A goal is a dream with a deadline.

THE HINDU Imp. News Feb.9th 2012 Page-1 Citing BJP pressure in Jayalalithaa case, Karnataka AG quits: The BJP government in Karnataka suffered another setback on Wednesday, with AdvocateGeneral B.V. Acharya preferring to resign his post to giving in to pressure from the State government to quit as Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. Private complaint He made it clear that his resignation had nothing to do with a private complaint filed against him and others before the Special Lokayukta Court making certain allegations in regard to the running of the Bangalorebased BMS Educational Trust. Recently, a public interest litigation petition, complaining that he was holding two posts, was also filed in the Karnataka High Court.

India would have been in a soup had it intervened in Maldives coup': This is certainly not 1988, the sources said, in reference to Operation Cactus launched by the Indian army and navy after businessmen Lutfee hired Tamil mercenaries from Sri Lanka to depose the then President, Abdul Gayoom. There was some violence which has stopped and they are sorting it out by themselves. Imagine what the reaction would have been had the Indian military intervened in these circumstances. Resignation at gunpoint' Giving an eyewitness account of how Mr. Nasheed was forced to quit, the aides said a few minutes to noon on Tuesday, they saw a fleet of unmarked military cars arrive at the Presidential House. Mr. Nasheed got out surrounded by military men, some of them armed. He had a quick meeting with Ministers and was then forced to resign with a gun pointed to his head. He was escorted out by the military and in an hour, Vice-President Waheed, who had been making strange statements since midnight, became President. The aides feared that Mr. Gayoom's men, including half-brother Abdulla Yameen and the former security officer, Umar Naseer, were plotting to imprison Mr. Nasheed and even bar him from contesting the next elections after some of them claimed to have found empty liquor bottles in the Presidential House.
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EDITORIAL The Republic of Hurt Sentiments: We have allowed hurt sentiment in this country to become a cover for aggressive moral vigilantism, an excuse to take the law into one's own hands, and to perpetrate violence in the name of emotional victimhood. Our artistic and cultural freedoms are threatened routinely by violence and vandalism as during the controversies over M.F. Husain's paintings, Taslima Nasreen's novels and articles, Deepa Mehta's Fire and Water , Jaswant's Singh's book on Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and Pakistan's cricketers playing in India. The colossal irony here is that these belligerent vigilantes usually belong to organisations that make a living out of promoting enmity between different communities and religious groups the very thing they accuse artists, filmmakers, writers and journalists of doing. If good sense prevails, the courts will throw out the petitions relating to the Rushdie readings' and quickly. Offensive speech must satisfy at least two conditions to qualify as hate speech it must be a deliberate and malicious act and it must pose a clear and present danger to society (as opposed to something remote, conjectural and far-fetched , in the Supreme Court of India's words). Using this standard, the four writers who read from The Satanic Verses are not guilty at all. Neither are the JLF organisers, who have been drawn into a murky legal web because of where the readings were staged. Opinions vary on whether it was appropriate for Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi to have used the JLF platform for the protest-readings, an act which risked bringing the festival to a halt. But there is a more important issue here. If the Rushdie readings' trigger a much larger rethink about our religious hate speech laws and what they mean for freedom of expression, then the controversy would have been well worth the making. Dirty picture: The best that can be said in an age where our legislatures are sporadic witnesses to a range of boisterous activity fisticuffs, abuse, screaming, overthrown furniture, ripped out microphones, torn papers and flung slippers is that the trio were at least passing their time in quiet communion. Watching pornographic material in the House is a first in the history of Indian legislatures, but like almost everything else in the sleazy world of politics, somebody's already been there, done that. Last April, an Indonesian MP belonging to an Islamic party that campaigns for anti-pornography legislation was forced to resign after being caught watching porn in parliament, presumably to acquaint himself better with the subject matter of what he was opposing. Time to be realistic: The gloomy picture painted by national income data released on Tuesday may not be surprising but a detailed analysis of the numbers does indeed provide grounds for concern. According to the advance estimates of GDP growth, the economy will grow by 6.9 per cent during the
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current year (2011-12), sharply lower than the 8.4 per cent clocked last year. The implication is that the economy, which grew by 7.3 per cent during the first half of the year (AprilSeptember), will decelerate to 6.5 per cent during the second half. That the pace of growth during the current year will be the lowest in three years need not by itself cause alarm. It may even be argued that a growth rate of almost 7 per cent is commendable given the adverse global and domestic environment. OP ED For a fair, free trade pact with Europe: Since 2007, India and the European Union have been negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement officially known as Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) covering trade in goods and services besides rules pertaining to cross-border investments, competition policy, government procurement and state aid. This legally binding agreement would cover almost a fifth of the world population and, therefore, it impact and implications (both positive and negative) would be significant. Presently, the negotiations have reached a closing stage as both trading partners are hoping to finalise the agreement before the India-EU Summit to be held on February 10 in New Delhi. The EU is particularly insistent on the reduction of tariffs on