27 December 2013

Ø  The Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi gained crucial legal relief when a city court on Thursday rejected the petition of Zakia Jafri against the closure report of the Special Investigation Team giving him a clean chit in a case relating to the 2002 communal riots. Ms. Jafri is the wife of Ehsan Jafri, a Congress parliamentarian who was killed along with 69 others in the Gulberg Society massacre in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002.

Ø  The Centre decided on Thursday to set up a judicial Commission of Inquiry to investigate charges of spying by the Gujarat government on a young woman in 2009, dismissing the BJP’s objections that this was an “act of political vindictiveness” against its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi.

Ø  Tech major Microsoft on Thursday launched ‘Guardian,’ a new safety application (app), that enables friends and family of Windows Phone users to track them in real time. Available exclusively for Windows Phone users, Guardian’s ‘track me’ feature allows friends and family to track them using Microsoft Windows Azure cloud services and Bing Map APIs, a statement issued by Microsoft here said.

Ø  The Union Cabinet on Thursday gave its nod for conferring constitutional status on the proposed Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) for appointment and transfer of judges to the higher judiciary. Article 124 A of the Constitution will define the composition of the JAC, Article 124 B will define its functions. The JAC Bill seeks to set up a six-member body under the chairmanship of the Chief Justice of India for recommending names to the President of individuals in the Supreme Court and the High Courts.  The Constitution (120th Amendment) Bill, 2013, provides for the setting up of a Judicial Appointments Commission by inserting Article 124 (A) in the Constitution and amending Articles 124(2), 217(1) and 222(1).

Ø  The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), on Thursday, approved the proposal by the Civil Aviation Ministry to allow Air India (AI) to go ahead with the sale of its five long-haul Boeing 777 aircraft to Etihad Airways. sources in the Cabinet informed that the deal had been given the final go ahead, and was estimated to be around $300-350 million.