13 December 2013

Ø  Investigative website Cobrapost on Thursday claimed to have exposed 11 Members of Parliament from different political parties who allegedly showed willingness to issue recommendation letters and lobby with the Union Ministry for Petroleum for a fictitious foreign oil company seeking exploration and digging rights in the northeast. In the undercover operation, code-named ‘Operation Falcon Claw’, the MPs — allegedly from the Congress, the BJP, the BSP, the JD (U) and the AIADMK — were clandestinely filmed as they reportedly agreed to lobby for the company for a consideration ranging from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 50 lakh. Six of these MPs even wrote the letters for a fee, Cobrapost alleged.

Ø  Taking forward his initiative to “open the Rashtrapati Bhavan” to the people, President Pranab Mukherjee on the occasion of his birthday on Wednesday announced a 30-day ‘in-residence’ programme for artists, writers and innovation scholars, the first of its kind.

Ø  Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai arrived here on Thursday for a four-day visit during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on military assistance, regional help to stabilise his country and economic opportunities for India. Afghanistan had requested India for lethal weapons but is equally keen on a permanent partnership in the form of a military finishing institution like the Afghan National Army officers academy, which is modelled on the U.K.’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Ø  Abdul Quader Mollah, a key ally of Pakistan occupation forces in 1971, who was convicted by a war crimes tribunal for genocide and mass rape during the nation’s liberation war, was on Thursday executed in Dhaka.

• President Vladimir Putin has ordered the military to step up its presence in the Arctic after Canada signalled it planned to claim the North Pole and surrounding waters. Canada last week filed a claim with the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf concerning the outer limits of its continental shelf in the Atlantic Ocean. Russia has an overlapping claim to both the North Pole and swathes of the Arctic that the U.S. Geological Survey thinks could hold 13 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and up to 30 per cent of its hidden natural gas reserves.