Agri minister hints at sops in the offing

Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh indicated the announcement of major measures in the coming weeks to address farm distress, a move that will come ahead of the general election. The agriculture ministry has reportedly prepared a Cabinet note on “addressing income deficit syndrome of small and marginal farmers” proposing various steps, including a financial package and interest waiver for timely crop loan repayers. A draft note has been finalised after several meetings with officials of the Prime Minister’s Office, NITI Aayog, agriculture and finance ministries. “Every year before or during the budget, we have announced something new for farmers. Definitely, there will be something for farmers this time too,” he said.

ISRO satellite to secure India’s borders

ISRO will launch a satellite exclusively for the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to help it further strengthen India’s frontiers with Pakistan and Bangladesh among others, according to a ministry statement. The move is part of recommendations made by a task force on the use of space technology in improving border management, which have been accepted by Home Minister Rajnath Singh. To execute the project, a short, medium and long-term plan has been proposed for implementation in five years in coordination with ISRO and the defence ministry. “Major recommendations are to build capacity in border guarding forces to use space resources for security, operational planning and border infrastructure development,” it added.

RIL posts Rs 10,000 cr quarterly profit

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd has become the first Indian private sector company to report a quarterly profit of more than Rs 10,000 crore after record earnings from petrochemical, retail and telecom business offset a dip in refinery margins. The oil-to-telecom conglomerate reported an 8.8 per cent rise in its consolidated net profit to Rs 10,251 crore in the third quarter ended December 31, 2018, the company said in a statement. This is the highest quarterly profit by any private company. State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) holds the distinction of posting the highest ever quarterly profit by any Indian firm when it had reported a net profit of Rs 14,512.81 crore in January-March 2013.

Asthana removed as CBI special director

The Centre curtailed the tenures of CBI special director Rakesh Asthana and three other senior officers on January 17 with immediate effect, days after agency boss Alok Verma was shunted out by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led panel. The tenures of Asthana, joint director Arun Kumar Sharma, deputy IG Manish Kumar Sinha and SP Jayant Naiknavare have been curtailed, the personnel ministry said in an order. Asthana was appointed as special director in October 2017. Verma and Asthana had levelled allegations of corruption against each other. They were sent on forced leave by the government last October. Amidst the feud between the two, the CBI registered a corruption case against Asthana when Verma was the agency’s chief.

India to host UN meet on land degradation

India will host the 14th session of the Conference of Parties to United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) this year to address the issue of land degradation and desertification. The conference, which has participation from over 100 countries, is likely to be held in October. The UNCCD, established in 1994, has 197 parties working towards maintaining and restoring land and soil productivity and mitigating the effects of drought. “Hosting UNCCD COP-14 will be a prestigious moment for the country. India’s commitment to SDG 15 (life on land) is in coherence with the PM’s vision of doubling the income of farmers by 2022,” said Gaurav Khare, a spokesman in the environment ministry.

Ram Rahim gets life term for murder

A special CBI court in Panchkula has sentenced Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh to life imprisonment in the 2002 murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati. The court also sentenced his three aides, Krishan Lal, Kuldeep Singh and Nirmal Singh to life imprisonment. The judge also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on Ram Rahim and others. They were convicted by the CBI court on January 11. Ram Rahim is already lodged in Sunaria jail near Rohtak after his conviction on August 25, 2017, for the rape of two female disciples. He was sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment in the case. His life imprisonment in the murder case will begin after the completion of the jail term in the rape cases.

Mobile component industry eyes record year

The value of the mobile phone component manufacturing industry in India under the Mobile Phased Manufacturing Programme (PMP) would cross Rs 70,000 crore in 2018-19, the Indian Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) said. According to the industry body, the Indian component industry has already achieved the market value of Rs 50,000 crore, which was targeted to be achieved by the financial year 2019-20. “The component manufacturing target of Rs 50,000 crore, which was to be achieved by March 2020, has already been achieved. We have crossed the same in spite of lack of progress in some of the 2017 PMP components and that 2019 components have not yet been notified,” said ICEA chairman Pankaj Mohindroo.

US mulls missile defence ties with India

The Trump administration has discussed a potential missile defence cooperation with India as part of its effort to deepen the bilateral strategic partnership, the Pentagon has said, asserting that New Delhi is a “key element” in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy. The Pentagon’s announcement in the 81-page Missile Defence Review report released by US President Donald Trump on January 17 gains significance in view of India placing a $5 billion order to purchase S-400 air defence system from Russia, for which the US has publicly expressed its displeasure. The report, which identifies missile development projects by Russia and China as major threats to the US, did not give any further details about its potential missile defence cooperation with India. The Pentagon said there were now a number of states in South Asia that are developing an advanced and diverse range of ballistic and cruise missile capabilities.

