Junior Digest

Denmark is considering proposals to introduce a tax on red meat, after a government think tank came to the conclusion that “climate change is an ethical problem”.

The Danish Council of Ethics recommended an initial tax on beef, with a view to extending the regulation to all red meats in future. It said that in the long term, the tax should apply to all foods at varying levels depending on climate impact.

The council voted in favour of the measures by an overwhelming majority, and the proposal will now be put forward for consideration by the government.

In a press release, the ethics council said Denmark was under direct threat from climate change, and it was not enough to rely on the “ethical consumer” to ensure the country meets its UN commitments.

“The Danish way of life is far from climate-sustainable, and if we are to live up to the Paris Agreement target of keeping the global temperature rise ‘well’ below 2°C, it is necessary both to act quickly and involve food,” the council said.

@ Agency report.

United Nations : Ms Radha Kumar, 63, the Director General of New Delhi-based think tank Delhi Policy Group was named to the governing UN University Council. The 12 appointees, who will take office next month, will serve for terms of either three or six years.

The main functions of the UN University Council are to formulate the principles and policies of the University, govern its operations, and consider and approve its biennial budget and work programme, a press statement said.

Ms Kumar is a specialist in ethnic conflicts, peacemaking and peace-building. Formerly Director of the Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia University, Ms Kumar has also been a Senior Fellow in Peace and Conflict Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in the city.

She had also served as one of the three-member Group of Interlocutors appointed by the Government of India for Jammu and Kashmir.

@Agency report.

NEW DELHI: The government has imposed a ban on the import of dogs for  breeding after many animal rights organisations raised concerns over foreign breed dogs suffering due to unsuitable climatic conditions.

The Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has issued a notification banning the import of dogs for commercial breeding. No tabs are in place if the import is for research or defence purposes.

Humane Society International and People for Animals along with other groups have urged the government to ban the import on dogs for breeding as it was resulting in the overpopulation of street dogs in the country.

They were of the view that a large number of dogs that are not suitable for the country’s tropical climate such as St Bernards, Siberian Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes and others are being imported by breeders in India. “We commend the DGFT for this historic ban which will prevent the suffering of thousands of dogs. Our shelters are inundated with cases of abandoned imported breed dogs which are usually due to poor understanding of the breed’s requirement,” said Gauri Maulekhi, HSI India consultant.

Animal rights groups have also urged the government to enact the pet shop & breeder regulations as recommended by the Law Commission of India.

Shanghai, Apr 27 ,2016: Indian archer Deepika Kumari  on Wednesday equalled the world record in women’s recurve event before helping the country to the mixed pair bronze play-off in the first stage of the Archery World Cup that got underway here.

The former world No.1 and winner of two Commonwealth Games gold medals shot 686 in the 72-arrow ranking round to equal the feat of London Olympics gold-medallist Ki Bo Bae of Korea.

Ki Bo Bae, who had won two gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics in the individual and team competition, had erased an 11-year-old world record when she got past fellow Korean Park Sung-Hyun’s 682 at qualification of the Universiade in Gwangju in 2015.

Deepika set the range ablaze shooting 346 in the first half and needed just 341 to get past the Korean but two 9s in the last end meant the 2015 record remained intact.

@Agency report.

New Delhi, Apr 27 ,2016: Arvind Kejriwal was today re-elected as the National Convenor of AAP even as the party effected a major overhaul of its top brass by inducting five new faces including a woman in its Political Affairs Committee (PAC), the highest decision making body.

In the first rejig of the PAC after expulsion of Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan last year, the party brought into the body six fresh faces — Ashutosh, Atishi Marlena, the lone woman member in the PAC, Durgesh Pathak, Raghav Chadha, Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan and Punjab MP Sadhu Singh.

Apart from Kejriwal, those who were retained in the PAC include Manish Sisodia, Gopal Rai, Sanjay Singh, Kumar Vishwas and Pankaj Gupta.

