ü On Tuesday, the Environment Ministry announced its decision to impose a moratorium on the release of the transgenic brinjal hybrid developed by Mahyco, a subsidiary of global seed giant Monsanto.
· The Minister’s decision comes after a month of public consultations in seven cities, which were attended by approximately 8,000 people. They were organised after widespread protests against the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee’s (GEAC) recommendation of approval of Bt brinjal in October 2009.
· Mr. Ramesh attributed the decision to several factors: lack of clear consensus among the scientific community; opposition from 10 State governments, especially from the major brinjal-producing States; questions raised about the safety and testing process; lack of an independent biotechnology regulatory authority; negative public sentiment and fears among consumers and lack of a global precedent.
· A bit about Bt. Brinjal – We had posted it earlier some days back
· GM Foods - The term GM foods or GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) is most commonly used to refer to crop plants created for human or animal consumption using the latest molecular biology techniques. These plants have been modified in the laboratory to enhance desired traits such as increased resistance to herbicides or improved nutritional content.
· Disclosure of details of a gazette notification that has kept 190 plant species, including brinjal, out of the purview of the Biological Diversity Act added to the controversy
· What is Bt Brinjal? Bt Brinjal is a transgenic brinjal created by inserting a gene [Cry 1Ac] from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into Brinjal. The insertion of the gene into the Brinjal cell in young cotyledons has been done through an Agro bacterium-mediated vector, along with other genes like promoters, markers etc.
· Bt Brinjal is being developed in India by M/s Mahyco [Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company].
· It is important to understand the perception of public. Only 2% people in Britain prefer GM food
· Pros
o Pest Resistant
o Higher Yield
o Higher tolerance to herbicides
o Disease Resistance
o Drought tolerance/Salinity Tolerance
o Nutrition
o More useful for pharmaceuticals
o Better Phytoremediation : Ability to clear ground water of heavy metal pollution
· Cons
o Potential health hazards like growth, organ development problems, immunity etc.
o Potential allergies
o Transfer of bacterium
o Harmful for soil and animals
o Long term effects not known
o Ethical Problems
o Non-availability of seeds to the farmers/ Increased private company influence in agriculture
o Patents/ Dangerous degree of control over food supply
· A wiki on Genetic Engineering
ü Union Minister P. Chidambaram has urged the Maoists to come for talks after halting violence. Maoists have responded by saying that they are ready for unconditional tasks.
· We could do well to look into the causes of Naxalism
o Political Factors
o Psychological factors
o Social Factors/ Mob Mentality/ Group Psychology
o Socio Economic Factors/ Skewed Distribution of Wealth
o Religious Factors
o Interests of Other Countries
· Naxalism
o Naxalite or Naxalvadis (name from the village of Naxalbari(Darjeeling Disrict) in the Indian state of West Bengal where the movement originated), are a group of far-left radical communists, supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology. Their origin can be traced to the split in 1967 of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), leading to formation of Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist).
o In recent years, they have spread into less developed areas of rural central and eastern India.
o They are especially concentrated in an area known as the "Red corridor", where they control 92,000 square kilometers.
o One major cause: Poverty, lack of land reforms, caste discrimination and oppression and denial of access to justice push the Dalits closer to the Naxals. The concentration of Dalit populations in the Naxal affected areas in India is quite high.
o The "inability" of state governments to reach out to the people is one of the reasons for spread of Naxalism in some states.
o Studies show that 85 of the country’s 100 poorest districts are in seven of those 10 states. In the Naxal-affected districts, 32% of the population is below the officially-measured poverty line, compared to 24% elsewhere.
o Second, in these districts, state governments have a terrible record of delivering public goods and services. Only 68% of homes in Naxal-affected districts get safe drinking water, in other places, the number is 74%
o Mobilising the support of the people is also absolutely essential to weaken the support base of the Naxals
o Indian government should begin talks with the Naxalites
o Provide economic welfare, not feel good welfare to the affected areas
· Another interesting Fact : Most of the heavily Naxal infected areas are rich in mineral resources
ü These days Shiv Sena and SRK are on the war path, with Shiv Sena threatening to stop the Screening of SRK’s new film and SRK not willing to apologize. There has been another voice raised amongst all this hullaballoo: Make Mumbai a Union Territory.
