28.04.2007

• MM Punchi Commission on Centre-State ties
• The government appointed the Commission yesterday. The other members of the Commission are: Dhirendra Singh, V.K. Duggal and N.R. Madhava Menon.
• The Commission’s terms of reference include:
• To examine what could be the role, responsibility and jurisdiction of the Centre during major and prolonged outbreaks of communal violence, caste violence or any other social conflict.
• To review other aspects of Centre-States relations including taxes and linking of rivers.
• To examine whether there is a need to set up a Central law enforcement agency to take up suo motu investigation of crimes having inter-State or international ramifications with serious implications on national security.
• To study the feasibility of supporting legislation under Article 355 for the purpose of suo motu deployment of Central forces in the States if and when the situation demanded.
• To study the role, responsibility and jurisdiction of the Centre vis-à-vis States in promoting effective devolution of powers and autonomy to Panchayati Raj institutions and local bodies.
• To promote the concept and concept of independent planning and budgeting at the district level and linking Central assistance of various kinds with the performance of the States.
• To study the need and relevance of separate taxes for freeing inter-state trade to establish unified domestic market.
• To examine the role of Governors, emergency provisions, financial relations, economic and social planning, Panchayati Raj institutions and sharing of resources, including inter-State river waters.
• Rostropovich dies
• Legendary Russian cellist and emblem of resistance to the Soviet system Mstislav Rostropovich died yesterday at the age of 80.
• He was persecuted and expelled in 1974 by the Soviet authorities.
• Final guidelines on Basel II issued by the RBI
• The RBI issued these guidelines on capital adequacy and market discipline for implementation of Basel II capital adequacy framework.
• The revised framework comes into operation from March 31, 2008.
• Cricket World Cup
• Steve Bucknor of Australia is appearing for his 5^th successive World Cup final. His first appearance was in 1992.
• Previous World Cup finals:
• 1975: London; West Indies bt Australia by 17 runs
• 1979: London; West Indies bt England by 92 runs
• 1983: London; Indian bt West Indies by 43 runs
• 1987: Kolkata; Australia bt England by 7 runs
• 1992: Melbourne; Pakistan bt England by 22 runs
• 1996: Lahore; Sri Lanka bt Australia by 7 wickets
• 1999: London; Australia bt Pakistan by 8 wickets
• 2003: Johannesburg: Australia bt India by 125 runs
• Stephen Hawking flies weighless aboard a jet
• Prof. Hawking teaches Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He has done groundbreaking work on black holes and the origins of the universe.
• He suffers from a paralyzing Lou Gehrig’s disease also known as ALS.
• Flash laptops
• We all know that hard disk drives in laptops (as in PCs) are made of moving parts and generate lot of heat and consume lot of power.
• The industry has come up with flash hard drives as an alternative to these conventional hard drives.
• Fujitsu has come up with these for the first time in the market.
• Flash drives promise laptops that are lighter, faster, and won’t generate heat. They can process data much faster and consume a lot less power.
• One issue that works against them apart from their cost is the limitation of storage space at 128 GB. But technology should be overcoming this problem in a few years.