The PAC has also appointed Gupta as the national secretary and Chadha as the treasurer of the party. All the PAC members are national executive members.

“Arvind Kejriwal was unanimously elected as the new National Convenor of the party. The National Executive also chose Pankaj Gupta as National Secretary and Raghav Chadha as National Treasurer,” Pankaj Bajpai, party spokesperson, said.

Ilyas Azmi, who was member of the PAC earlier, has not found a place at the reconstituted body as he did not make it to the national executive.

Earlier in the day, the National Council also elected new National Executive members.

The 25-member restructured body has several members from Punjab, which is going to polls in 2017, the party’s next big focus in the electoral arena. Apart from them, five state convenors became ex-officio members of NE.

The national executive members include Kejriwal, Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Rai, Gupta, Ashutosh and Kumar Vishwas.

The new entrants are Yamini Gomar, Rajendra Pal Gautam, Preeti Sharma Menon, Durgesh Pathak, Bhagwant Mann, Kanu Bhai Kalsaria, Harjot Bains, Baljinder Kaur, Raghav Chadha, Ashish Talwar, Marlena, Sadhu Singh, Dinesh Vaghela, Meera Sanyal, Bhawna Gaur, Rakhi Birla, Imran Hussain and Khan.

@ Agency report.

Hyderabad, Apr 27 ,2016 : With an aim of stopping the decay of an over 2,000 year-old Egyptian mummy preserved at Telangana State Museum here, the Department of Archaeology and Museums has begun its preventive conservation using unique and advanced scientific techniques.

The technique — involving CT scan and X-ray examination — is for the first time being used on a decaying mummy in India, officials claimed.

The mummy was obtained by sixth Nizam Mir Mehboob Ali Khan in 1920. His son and last Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan donated it to the museum, where it has been kept since 1930.

The mummy here is among the only six Egyptian mummies preserved at museums in the country. It was earlier believed to be of a girl aged 16 to 18 and dated to the Ptolemaic period 300 BC to 100 BC.

“The scan revealed that the mummy was that of a girl about 25 years of age and of 136 cms in height,” Secretary (Youth Advancement, Tourism and Culture Department) B Venkatesham told reporters here last evening.

“Whatever (use of techniques) has been done here would be the first time in preservation project for human remains and a mummy in India. It can set an example (on conservation) for other mummies in India, and also internationally similar technology can be used for conservation of mummies,” Heritage Conservation Adviser to the project, Vinod Daniel, said.

The mummy will now be kept in an oxygen-free encasement to prevent its further decay.

“All original materials have been kept inside as part of conservation. To minimise the degradation going forward, the mummy will be put in a special showcase,” he said.

The painted cartonnage (a type of material composing Egyptian funerary masks) pieces were kept back in their proper position and the showcase was sealed again, he said.

@Agency report.

Houston : A 31-year-old US man has been charged with suffocating his two-year-old daughter to death for distracting him from his computer games, a media report said.

Anthony Michael Sanders was charged with capital murder in the December death of Ellie Sanders at the family’s suburban home in the US state of Texas, Watauga police said.

He is accused of suffocating his daughter while caring for her and his five-year-old son.

Investigators believe an enraged Sanders bruised Ellie all over her body, bit her on her back and murdered her by holding her down with his hand over her face, police officials said.

“He was very involved in computer gaming… That is something he did constantly. She may have interrupted him somehow. His day may have been interrupted,” police officer Babcock was quoted as saying by the Star-Telegram newspaper.

Tarrant County medical examiners ruled earlier this month that the infant’s death was a homicide by asphyxiation.

Sanders was asked to take care of Ellie and his son while his wife went to an art show, according to an arrest affidavit cited by the newspaper.

The boy discovered his sister in a bedroom and “tried to wake her up and she would not wake up”, Babcock said.

Detectives suspected foul play as doctors found fresh injuries when they examined the infant. They found bruises around her eyes, blood behind her ear and two adult bite marks on her back, according to the affidavit.

