Jan 14, 2013

7-13 Jan : News



  • ‘Nirbhaya’ mobile app to help women in distress.
  • Wockhardt,  received final approval from the United States Food & Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) to market Lamotrigine, a drug used to treat epilepsy.
  • GMR Infrastructure today said it has terminated its contract with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for building the Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad Highway project.(a Public-Private Partnership)
  • B. K. Mandal, Director (Finance) of the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), has assumed additional charge as Chairman & Managing Director .
  •  900 foot-wide asteroid Apophis to pass by Earth.
  • Hunting of Houbara bustards, taxonomically classified as Clamydotis undulata,in Pak.It do winter migration and affected the desert eco-system.Convention of the International Trade in Endangered Species has classified it as an endangered migratory bird. 
  • Illiquid stocks (are those that can not be sold easily because they see limited trading. They pose higher risks to investors because it is difficult to find buyers for them, as compared to the frequently traded shares) : bourses caution investors
  • Indian-origin politician Halimah Yacob (58) is set to become the first woman Speaker of Singapore’s Parliament next week replacing Michael Palmer.
  • GAIL (India) has announced the successful commissioning of the Dabhol LNG terminal located at Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, around 340 km south of Mumbai.
  • Eligibility criteria stands slightly diluted in that a retired judge of a High Court with seven years of experience would now be eligible for appointment as SAT chief.Earlier only a retired judge of the Supreme Court or a former Chief Justice of a High Court was eligible.  
  • Government raises assistance to poor :
    • Raised the amount of assistance from Rs 45,000 to Rs 70,000 for construction of a dwelling unit.
    • For hilly and other difficult areas, the grants for constructing houses under the Indira Awaas Yojna (IAY) have been increased from Rs 48,500 crore to Rs 75,000.
    • There will also be a provision now of loan up to Rs 20,000 — up from Rs 10,000 — with four per cent interest for buying land for the house.
  •  Justice (Retd.) (Ms.) Usha Mehra Commission has been set up under Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952 to enquire into various aspects of the shocking incident of rape and brutal assault of a young woman in Delhi on 16.12.2012 and to identify the lapses, if any, on the part of the police or any other authority or person that contributed to the occurrence.
  • Attested photocopy of Ration Card with photograph and Nationalised Bank Passbook with photographs (attested by Gazetted Officer or the Chief Reservation Supervisor or Station Manager/Station Master. )shall also be accepted as a prescribed proof of identity only in case of reserved tickets booked through computerized Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters, for undertaking journey in Sleeper (SL) and Second Reserved Sitting (2S) classes.
  • Sri Lanka's first woman  Chief Justice  Shirani Bandarnayake sacked after impeachment from parliament on corruption charges.
  • Online activist, programmer Aaron Swartz (co founder of reddit and activist fought to make online content free to public) (He is on a trial on accusations to stole millions of journals from an archive to make that public free)dies in NY .
  • Protest at Vedanta headquarters.(it is embroiled over its plans to mine tribal land in Orissa regarded sacred by the Dongria Kondh tribe.It is London listed company).
  • Air India on Thursday launched a daily flight on the Delhi-Paris-Delhi sector with a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
  • SpiceJet, slashed air fares substantially by offering a limited-period sale of 10 lakh seats across its domestic network for an all-inclusive fare of Rs. 2,013. 
  • Moily seeks Kazakhstan support for OVL’s bid to buy 8.4% ConocoPhillips’ stake
  • India was ranked 38th in terms of its risk management effectiveness and 32nd for its resilience to global risks. Singapore was ranked on top in both these surveys bt World Economic Forum.
  • RBI has issued revised guidelines for Credit Default Swaps (CDS) for corporate bonds.
    • besides listed corporate bonds, CDS shall be permitted on unlisted but rated corporate bonds even for issues other than infrastructure companies.
    • users will be allowed to unwind their Credit Default Swaps bought position with original protection seller at mutually agreeable or the Fixed Income Money Market and Derivatives Association of India (FIMMDA) price.
    • DS will be permitted on securities with original maturity up to one year like Commercial Papers, Certificates of Deposit and non-convertible debentures with original maturity less than one year as reference / deliverable obligations.
  • Turkey removes duty on Indian cotton yarn imports.
  • The Governor of Karnataka can appoint the Lokayukta or the Upalokayukta only on the advice tendered by the Chief Minister, and the Chief Justice of the High Court is only one of the consultees, and his views will have no primacy : Supreme Court
  • CJI constitutes Special Bench to hear crimes against women.
  • The 121-km stretch of Lakhipur-Bhanga of the Barak river will soon become a national waterway, the sixth in the country,integrating the waterways in the northeast and helping cargo transport through Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Railway Minister P.K. Bansal o announced an across-the-board hike in passenger fares ,the hike comes into effect from January 21.
  • Arjun Munda resigns, recommends fresh polls in Jharkhand.
  • Kargil gets first civil air connectivity
  • Notice to Centre on de-licensing cancer drugs(Gardasil and Cervarix — are unproven and hazardous human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines being marketed in India by MSD Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd. and GlaxoSmithKline Ltd.)
  • T.N. tops in implementation outcomes of NRHM.
  • President releases a commemorative postage stamp on ‘silk letter movement’ .
  • President launches the National Immunization Day, 2013 on the day India completes two years without a single case of polio.
  • Dr Veerappa Moily Launches LPG Customer Empowering Initiatives as part of Project Lakshya .
    • Distributors to be rated based on delivery performance; 
    • Mobile applications now available; 
    • Pilot on Web enabled distributor portability launched
    • Apply online for LPG connection
  • Union Minister of Steel, Shri Beni Prasad Verma congratulated the Indian steel industry on being the number one in terms of growth rate in steel production amongst the top ten steel producing countries(April - November’12, the Indian steel industry achieved a growth rate of 5.36%) 
  • Amendment to Section 15M of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Act, 1992: to enlarge the field of selection for the post of Presiding Officer (PO) of the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), by including sitting or retired judge of a High Court with a minimum seven years of service, as a Judge of a High Court as one of the qualification(The SAT was set up under Section 15K of the SEBI Act, 1992 to adjudicate upon the appeals against the decisions of SEBI.)
  • Enhancement of unit assistance under the Indira Awaas Yojana :
    • Enhancement of unit assistance under the Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) from Rs. 45,000/- to Rs. 70,000/- in plain areas and from Rs. 48,500/- to Rs. 75,000/- in hilly/difficult/LAP district;
    • Enhancement of unit assistance provided for homestead site to rural Below Poverty Line (BPL) households who have neither agricultural land nor a house site for purchase/acquisition of a homestead site from Rs.10,000/- to Rs.20,000/-. This was a major point in the Agreement between Govt. of India and Jan Satyagraha on 11th October 2012 at Agra.
    • (The IAY is a flagship scheme of the Ministry of Rural Development and aims at addressing rural housing issues by providing grant for construction / upgradation of dwelling units of BPL families especially giving priority to Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes, freed bonded labourers and physically challenged persons)
  • Declaring National Institute of Design (NID),Ahmedabad, by Parliament by law as an institution of National Importance.
  • President confers the Honorary Rank of General of the Indian Army on General Gaurav Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana Chief of the Army Staff, Nepalese Army.
  • National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 ,mission document for the NMEM (objectives of the National Mission for Electric Mobility (NMEM) are National energy security, mitigation of the adverse impact of vehicles on the environment and growth of domestic manufacturing capabilities) launched.





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