ü Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith on Tuesday acknowledged that some of the recent attacks on Indian students and other people of Indian origin in his country appeared to be “racist in nature.”
· Reaffirming that Australia practised a policy of “zero tolerance for racism,” Mr. Smith said: “If any of these attacks have been racist in nature — and it seems clear some of them have — they [the perpetrators] will be punished with the full force of the law.”
· He qualified the pledge by emphasising that “no government can credibly ... promise to stop all urban crime.” Linking this objective reality to the current situation, he said, “regrettably, many Indian students in Australia, in particular in Melbourne, find themselves in a higher risk-profile for crime.”
· More specifically, “many work late-night shifts in occupations like taxi-driving where assaults can be more likely. Many live in higher-crime neighbourhoods, often commuting to and from there at night.”
· But what is racism?
o Racism is the belief that race is a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
o Racism can be seen as the belief that a certain race portrays a certain, undesirable characteristic.
o Racial discrimination typically points out taxonomic differences between different groups of people, although anyone may be discriminated against on an ethnic or cultural basis, independently of their somatic differences.
o Types of racism? Racial segregation, Institutional Racism, Economic Racism, Scientific Racism.
o Culture, Nationalism etc play an important part along with prejudice as well history of a particular sect
o Theory of evolution also played an important part in the concept of racism.
o Racist ideologies taken to a higher level has been the major cause for phenomenon like Nazism, Ku Klux Clan etc.
· But why are Indians attacked abroad?
o Quite a few attacks are racially motivated
o Anti-India sentiment formed
o Feeling of losing jobs and other opportunities to Indians who do jobs at a lower cost
o Cultural difference
o Response of Indians on such attacks
o A possible lack of knowledge of the history of the country in which they reside
o Linguistic difference/ Tendency of Indians to talk in mother tongue in groups
o Most of the attacked Indians were doing low paying jobs
o Mob mentality
o Colonial Hangover effects
o Role of media/ Over hype – a plausible reason
o Cultural background of attackers
ü The Moon Minerology Mapper (M3) on Chandrayaan-1, which famously discovered the presence of water and hydroxyl molecules on the lunar surface material last year, has now identified a new lunar rock type on the far side of the moon. The M3 is a NASA instrument. This was reported here on Monday by Carle Pieters of Brown University, lead author of the present study, at the Sixth Chandrayaan-1 Science Meeting being held at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), a unit of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
ü Later this week, Google will introduce add-ons to Gmail that let users post and view messages about their day-to-day activities, according to a person at Google briefed on its plans. This simple tweak to Gmail will allow Google to mimic the status updates that have driven much of the success of Facebook and Twitter, as people return to the services again and again to check out what their friends and co-workers are doing.
· It is important that we look at the role of social networking sites in this present times
o A social network service focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities.
o Although some of the largest social networks were founded on the notion of digitizing real world connections, many other networks as seen in the List of social networking websites focus on categories from books and music to non-profit business to motherhood as ways to provide both services and community to individuals with shared interests
o The notion that individual computers linked electronically could form the basis of computer-mediated social interaction and networking was suggested early on
o Early social networking websites started in the form of generalized online communities such as TheWELL (1985), Theglobe.com (1994)[11],Geocities (1994) and Tripod.com (1995).
o Twiiter, even though lacking in several essential commodities of a SNS, eclipsed several other SNS.
o The typical issues identified with SNS are Identity, Privacy, E- Learning, Social Capital, Teenage and Child Use, Access to information, Misuse, Interpersonal communication, Trolling etc.