Sanders could not explain her injuries and claimed he had changed Ellie’s diaper about a half hour before his wife came home, according to investigators.

@ Agency report.

Taipei : Archaeologists in Taiwan have found a 4,800-year-old human fossil of a mother holding an infant child in her arms, museum officials said on Tuesday.

The 48 sets of remains unearthed in graves in the Taichung area are the earliest trace of human activity found in central Taiwan. The most striking discovery among them was the skeleton of a young mother looking down at a child cradled in her arms.

“When it was unearthed, all of the archaeologists and staff members were shocked. Why? Because the mother was looking down at the baby in her hands,” said Chu Whei-lee, a curator in the Anthropology Department at Taiwan’s National Museum of Natural Science.

The excavation of the site began in May 2014 and took a year to complete. Carbon dating was used to determine the ages of the fossils, which included five children.

@ Agency report.

Colombo, Apr 27 ,2016 : Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) today announced the return of Sanath Jayasuriya as the chief selector, a little more than a year since he stepped down from the post.

The new selection committee will start its operation on May 1 and will serve for two-year term.

The four-member panel comprises wicketkeeper-batsman Romesh Kaluwitharana, former offspinner Ranjith Madurasinghe and former fast bowler Eric Upashantha, besides Jayasuriya.

Kaluwitharana, who formed the destructive opening partnership with Jayasuriya in the 1996 World Cup victory, was Sri Lanka ‘A’ team coach for a number of years, while Madurasinghe, a Test player in the 80s, has served before on the panel, and Upashantha was a member of the national team in the late 90s.

The previous selection panel was headed by Aravinda de Silva.

SLC had asked for reinstating Jayasuriya as chief selector for several weeks, but was awaiting the Sports Minister’s approval.

The new committee was formed as soon as SLC got the green signal from the Sports Ministry.

Jayasuriya had earlier held the post from January 2013 to March 2015.

@Agency report.

New Delhi : The censor board should wield the scissors sparingly and create more categories for film certification, a committee headed by noted filmmaker Shyam Benegal has recommended in a move to protect artistic freedom.

The committee, which is looking into a possible revamp of the board after a string of controversies, presented the first part of its report to Union information and broadcasting minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday.

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) should be a certification body and restrict itself to categorising the suitability of a film for audience groups based on their age and maturity, the report said.

“We are recommending that CBFC should not be using scissors on any film. We are suggesting that in addition to different classifications that we have – we should have two categories of U/A, one plus 12 years of age and one plus 15 years of age and two categories of adult, one is normal adult and another adult with caution,” Benegal said.

At present, films get certificates under four categories. Category U means film are “suitable for unrestricted public exhibition”. While films in the U/A category are suitable for unrestricted exhibition with an “endorsement of caution”, the ‘A’ category films are for adults.

If the recommendations are implemented, India will have two sub-categories under U/A (UA12+ and UA15+) and an additional category named AC (adult with caution).

At the time of seeking certification, applicants will have to specify the category and target audience.

“Government’s intention was that the censor board should be responsible for certification only. Restrictions on artistic freedom should be as per the Constitution,” minister of state Rajyavardhan Rathore told.

The censor board, headed by Pahlaj Nihalani, has courted several controversies of late for ordering cuts and decisions to bleep out expletives. The board was criticised for giving a UA certificate to Jungle Book, even as it said 3D effects in the film could scare children.

This section says a film should not be certified if authorities feel it is against the interests of the country’s security, sovereignty and integrity, public order and decency or morality, and might affect friendly relations with foreign states or has content that amounts to defamation and contempt of court.

The committee said its guidelines will ensure that children and adults are “protected from potentially harmful or unsuitable content and audiences, particularly parents are empowered to make informed viewing decisions”.

Once the second part of the report that will discuss issues such as animal welfare in films and allowing onscreen smoking is submitted, the government will formalise a new set of guidelines for the board.

The committee has also made recommendations about the functioning of the CBFC, asking the chairperson to play the role of a guide who should not be involved in the day-to-day affairs of film certification.