wines and spirits, dairy products and cars. The cheaper imports of dairy products from the EU's heavily subsidised and protected dairy sector could result in a significant dislocation of local producers of milk and dairy products in India. It is of grave concern that the India-EU BTIA negotiations have been marked by a gross absence of transparency and public consultation in India. Before inking an agreement with the EU, it is important for New Delhi to initiate wider consultations with small and medium enterprises, farmers' groups, community based organisations, trade unions and trade experts on an equal footing. Even State governments have not been informed about the ongoing negotiations even though it would have been only right to take them on board on important issues such as agriculture, public health and education which falls under the State/Concurrent List of the Constitution. It is a matter of shame that while the proposed agreement will have to be ratified by national Parliaments in all 27-member-states of the EU, there is no system of parliamentary ratification or supervision of such agreements in the world's largest democracy. INTERNATIONAL Syrian Vice-President will lead talks: Russia Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has appointed his Vice-President to negotiate a political settlement with the opposition, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said. The Syrian leader confirmed that he had delegated to Vice-President Farouk al-Sharaa the authority of holding talks with all opposition groups and set up a national dialogue that would be inclusive
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and involve all Syrian political forces, Mr. Lavrov told reporters on Wednesday upon his return from Damascus. Dozens dead as Homs is pounded by regime: Syrian forces pressed a relentless assault on the protest city of Homs Wednesday, with dozens of civilians reported killed, hours after President Bashar al-Assad said he was committed to ending the bloodshed. The barrage of gunfire, mortars and shells was launched at daybreak and continued during the day. State television said a car bomb had ripped through the central city, killing and wounding civilians as well as security officers. I was ousted in a coup: Nasheed After a day of surreal calm following President Mohammed Nasheed's resignation, the Maldivian capital witnessed a few skirmishes between his supporters and the police and the military. Challenging days are ahead as Mr. Nasheed tries to reclaim his position, while the new government is yet to be established. Well-wishers of the Maldives have advised both Mr. Nasheed and the new President against precipitating the situation and have appealed for calm. Specifically, they have appealed against any display of celebrations or protest. But having got wind of the fact that a faction from his Maldivian Democratic Party might join the government, Mr. Nasheed decided to get out into the open and demand justice. Addressing a huge gathering of supporters here on Wednesday, Mr. Nasheed called upon the new President, Dr. Waheed Hassan, to resign, even as Dr. Waheed kept himself busy in parleys with the opposition to drum up support and establish a credible government. Talking to foreign journalists, Mr. Nasheed said he was ousted in a coup. They were with guns all around me, I feared for my life, he said, and called upon the Chief Justice to investigate the events that led up to his resignation. U.K.-Argentina war of words over Falkland Islands: The simmering tension between Britain and Argentina over Falkland Islands threatened to escalate into an international crisis on Tuesday after Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced that she intended to make a formal complaint to the United Nations about British militarisation of the region while Britain curtly rejected any negotiations over its territorial claims. Both countries claim sovereignty over the islands and went to war in 1982. The Argentine move came as Britain planned to deploy one of its most modern Navy ships, HMS Dauntless, to the South Atlantic, off the Falklands, and Prince William arrived on the islands to take up his assignment as a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot in a move that Argentina saw as
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a provocation on the eve of the 30th anniversary of British victory in the Falklands war that became the defining moment of Margaret Thatcher's controversial prime ministership. British Foreign Office said the people of the Falkland Islands were British out of choice . They are free to determine their own future and there will be no negotiations with Argentina over sovereignty unless the islanders wish it, it said. Call for strike bares Egypt's fault lines: The Muslim Brotherhood's rejection of the call by a liberal coalition for a pro-democracy civil disobedience campaign coinciding with the first anniversary of the fall of the former strongman, Hosni Mubarak, has once again exposed Egypt's political fault lines. Rising out of the bloody street battles in November between pro-democracy activists and the security forces, The Egypt Revolutionaries' Alliance (TERA) an umbrella organisation of over 50 political groups backs the campaign demanding that the ruling military council transfer power to a civilian executive drawn from the recently elected Parliament. The nascent coalition includes the April 6 Youth Movement, the star of the uprising that brought down Mr. Mubarak. Nearly two million workers affiliated with the newly-formed Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions and the Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress have supported the call for a general strike on February 11 the day Mr. Mubarak was forced to step down a year ago. BUSINESS Tardy growth in direct tax collections: With Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee losing sleep over the enormity' of subsidy bills, lower-than-targeted direct tax collections and a consequent widening fiscal deficit, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Laxman Das has asked his taxmen all over the country to take up the challenge and mop up the budgeted revenue in the remaining months of this fiscal to bridge the gap. I have taken over as Chairman at a time when revenue collections seem to be far away from the budget target, with less than two months at hand. At this critical juncture, our task as revenue administrators becomes that much more challenging As senior officers, we have to play a critical role in making all possible efforts to improve the situation. We have to ensure every CC/DG achieves the budget target, Mr. Das said in his note to taxmen. However, the gross direct tax collection during April-January was up 14.57 per cent at Rs.4.25 lakh crore while gross corporate tax collection was up 12 per cent at Rs.2.85 lakh crore. The personal income-tax collection in the ten-month period this fiscal was up 20.43 per cent at Rs.1.38 lakh crore. Indirect tax collections, however, present a more rosy picture with a jump of 15 per cent in the April-January period to Rs.3.17 lakh crore. During the ten-month period, the Central Board of
