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Indian Express November 12, 2018 A SENIOR Assam Police officer said Sunday that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill — proposed by the Union government — has given “a fresh lease of life” to the activities of the United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent), the militant outfit suspected by police to be behind the killing of five farmers in Tinsukia district recently. Speaking to The Indian Express over phone, Special DGP (Special Branch) of the Assam Police, Pallab Bhattacharyya, said the proposed Bill has led to a new rift between the state’s Assamese- and Bengali-speaking communities, in turn fomenting trouble. The top officer also added that the recent publication of unverified news reports regarding the death of the chief of the ULFA(I), Paresh Barua, could add to the tension. “The faultline between Assamese- and Bengali-speakers in the state is a historical one and the proposed Bill has added fuel to it. There was trouble during the language movement of the 19...

Live Mint November 14, 2018 The government may train its guns on Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Viral Acharya if the confrontation with the central bank escalates at the RBI board meeting on 19 November, a person familiar with the deliberations within central bank’s board said. In case discussions between the government and RBI break down, the government may choose to invoke Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, and at least four of the 11 independent directors of the central bank could move a no-confidence motion against Acharya for publicly airing his views protesting government interference, the person said, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. If Section 7 of RBI Act is invoked, the five representatives of the central bank, including governor Urjit Patel, and the two finance ministry secretaries have to withdraw from further deliberations of the board. The independent directors will then pass resolutions on content...

The Wire November 10, 2018 South Africa is one of four southern African countries aiming to  eliminate malaria transmission  by 2023. Indoor residual spraying using DDT and pyrethroid insecticides constitutes the backbone of South Africa’s  malaria control programmes . Effective vector control by indoor residual spraying has been key in the reduction of malaria cases. This was instrumental in creating malaria-free zones in most parts of the country. Malaria transmission is now  limited  to the north-eastern parts of Limpopo province, the low-veld areas of Mpumalanga province and the far northern parts of KwaZulu-Natal province. Despite a concerted effort to eliminate malaria in these provinces, transmission has remained steady over the  past decade . Failure to eliminate malaria transmission is attributed, in part, to resistance to the insecticides being used. Added to this is the challenge of controlling the outdoor-biting  Anopheles ar...

Indian Express November 11, 2018 The government is in discussion with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to “fix appropriate economic capital framework” for the central bank, Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said Friday. The Finance Ministry, officials said, is of the view that the existing economic capital framework — which governs the RBI’s capital requirements and terms for the transfer of its surplus to the government — is based on a conservative assessment of risk by the central bank and that a review of the framework would result in “excess capital” being freed, which the RBI can then share with the government. “Lot of misinformed speculation is going around in media. Government’s fiscal math is completely on track. There is no proposal to ask RBI to transfer (Rs) 3.6 or (Rs) 1 lakh crore, as speculated,” Garg said in a tweet. “Only proposal under discussion is to fix appropriate economic capital framework of RBI,” he said. The gove...

Dawn  November 14, 2018 The Bajaur Press Club was closed for an indefinite period on Tuesday following threats of terror attacks. The press club president Hasbanullah Khan told Dawn here that though he did not know about the threats, but the club had been shut down on the directives of senior officials of the local administration. Quoting the officials, Mr Khan said they had received information that some unknown miscreants planned to carry out terrorist attacks on the press club building, ‘hence you’re advised to keep the club shut for an indefinite period to thwart any unpleasant incident.’ Following the instructions, the press club president said an emergency meeting of the senior journalists was held to discuss the situation in which the participants unanimously decided to shut the club for indefinite period. Before shutting the press club, scores of Levies personnel arrived on the spot and took position at various places. The Levies personnel also e...

Indian Express November 11, 2018 Former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan has contended that the introduction of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) were the two major events that held back India’s economic growth last year, PTI reported. Speaking at the University of California in Berkley on Friday, Rajan maintained that the seven per cent growth rate is not enough to meet the country’s needs. “The two successive shocks of demonetisation and the GST had a serious impact on growth in India. Growth has fallen off interestingly at a time when growth in the global economy has been peaking up,” Rajan said while delivering the second Bhattacharya Lectureship on the Future of India. “What happened in 2017 is that even as the world picked up, India went down. That reflects the fact that these blows (demonetisation and GST) have really really been hard blows…Because of these headwinds we have been held back,” he said in Berkley. Commenting on t...

Dawn November 14, 2018 In January, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that Pakistan be designated as a “country of concern” because of its alleged “serious violations of religious freedom”. Although it’s a long-standing USCIRF demand, the US State Department has never so designated Pakistan, but it does highlight the commission’s findings in its annual reports on religious freedom. In December last year, the State Department named Pakistan as the first, and only, country on its “Special Watch List”, a new category created in 2016. The report for this year complained that religious minorities in Pakistan continued to face attacks from extremist groups and society at large. It also noted that “abusive enforcement of the country’s strict blasphemy laws result in the “suppression of rights for non-Muslims, Shia and Ahmedis”. Tenzin Dorjee, the USCIRF chief, said: “The case of Asia Bibi illustrates the extent to which blasphem...

Indian Express November 11, 2018 The recent government move to raise import duties on a host of products in a bid to contain current account deficit (CAD) can be counter-productive and doesn’t augur well for the economy, eminent economist and former vice-chairman of Niti Aayog Arvind Panagariya has cautioned. The government and the central bank, however, have done the right thing by just managing rupee volatility instead of turning extra aggressive in their defence of the domestic currency that recently breached the 74-mark against the dollar before pulling back. Panagariya also suggested that India need not make its demand for further liberalisation in the movement of skilled professionals across borders a ‘make-or-break point’, while negotiating free-trade deals like RCEP. Instead, it should be flexible enough to get the best deal for itself in promoting goods trade. As for the concerns about the worsening CAD, Panagariya said the deficit is unlikely to touch 3 per cent of GD...