Apart from Benegal, the other members of the panel set up in January are — actor Kamal Hassan, filmmaker Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra, Piyush Pandey, Goutam Ghose, Bhawana Somaaya and senior officials of the I&B ministry.

@Agency report.

Lahore : The 108-carat famed Koh-i-Noor diamond cannot be brought back to Pakistan as it was handed over to UK under the ‘Treaty of Lahore’ in 1849, provincial Punjab government on Wednesday told the high court here.

“Maharaja Ranjeet Singh had inked the agreement with the East India Company in 1849 under which the precious diamond was given to the UK. Therefore, the UK government cannot be approached for return of the diamond,” a law officer of the provincial government told the court during the hearing of a plea seeking direction for the Pakistan government to bring back Koh-i-Noor, which India has also been trying to get from the UK for years.

Petitioner Barrister Javed Iqbal Jaffrey, however, opposed the government’s plea, arguing, “both governments were not authorised under the law of the land to sign such an agreement.”

LHC Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan directed the government’s counsel to submit a copy of the agreement between then Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the East India Company on the next hearing on May 2.

In his plea, Barrister Jaffrey has alleged that Britain had snatched the diamond from Daleep Singh, grandson of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh and took it to the United Kingdom.

“The diamond became part of the crown of incumbent Queen Elizabeth-II at the time of her crowing in 1953. Queen Elizabeth has no right on the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which weighs 105 carats and worth billions of rupees,” he said.

He claimed that Koh-i-Noor diamond was “cultural heritage” of Punjab province and its citizens owned it in fact, it said and prayed to the court to direct the federal government to bring the diamond back to Pakistan from the British government.

The Indian Government had recently said that it will make all efforts to bring back the valued diamond, even as it had earlier told the Supreme Court that the diamond was neither stolen nor “forcibly” taken by British rulers but given to East India Company by erstwhile rulers of Punjab 167 years back as compensation for helping them in the Sikh wars.

@ Agency report.

New Delhi, Apr 26,2016 : Citing a large number of cases for probe coupled with acute manpower shortage, CBI Director Anil Sinha has demanded more personnel from states on deputation to the agency, saying if this is not done, the agency would collapse.

Appearing before a Parliamentary Committee, Sinha cited the increase in the number of cases referred to CBI by Supreme Court and High Courts and said the agency’s capacity for investigation was around 700 cases a year which has now almost doubled, necessitating more officers to supervise probes.

As per the submission made by the agency, a total of 1,200 cases and “62 foreign investigations” were pending. Of the total pending cases, 31 are pending for over three years.

A total of 1,531 posts were vacant in CBI as against its sanctioned strength of 7,274, as per the agency’s latest data.

Following the submission, the panel has asked the government to complete cadre review in the agency by June-end.

While deposing before the Committee, the Director, CBI, proposed to provide longer tenure to officers on deputation in the agency from the state and other central forces in addition to other steps taken to manage vacancies, said the report of Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, tabled in Parliament today.

“He, therefore, expressed that unless state governments provide the manpower by way of sending more of their personnel on deputation to the CBI, a time could come that CBI would collapse and fail,” it said.

The Committee expressed deep concern on the state of affairs relating to the vacant positions in CBI.

“It, therefore, impresses upon the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to complete the exercise of cadre review by June 30, 2016, as per the direction of the Supreme Court to deal with the vacancies in the establishment.

“The Committee is apprehensive that unless the present malady of massive vacancy is corrected immediately, the very purpose of establishment of the CBI would be eroded and its credibility tarnished,” the report said.

@Agency report.

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on April 27 said the Joint Parliament Standing Committee has cleared the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Code and is likely to be discussed in the current Budget Session of Parliament. Addressing the second meeting of the Consultative Committee on NPAs, Jaitley said the government is taking various steps, including introduction of Bankruptcy Law in the Lok Sabha, to deal with the problem of mounting bad loans.

