Indian Current Affairs: 25.08.2007

The Indian Cricket League was formed in April this year by Subhash Chandra along with IL&FS. It has announced the first batch of 51 cricketers recently.
The BCCI is usually seen as a stodgy outfit with its outmoded and often heavy-handed dealing of all things related to cricket.
Now the ICL has asked for permission to use cricket stadiums across the country for its tournaments. It has raised a host of other issues in its case before the Delhi High Court.
Let us see what turn it is going to take. It will be interesting to watch the developments.

It stands for Specific Absorption Rate – the count which specifies the amount of radio waves (radio frequency energy) absorbed by the body when using a mobile phone.
Now the government (Telecom Engineering Centre of the DoT) is debating the issue and is likely to make it mandatory for all cell phone manufacturers to make this information available as an option on the cell phones. Further it may prescribe an upper limit of the SAR. Cell phones not complying with this limit will not be allowed to be sold in India.
Already US and EU have upper limits at 1.6 watts/kg and 2 w/kg respectively.

This sandwich was first introduced in 1967 by Jim Delligatti, a McDonald’s franchise owner in Pennsylvania.
It is now celebrating 40 years.

Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme.
This is a program under which the Central government offers about 25% of the project cost as grant for taking up projects aimed at reducing distribution and transmission losses. The utilities have to fund the remaining 75% of the project cost on their own.
Having seen that the grants have always not been transferred by the state governments to the utilities, and also that the performance appraisal needs to be done for a longer period, the Centre has come out with a different model. It would now reimburse 50% of the project cost as grant only when the AT&C (Aggregate Technical and Commercial) losses are reduced to 15% within five years of the completion of the project. Non-performers would not be reimbursed and have to rely on borrowings for the entire requirements of a project.

The government has proposed the National Security Exception Act, an umbrella legislation that would empower the government to subject FDI, both at the entry and post-entry level, to security monitoring and screening. The NSCS, National Security Council Secretariat feels that introducing the curbs in a phased manner, first in the form of guidelines under existing legal framework and then by enactment of an all-encompassing legislation, would insulate the FDI inflows from any knee-jerk movements.

This was signed by the ASEAN+3 (Japan, China and South Korea) in the aftermath of the East-Asian crisis. Under the agreement, any signatory country faced with a liquidity crunch can borrow forex reserves up to a pre-arranged limit to ease selling pressure on its currency. The arrangement has not been tested to date since most Asian countries, like India, also have a huge build-up of forex reserves now. But the true test of such an arrangement lies not only in its ability to provide succour in times of crises but also in its ability to deter speculative attacks. To that extent it must be regarded as fairly successful since barring the crisis in May 2006 when the Thai baht came under attack, South East Asian currencies have been largely stable.
Now India has also signed such an agreement with Japan. The quantum is not yet stated to be finalized, though we have noted from ET on 4^th August, that Japan is ready to provide about $3 bn for this purpose.

This article gives us a list of all the coalition governments that India had seen so far. Worth a look.
What is the constitutional legitimacy of the minority or coalition governments?

Articles 74 and 75 provide the real guidelines for parliamentary government in India.
Article 74 provides for a ‘council of ministers with the PM at the head to aid and advise the President’, and Article 75 states that ‘the council of ministers shall be appointed by the President on the advice of the PM.’

Political executive in parliamentary democracy, as provided by the Constitution, consists of President, PM and a council of ministers headed by the PM.

Both the countries have slated their Moon missions to occur more or less in competition with each other. While Japan’s space agency (JAXA) said its lunar satellite, SELENE is on track for a September 13 launch, China also is rumoured to be planning for a September launch of its lunar probe, Chang’e 1.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was passed in 2005. It came into force from 2006.
This is in operation in 330 districts all across the country.
The fundamental principle behind NREGA is a rights-based approach to work, the payment of minimum wages, and equal entitlements for women.
Recent field surveys at Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh found that the whole scheme is on a good wicket, though there are some minor irritants which need to be removed.
Some of the weak spots that were identified included:

Shortage of staff
Poor worksite facilities, notably lack of water and absence of creches for the children of working women
Problems with the measurement of work – a revision is needed based on the nature of work, type of soil, and other factors.
Proper maintenance of job cards

I have been somehow loath to covering it as often as we could have, based on the headline space that it is grabbing. But as I have seen that the posture adopted by the various political parties is more out of political compulsions than out of real problems with the merits of the agreement, I have desisted so far.
But today’s article by two experts highlights the points of future conflict between the two countries. Take a look at the full article here.
Especially take a look at the table that is given in the article.

Indian Current Affairs