o Contemporary youth has consistently been presented restrictions that prohibit what they can and cannot do. There has been a rapid increase in curfew legislation along with loitering laws intended to prevent teen violence and drug use. In addition to government rules and regulations teenagers face another authority, parental figures. Parents and/or guardians tend to place rules on where they can be and when they can be there. This combination of laws and household restrictions hinders and limits the area of social interaction to school and maybe with nearby neighbors. As a result the youth turns to online networks that allow them to communicate with not only their friend circle but others with similar interests. Social networks have ultimately become the best frontier for teenagers to interact and socialize.
o Several websites are beginning to tap into the power of the social networking model for social good. Such models may be highly successful for connecting otherwise fragmented industries and small organizations without the resources to reach a broader audience with interested and passionate users.
o Obvious advantages of SNS – Government Uses, Business Applications, Relationships, Educational Applications, Medical Applications
ü Iran on Tuesday hoped that India would join the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline project soon, but pointed out that there should be “some limit” to the time being taken to arrive at a decision.
ü A fresh spell of agitation in support of its demands for a separate Gorkhaland State and the immediate convening of a fifth round of the tripartite talks with the Centre and the West Bengal government to discuss the statehood issue began in the Darjeeling hills on Tuesday with a call by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leadership for a 48-hour relay hunger strike by volunteers from its youth organisations.
ü India and Turkey on Tuesday unveiled a joint declaration on terrorism which New Delhi considers a breakthrough because in it, Ankara has agreed to “recognise the need” for the conclusion of the India-initiated Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT).
ü Long incarceration and socio-economic factors leading to crime are relevant and mitigating considerations for commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment, the Supreme Court has held.
· “Life imprisonment is a rule and imposition of death sentence is an exceptional one in the rarest of rare cases.” said a Bench consisting of Justices P. Sathasivam and H.L. Dattu. It was modifying the death sentence awarded to two convicts who caused the death of five agricultural labourers for a ransom.
· Writing the judgment, Justice Sathasivam said: “A factor which has unfortunately been left out in much judicial decision-making in sentencing are the socio-economic factors leading to crime. At no stage do we suggest that economic depravity justifies moral depravity, but we certainly recognise that in the real world, such factors may lead a person to [commit] crime.”
· Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offense. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes orcapital offences. The term capital originates from Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" (Latin caput).
· Capital punishment has in the past been practiced in virtually every society, although currently only 58 nations actively practice it, with 95 countries abolishing it (the remainder having not used it for 10 years or allowing it only in exceptional circumstances such as war)
· But more than 60% of the worldwide population live in countries where executions take place insofar as the four most populous countries in the world (the People's Republic of China, India, United States and Indonesia) apply the death penalty and are unlikely to abolish it at in the near future.
· Different countries reserve capital punishment for different crimes. It depends on the country’s culture and background.
· The use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history.
· Different countries use different methods for execution.
· China leads the list with more than 1700 executions in the last several years
· In certain parts of the world. Drug offences are also considered for capital punishment.
· The capital punishment has become less favorable because of increased public opinion, role of international organizations, Role of religions, Influence of arts and Culture, Role of Media etc.
ü Outraged over the manner in which the military police have detained the former Sri Lankan Army chief and defeated opposition presidential candidate, General (retired) Sarath Fonseka, the opposition parties have urged the people to rise against the injustice.
· Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered dissolution of Parliament with effect from midnight on Tuesday, paving way for a general election likely to be held in the first half of April.
ü Conrad Murray, the personal physician of Michael Jackson, pleaded not guilty before a Los Angeles court after being charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the singer’s death. The doctor was released on bail on his furnishing a surety of $75,000, three times the standard for involuntary manslaughter cases.
ü The auto industry has bounced back from recession. It is a must read article for you guys, we feel so. Please read it here….
ü Continuing with the positive growth in the exports sector for the third consecutive month, India’s exports are likely to post an 8 per cent growth at $14 billion during January 2010 amid indications of a partial withdrawal of incentives provided in the stimulus packages. We will put up a detailed report of India’s export as well as foreign trade tomorrow. Please go through it to get the complete picture. It will include the past years performance also
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