The Bankruptcy Law has been cleared by the Joint Parliament Standing Committee and the SARFAESI (Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest) Act and Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) Act have been amended to make the recovery process more efficient and expedient, he said in his opening remark.

The Finance Minister said that wherever it was observed that number of cases in which action taken by the banks against guarantors for recovery of defaulted loans is insufficient, the government has advised the banks to take action against guarantors in the event of default by borrowers under relevant Sections of SARFAESI Act, Indian Contract Act and RDDB & FI Act. He further said that a direction to this effect has been issued to banks last month.

The government, Jaitley said, has taken various measures to deal with the issue of non-performing assets (NPAs) in banking sector especially in case of public sector banks (PSBs). Citing that there are two categories of defaulters, namely those who are unable to pay back due to economic slowdown both in domestic and global and other reasons outside their control as well as wilful defaulters, including loans sanctioned without due diligence by the banks, he said various measures are being taken to deal with both categories of defaulters.

In order to deal with default due to economic slowdown, the government has taken various measures to revive the stressed sectors which mainly include steel, textiles, power and roads among others, he said. Government has also done recapitalisation of banks by providing Rs 25,000 crore in the last year Union Budget 2015-16 as well as in this year’s budget 2016-17, he said.

He further said transparency and professionalism has been brought in appointment process for top management positions in the PSBs including Chairmen and Managing Directors. The Government has taken various measures to make the management professional, has given full autonomy to the banks in taking commercial decisions without any interference from the government, he added.

@Agency report.

New Delhi : A massive fire that gutted the building of National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) Monday night caused tremendous loss of material of historical and heritage value.

The fire brigade team that has been working since Monday night said the enormity of fire was so severe that it engulfed the large collection of taxidermic animals, birds and other items on display besides the office furniture, wooden flooring and documents in all the five floors of the museum situated next to FICCI-KK Birla Auditorium on Tansen Road near Mandi House.

Severe loss to collections of historical value

“The damage is immense. It can’t be judged in terms of money because the collections which have turned into ashes have a high historical and heritage value. Minister of Environment and Forests Prakash Javdekar visited in the morning and has ordered a probe. Assessment would be made following an inquiry. It’s too early to comment on anything. We’re also trying to find out the cause of the fire breakup,” an official of NMNH said .

The Museum was planned as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations for India’s independence, and finally opened on 5 June 1978. From being a single museum located in New Delhi, NMNH extended its geographical range by establishing Regional Museums of Natural History (RMNH) in Mysore, Bhopal and Bhubaneswar. Two more museums are being established in Sawai Madhopur and in Gangtok.

NMNH and RMNHs focus on India’s flora and fauna and are also committed to environmental education. Besides having a large collection of stuffed animals and birds, both the national and regional museums showcase the rich diversity of India’s tribal life.

Art critic Uma Nair said, “It’s a big loss in terms of historical and heritage value of collections that got damaged by fire. It’s a very sad state of affair and the loss is irreparable. The most unfortunate part is that in India we need museum and institution buildings like those abroad, but when it comes to safety measures and maintenance, we fail.”

“It’s a major inferno. It’s too early to say anything about the cause of fire. The possible reason could be from short-circuit,” a fire tender operator on job remarked.

Stating the incident “very tragic”, Prakash Javdekar has ordered an energy and fire audit of all the establishments across the country. “We have 34 museums and we’ll ensure that such incidents don’t happen,” the minister said.

Beside wooden furniture, the museum also had wooden décor, flooring and panels — all of which has been gutted by fire.

“The level of preparedness and maintenance is poor in large number of cases. There’s a lack of periodical review of disaster management, which is must for institutions like NMNH which has heritage value,” said Uma Nair.

“It’s a known fact that museums do have volatile and inflammable contents. Forget fire, even smoke and water can cause immense damage to collectibles, especially when they have heritage value,” she said.

Fire fighting

The fire broke at 1.45 am on the top floor of the museum. By the time security guard alerted fire brigade, police, NMNH and FICCI officials, and fire tenders swung into operation, the fire had already caused havoc and engulfed all the floors.

