Indian Current Affairs: 05.06.2007

Some of you were asking me for some material on Doha round of WTO negotiations. Well, here it is posted today in the Discover It blog. Take a look at it here.
Do you know what day is it today? World Environment Day. The World Environment Day slogan selected for 2007 is “Melting Ice – a Hot Topic?” In support of International Polar Year, the WED theme selected for 2007 focuses on the effects that climate change is having on polar ecosystems and communities, and the ensuing consequences around the world.
Intentional Programming

It is a collection of concepts which enable software source code to reflect the precise information, called intention, which programmers had in mind when conceiving their work. By closely matching the level of abstraction at which the programmer was thinking, browsing and maintaining computer programs becomes easier.

Do you know we have a 1.1 mn strong military?
But the Army is reportedly short of 11,238 officers (sanctioned strength 46,615), the Navy 1,339 (sanctioned strength 8,821)and the Air Force 1,528 (sanctioned strength 12,188).
The CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) found that Army recruited 33,000 personnel over and above its sanctioned strength.
Some wags have it that the Indian Army resembles the Mughal military, notably in its large retinue of non-combatant personnel – the ‘tail’ that follows the fighting ‘teeth.’
But what needs to be appreciated is the fact that high-technology low-manpower doctrine (as followed by the US in its Iraq campaign) will not work in every theatre. Sub-conventional wars like insurgencies in J&K and North East need more troops.

Do you know that there is a thing called “Permanent Indus Commission”? Under the Indus Waters Treaty, 1960 India and Pakistan have created two permanent posts of Commissioner for Indus Waters, one each in India and Pakistan. Each Commissioner is representative of his Government for all matters arising out of the Treaty and serves as the regular channel of communication on all matters relating to implementation of the Treaty. The two Commissioners together form the Permanent Indus Commission. The annual meetings of Permanent Indus Commission finalize its report for submission to respective Governments of India and Pakistan.
India’s Commissioner on the Commission is D. V. Thareja. Pakistan’s Commissioner is Syed Jamat Ali Shah.
In its latest meeting, two disputes between the countries were discussed. They are the Neelum-Jhelum project (Kishanganga in India) near Muzaffarabad in PoK and Uri-II power project on Jhelum river in J&K.
Pakistan claims that the Kishanganga project impacts environment and water available for irrigation in the Jhelum valley. India maintains that the project is well within the provisions of the Indus Water Treaty of 1960.
On Uri-II, Pakistan claims that it has asked for stoppage of the project till the differences the differences are resolved.

India is the second largest, while China is the first. This is based on the number of daily newspaper sales.

We have been covering about this Press Note for quite some time in our blogs.
According to this, MNCs are barred from setting up their own companies in similar line of business without the permission of the Indian joint venture partner, if the JV was set up before 2005.
A lot of government time is being taken up in dealing with corporate battles where the Indian partner blocks the foreign partner’s plans of going solo by not giving an NOC (No Objection Certificate).
So the government is thinking of scrapping the policy or at least plugging the loopholes so that there is more clarity on the issue.
Removing this Press Note altogether will send a positive signal to the foreign investors who are waiting to invest in India.

Following successful talks with the Chief Minsiter Ms. Vasundhara Raje of Rajasthan, the Gujjars have called of their stir.
The government of Rajasthan has decided to set up a three member high-power committee headed by a retired High Court judge to examine the community’s demand for ST status.

Supreme Court Bar Association has suspended the senior advocates RK Anand and IU Khan.
In a sting operation conducted by NDTV, RK Anand who is defending the main accused in the BMW case (Sanjeev Nanda) was found, along with the special public prosecutor IU Khan, to be influencing the main witness Sunil Kulkarni.

Credit flow to the segment was about Rs. 1,32,760 crores, a spurt of 24%.
What does this signify? That the economic growth seen is not because the big corporates alone. Growth is broad based.

Some noteworthy comments about caste-based reservation made in the light of the Gujjar agitation

The Indian Political class has over the past couple of days, abused the instrumentality of caste-based reservation to dispense patronage for short-term electoral gains. That is now proving to be suicidal. Quotas were meant to render the political-administrative structure of post-Independence India more representative, socially sensitive and equitable.
Economic reforms have inevitably led to a relative devaluation of traditional forms of production. That has led to acute anxiety, particularly among social groups that continue to derive their social and political power from their near-total control of rural assets. Such anxiety – in the absence of a process that would transform these assets into modern capacities, and redistribute them equitably – has manifest itself in anomie.

Indian Current Affairs