Govt relaxes norm for foreign funded NGOs

In a relief to NGOs, the home ministry has relaxed the mandatory requirement of getting registered on a NITI Aayog-run online platform to receive foreign donations. With this, NGOs will no longer need to have the unique ID generated through the Darpan portal to get such donations. The ministry had in October 2017 directed all NGOs that get foreign donations to register themselves with Darpan to ensure better transparency, efficiency and accountability. The NGOs were then told to register with Darpan with necessary information such as organisation PAN, email, mobile number and name of chief functionary as mandated in the portal to generate the unique ID number. A year after the decision was “reconsidered” and now the registration has been made “optional”.

NAS Shibpur to become INS Kohassa

To enhance the operational capability of Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC), Naval Air Station (NAS) Shibpur will be commissioned as INS Kohassa. Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba will commission NAS Shibpur, which was established in 2010, as INS Kohasa on January 24. NAS Shibpur was set up as a Forward Operating Air Base for surveillance. With the addition of this airfield, the ANC’s ability to operate independently from all the regions of Andaman and Nicobar Islands will get a great boost. INS Kohassa will become the third Naval Air Base in the Andaman and Nicobar islands after INS Utkrosh at Port Blair and INS Baaz at Campbell Bay. Post commissioning, the station will function as a base for joint operation of both military and civil aircraft.

Streaming platforms to self-regulate content

Streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hotstar, Voot and SonyLiv have agreed to follow a new industry code of conduct and self-regulation for online content in India. The platforms, also known as Online Curated Content Providers (OCCPs), have voluntarily signed a self-regulatory code of best practices under the aegis of the Internet and Mobile Association of India. Others to sign the code are Zee5, Arre, ALT Balaji and Eros Now. This marks the first time global giant Netflix has signed on to this kind of code in a single country. It previously adopted a similar code for the Southeast Asia region. Amazon Prime Video was not among the signatories. The code establishes guiding principles for OCCPs to conduct themselves in a responsible and transparent manner and at the same time ensures that consumer interests are protected.

‘UNSC reform needs political will’

UN General Assembly president Maria Fernanda Espinosa has expressed hope that the reform of the Security Council would gain traction this year, saying without strong political will, progress will be difficult. Espinosa - Ecuador’s former foreign minister - was in June elected president of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, becoming only the fourth female president of the organisation in its 73-year history. For long, India has been calling for the reform of the UN Security Council along with Brazil, Germany and Japan. The four countries support each others’ bids for permanent seats in the top UN body. On the long-pending UNSC reform, she said it is very much a process driven by member states.

Govt mulls national business register

The Union government plans to create a business enterprise register that will have details of all kind of businesses being run in the country as it gears up to conduct a nationwide economic census in 2019-20. “We propose to build a business enterprise register which can be regularly updated and utilised by all stakeholders,” said Pravin Srivastava, secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). MoSPI has roped in CSC e-Governance Services India, also known as CSC SPV, for conducting the seventh economic census. “The strength that CSC SPV brings in is unique. The strength of Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is the quality of data. Through this association, we are confident that as a country we should be able to collect timely data and create a national asset that can be used for various policy-level interventions,” Srivastava said.

IIT Hyderabad to launch BTech in AI

IIT Hyderabad is planning to introduce a full-fledged BTech programme in artificial intelligence from the coming academic year. Admission to the course with an intake of around 20 students would be through the JEE-Advanced. IIT Hyderabad has become the first Indian educational institution to offer such a course in AI. The mission of the Department of Artificial Intelligence is to produce students with a sound understanding of the fundamentals of theory and practice of AI and machine learning. IIT Hyderabad is already offering an MTech course in AI. “The basic aim is to create a complete ecosystem for AI academics and research at IIT Hyderabad,” said institute director U.B. Desai.

Saturn’s rings are younger than thought

Saturn’s rings are younger than scientists thought and appeared within the past 10 to 100 million years, according to research published based on findings from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The sixth planet from the Sun formed about 4.5 billion years ago, along with the rest of the planets in our solar system, and spent the bulk of its existence without the characteristic rings it is known for today. Astronomers have long believed the rings could be young, and perhaps formed by collisions between the moons of Saturn or by a comet that shattered in close proximity to the planet. Some of these answers have come into sharper focus because of Cassini, an unmanned US-European probe that launched in 1997 and ended in 2017 with a planned death plunge into Saturn’s surface.

China’s moon cotton experiment ends

A cotton seedling that sprouted on the moon has been left to die as China’s historic lunar lander continues a freezing night-time nap that will last as long as two earth weeks, scientists said. The Chinese space agency announced earlier this week that the seed had germinated inside a special canister aboard the Chang’e 4 probe, after the spacecraft on January 3 made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon. The mini biosphere - which operated for over 212 hours - was shut down as planned on January 12, said Chongqing University, which designed the experiment. Temperatures inside the ecosystem were expected to plunge below minus 52 degrees C and the organisms will be “in a frozen state”, the university said.

Newsmakers

Mary Oliver, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet whose rapturous odes to nature and animal life brought her critical acclaim and popular affection, has died. She was 83.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader Pocharam Srinivas Reddy has been elected unopposed as Speaker of the Telangana Assembly.

American John Bogle, who popularised low-cost index-based mutual funds (MFs) and founded Vanguard Group - the world’s biggest MF firm - died on January 16 at the age of 89.