“The fire safety systems were there but they were not functioning at the time when we tried to operate them. Had they been working, it would have been easier to control the fire at the earliest,” Deputy Fire Chief Rajesh Panwar reportedly told agency.

The NMNH is housed in the rented accommodation on the five floors of the building belonging to FICCI. Next to the museum building is FICCI’s auditorium and the Federation House.

Though the top five floors have been gutted by the fire, no damage has been caused to the FICCI office on the first floor of the museum building, adjoining KK Birla auditorium and the Federation House.

Nair added, “It needs to be found out whether the museum had early fire detection system like Titanus that alerts a fire break much faster and at an initial phase, when it can be controlled. Besides, Oxy-reduction fire prevention safety measure is a must for museums, as it stops fire from spreading. Surprisingly, these systems lack in many of our premier institutions of national importance.”

@Agency report.

Srinagar : Amanullah Khan, the co-founder of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and the man who introduced gun to Kashmiri youth in 1989, died at a hospital in Pakistan’s Rawalpindi on Tuesday. He was 82.

Amanullah Khan, the father-in-law of Kashmir’s People’s Conference president Sajad Ghani Lone, breathed his last at 8:30 am local time.

The JKLF leader, who had led a violent campaign for independent Kashmir, including the killing of an Indian diplomat in the UK in the mid-80s and hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Lahore, had made Pakistan his home for three decades.

Khan was born in the Astore area of Gilgit on August 24, 1934, was also the co-founder of the Kashmir Independent Committee in 1963. He was elected secretary-general of the JK Plebiscite Front (PF) in 1965 and co-founded the JK National Liberation Front (NLF) with Maqbool Bhat.

Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif condoled his death, saying that the sacrifices of Amanullah Khan for Kashmiris would be long remembered.

Khan’s death has been widely mourned in Kashmir and JKLF has announced to offer prayer in absentia for him at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk on Wednesday afternoon.

However, J&K’s social welfare minister and BJP ally Sajad Gani Lone, who is married to Khan’s daughter, has reportedly decided not to attend Khan’s jinaza (funeral prayer), which will take place in Islamabad.

@Agency report.

Brasilia, Apr 27 ,2016 : Brazil’s outbreak of Zika — which has been linked to the devastating microcephaly birth defect in newborns — has topped 91,000 cases, health officials have said.

Between January 3 and April 2, 91,387 suspected cases of Zika were reported, with a disproportionate share (30,286) in the poorer northeast of the country, the Health Ministry said yesterday.

Three people have died of the mosquito-borne virus, it said.

Despite a flurry of research, very little is known about the virus — how long it can hide out in the human body, the degree of risk via sexual transmission, the full list of diseases and disorders it may cause, and all the mosquito types capable of transmitting it.

Recent scientific consensus is that Zika causes microcephaly, a form of severe brain damage in newborns, and adult-onset neurological problems such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which can cause paralysis and death.

There is no vaccine or treatment for the virus, which in most people causes only mild symptoms — a rash, joint pain or fever.

Among the infected to date have been 2,844 pregnant women.

“So far, it is not possible to determine what percent of Zika-positive pregnant women may have babies with microcephaly,” said Infectious Disease Monitoring director Claudio Maierovitch.

Meanwhile, dengue cases surged to 802,429 — 13.7 percent more than in the same period a year earlier, government data showed.

@ Agency report.

Five  companies arguably leading the worldwide effort to develop autonomous cars said Tuesday they’re forming an organization to lobby the federal government to better prepare America’s roads for self-driving technology. The founding members include some of the biggest companies in the automotive, autonomous, and ride-sharing realms – Ford, Google, Lyft, Uber and Volvo.

Operating as the “Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets,” they aim to work with lawmakers and regulators to clarify a disparate set of rules and regulations at both the state and federal levels that could hinder the deployment of autonomous cars.

@ Agency report.