlines have their busy season. That season is April, May and June, every year.
During this time of the year, usually the airfares tend to rise, on the back of an increase in demand.

The deployment of the UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) by the Chhattishgarh government for tracking Naxal movements has not yielded the desired results for the following reasons:

They are proving ineffective against thick forest cover. Naxals are able to hide under the thick foliage and evade detection.
Frequent shifting of the camps by Naxals.
Non deployment of force-multipliers like helicopters and adequate security manpower for expeditious actions against Naxal hideouts mapped by UAVs.
Not following up on the data collected by UAVs with immediate operations.

Who are Sushi Police?
These are food inspectors. Conjuring up images of our Municipal Health Inspectors? Don’t. These are a different kind of breed.
They will raid Japanese restaurants overseas, to check their culinary credentials. The Japanese government has now relaxed rules and laid down that such visits should be only on request.
A certification by these police on the authenticity of the food is expected to ‘deepen the understanding of Japanese food” overseas, boost exports of Japanese farm products and perhaps even attract more tourists to Japan.
I am really surprised by the lengths to which details can be taken!!!

He was heading the committee that was looking into whether patent amendments would be TRIPS compliant.
He cited that the “personalized attacks” on the report (it was accused of plagiarism) that was submitted by this committee, made him decide to quit the panel.

The Bangkok based UNESCAP (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific) will present its first ever award for Life Achievement to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.

A tactic whereby a company attempts to ambush or undermine the sponsorship activities of a rival that owns the legal rights to sponsor an event; often involves creating the sense that they, and not the actual sponsor, are associated with the owners of the event or activity.
Mobile operator Hutch has taken objection to Sachin Tendulkar’s endorsing Reliance Communications’ telecom products, saying that it amounts to ambush marketing.

Hryhory Nestor, believed to be of 116 years is the oldest man on earth.
He was born on March 15, 1891, in the then Austro-Hungarian empire, which later became part of Poland after Word War I.
He is currently in Ukraine and holds an Ukrainian passport.

Like everybody, I would like to bet only on a winning horse. But what leaves me perplexed is when I lose my bet to a less fancied horse.
Our team’s World Cup cricket performance against Bangladesh drained out all my enthusiasm and pushed me into – well, philosophy. Philosophy of the kind that is advocated by Professor Godbole. Godbole, who?
Perhaps many of you would not have been born by the time the David Lean’s adaptation of E.M. Foster’s novel “A Passage to India” has been released. It was in 1984. Professor Godbole is a character in this film. An elderly Brahmin, he teaches at a government college and is well read and spiritually minded. In the course of the movie, he utters this philosophy “What is destined to happen will happen inevitably, and what is not destined to happen will never happen in spite of all efforts.” This leaves us doubting whether human effort has no value, as everything happens as per ‘destiny’.
So: If India is destined to win the World Cup, it will anyway win it; whether or not it plays well.

Indian Current Affairs