NDTV November 14, 2018 In a four-hour hearing on the Rafale jet deal on Wednesday, the Supreme Court questioned the government's stance that it had no role in the offset clause, which is the focal point of the opposition's charge of corruption in the Rs. 59,000 crore contract. Rafale-maker Dassault has not yet submitted details of its offset partner, the government told the Supreme Court. "The vendor will inform the offset partner to us. So far there is no information on this," said Additional Secretary Defence Apurva Chandra, to questions from the judges. The judges also asked the defence ministry why the offset guidelines were changed in 2015. The court is hearing petitions asking for an investigation amid allegations that the government scrapped a deal for 126 Rafale jets negotiated by the previous UPA government and opted for a not-so-lucrative new contract for 36 jets just to help Anil Ambani's debt-hit defence company bag an offset partne...

The Hindu,  November 10, 2018 Sensitivity for pulmonary TB and pleural TB were 94% and 93%, respectively. A highly sensitive diagnostic test for pulmonary TB and pleural TB has been developed by a multi-institutional team led by Jaya Sivaswami Tyagi from the Department of Biotechnology at AIIMS. The diagnostic test makes use of a DNA aptamer (a small single-stranded DNA molecule that binds to a specific target molecule) that shows high binding affinity to a TB antigen. Sputum samples were used for diagnosing pulmonary TB while pleural fluid was used for diagnosing pleural TB. The sensitivity of the diagnostic test for pulmonary TB and pleural TB was 94% and 93%, respectively. Specificity was 100% for pulmonary TB and 98% for pleural TB. The results were published in the journals ACS Infectious Diseases and Analytical Biochemistry. The laboratory-based aptamer test for diagnosing pulmonary TB takes about five hours to turn in the results while the portable, rapid t...

NDTV November 14, 2018 India's heaviest rocket, referred to as  "Baahubali ", successfully placed the sophisticated communications satellite GSAT-29 in the orbit today. India space agency ISRO's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk-III-D2) - on its second developmental flight - lifted off from Sriharikota, India's rocket port in Andhra Pradesh on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The countdown began at 2:50 pm on Tuesday and the rocket was launched at its scheduled time of 5.08pm today from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Cyclone Gaja did not pay spoilsport and the launch was not affected by it. The launch could have been affected by the cyclone, which was one of the apprehensions since the countdown. This is the 67th launch from Sriharikota and the GSAT-29 is the 33rd communications satellite made by India. The advanced communications satellite weighs 3,423 kg and will help provide internet connectivity, especially in the ...

The Hindu November 11, 2018 Two years after demonetisation, the fake currency notes seized so far are not of a high quality, a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has found. Another Home Ministry official said the network of same fake currency operators was still intact as two years ago, that pushed fake notes from the Bangladesh border. But there was not much evidence to link it to Pakistan yet. A reason cited by the government for scrapping ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes in 2016 was to wipe out fake notes. India had accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of printing high-quality fake notes and channelling it into India. Agencies suspected that certain security features of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes were compromised as the supplier of raw currency notes, ink and silver thread was same for India and Pakistan. “The fake notes seized recently are of poor quality, and look like photocopies in most cases. It seems Pakistan has not been able to copy the secu...

The Hindu November 10, 2018 The National Health Mission has confirmed the control of Zika virus in Rajasthan after the detection of more than 150 cases of infection, including those of some pregnant women, during the last few weeks. The diagnosis and treatment facilities at the government hospitals in the State were found to be in order. Effective measures NHM Mission Director Manoj Jhalani, who is also Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said the spread of both Zika virus and dengue fever had been controlled in the State by taking up anti-larva and fogging activities on a large scale to get rid of mosquitoes spreading the virus. Mr. Jhalani said the State government’s Medical and Health Department had taken effective steps to control the spread of mosquito-borne diseases in the densely populated areas of Jaipur and other cities. He visited an urban primary health centre in Mansarovar locality here to observe the services rendered to the p...

FirstPost Nov. 20, 2018 BEIJING (Reuters) - The failure of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit at the weekend to agree on a communique was down to certain countries "excusing" protectionism and trying to force their views on others, a senior Chinese diplomat said. The APEC summit in Port Moresby was one of open disagreement, led by disputes between the United States and China over trade, security and which would be the better investment partner for the region. The meeting failed for the first time to agree to a joint communique, against the backdrop of a bitter trade war between Beijing and Washington. In comments carried on the Chinese Foreign Ministry's website late on Monday, the government's top diplomat State Councillor Wang Yi said the inability to reach a communique was "by no means accidental". "It is mainly that individual economies insisted on imposing their own texts on other parties, excusing protectio...

The Indian Express November 20, 2018 Simultaneous developments last week in different corners of the Indo-Pacific — from the Maldives to Papua New Guinea — remind us of the renewed geopolitical importance of the island states. Connecting these diverse developments is China’s push for greater influence in the Indo-Pacific and the belated resistance from rival powers — including India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the United States. At the dawn of the modern maritime age four centuries ago, control of critically-located islands became an important part of the rivalry between European powers in the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific. Islands helped the replenishment of supplies, positioning of troops and ammunition as well as for the host ship to do repair and maintenance. Island dominance was the key to securing the sea lines of communication. The Anglo-American maritime dominance over the last two centuries helped limit the contestation for the islands. The one brief except...