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Excise and Customs (CBEC) has been able to achieve almost 81 per cent of Budget estimate for this fiscal year. At the present rate of growth, the CBEC should be able to achieve the target of Rs.3.93 lakh crore (for the current fiscal), the Finance Ministry said in a statement. While service tax collection during the period continued to be strong with a 37 per cent growth to Rs.75,440 crore, excise collection also was up 6.8 per cent to Rs.1.17 lakh crore. The total mop up from the customs duty went up by 12.7 per cent to Rs.1.24 lakh crore during the period. Page 10 Areva reactor meets advanced safety requirements'There will be no additional cost to the EPR 1650 MWe Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR), a Generation III+ nuclear reactor developed by Areva of France, in complying with the additional safety requirements recommended by the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) in its Complementary Safety Assessment (CSA) report submitted in January. This was stated by Dr. Bernard Bigot, Chairman of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), at a press briefing on Wednesday. The proposed NPP at Jaitapur in Maharashtra will be based on the EPR 1650 MWe nuclear reactor systems. The NPP at Jaitapur will be essentially the same as the EPR being built at Flamanville 3 in France. An application for authorisation of a similar reactor at Penly in France is pending. The EPR design is well suited to cope with the extra safety requirements and even in the worst case [scenario] the reactor will be safe, Dr. Bigot said. ASN has recommended the creation and deployment of the Nuclear Rapid Response Force (FARN)', as proposed by EDF, by the end of 2012. FARN will comprise specialist crews and equipment able to take over from the personnel on a site affected by an accident and deploy additional emergency response resources in less than 24 hours, with operations beginning on the site within 12 hours. Dr. Bigot noted that Fukushima was not prepared in this respect and suffered from a lack of trained personnel on site. Finding appropriate workforce for FARN may itself pose a problem, he observed. S&T World's highest resolution' lunar images released: China recently released a set of world's highest resolution lunar images taken by its second moon orbiter, Chang'e-2, as it braces to launch its next mission to land a rover to explore its surface. China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) recently published a set of full coverage map of the Moon and its images with a resolution of seven meters captured by Chang'e-2. The map and images are the world's highestresolution lunar images ever published that cover all of the moon, state runs Xinhua news agency quoted Liu Dongkui, deputy chief commander of China's lunar probe project.

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Stereo camera used The images were photographed by a charge-coupled device (CCD) stereo camera on Chang'e-2 from the heights of 100 km and 15 km over the lunar surface between October 2010 and May 2011, the SASTIND statement said. The resolution of the images obtained from Chang'e-2 is 17 times finer than those taken by its predecessor Chang'e-1. If there were airports and harbours on the moon, the Chang'e-1 could just identify them while Chang'e-2 could detect the planes or ships in them, Tong Qingxi, academician with the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said. The scientists also made some adjustments to the original data to more accurately reflect the topographic and geomorphologic features of the moon, a statement by SASTIND said. The scientists have produced 746 moon pictures with the resolution of seven meters, and the total volume of data is about 800 GB, the statement said. Chang'e-2, named after the mythical Moon Goddess is still in orbit and drifted to the second Lagrange Point (L2) in space more than 1.5 million kms away from Earth after completing its moon mission. According to the new road map China plans to launch a third moon mission, Chang'e-3 to deploy rovers to explore the lunar surface besides sending a probe to Mars next year and to Venus by 2015. It is also in the process of setting up its own manned space station and a Global Position System of its own. India's mangrove cover rises: India recorded a net increase of 23.34 sq. km of mangrove cover between 2009 and 2011, thanks to efforts of one of the most industrialised states, Gujarat, in planting and regenerating the ecosystem rich in biodiversity. The new biennial assessment report by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) has commended Gujarat's contribution in planting and regenerating the mangroves, a salt tolerant plant community, which harbours a number of critically endangered flora and fauna species. Mangroves in India account for about three per cent of the world's mangrove vegetation. The report says mangrove cover in India is 4,662 sq. km, which is 0.14 per cent of the country's total geographical area. Sundarbans in West Bengal accounts for almost half of the total area under mangroves in the country. The very dense mangrove comprises 1,403 sq. km (30.10 per cent of the total mangrove cover), moderately dense mangrove is 1,658.12 sq. km (35.57 per cent) while open mangroves cover an area of 1,600.44 sq. km (33 per cent). Mangrove forests are regarded as the most productive wetlands in the world on account of the large quantities of organic and inorganic nutrients released in the coastal waters by these ecosystems. They also act as nurseries for fin fish, shell fish, crustaceans and molluscs.

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