30 DECEMBER 2014: OZ8501 going MH370 way?! n who is behind this??

Ø  Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit and conveyed India’s “strong concern” at the lack of “effective action” by Pakistani prosecuting authorities to keep Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi in custody. Ms. Singh conveyed that India expected Pakistan to abide by its commitment that expeditious steps would be taken to bring all those responsible for the Mumbai terror attack to justice, an official release said. India felt it was “extremely disturbing” that despite assurances over the past six years and the recent tragedies in Pakistan, there seemed to be “no end in sight to Pakistan remaining a safe haven for well-known terror groups.”

Ø  The Indonesian government is possibly withholding information on Air Asia Flight 8501, according to a U.S. aviation safety expert, who said that Jakarta may be trying to avoid speculation on the cause of the incident in this early phase of the search for debris. John Goglia, a former member of the U.S National Transportation Safety Board, said that it was rare for a plane to break up due to a storm but a storm could start a “sequence of events” that could lead to mechanical or other failures in the aircraft. Citing the example of Air France 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009 after ice crystals led to discrepancies in measurements of aircraft speed and a subsequent aerodynamic stall, Mr. Goglia suggested that a similar cause may apply to Flight 8501. He however dismissed the possibility that Flight 8501 may have been shot down by the U.S. military protecting its Indian Ocean base on the Diego Garcia atoll, as per a theory recently floated by a French former airline director about Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Ø  A Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to Kathmandu made an emergency landing after it suffered a bird-hit on its left wing, causing sparks. All the 125 passengers and crew members on board are safe, said Birendra Prasad Shrestha, general manager of the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu. Mr. Shrestha added that sparks were seen as the plane landed “but the engine did not catch fire.” 

Ø  The Cabinet on Monday amended the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. Under the 2013 Act, compensations were hiked up to four times and twice the market value in rural areas and urban areas, respectively. The 2013 law had also required consent from 70 per cent of the affected land owners in case of their lands being acquired for a public private partnership (PPP) project. If the acquisition was meant for private companies, consent from 80 per cent of the affected owners was required. The provision also mandated a Social Impact Assessment survey to be held along with the process of getting the families' consent. The Act said its objective was to transform the process of land acquisition into a “humane, participative, informed and transparent” process. Section 105 of the existing Act has been amended to include 13 statutes previously exempted from the rigours of payment of compensation. These Acts were listed in the Fourth Schedule of the existing Act.

Ø  ‘Vape’, ‘culture’, ‘photobomb’, ‘overshare’ and ‘heart emoji’ have been named the top words of 2014 by various dictionaries and language monitoring groups. Oxford Dictionaries chose ‘vape’, an abbreviation of vapour or vaporise, as word of the year. Merriam-Webster Inc., chose the word ‘culture’, which dominated headlines this year, on topics ranging from ‘celebrity culture’ to ‘rape culture’ to ’company culture’. ‘Photobomb’, defined as “to intrude into the background of a photograph without the subject’s knowledge”, was Collins English Dictionary’s top word; Chambers Dictionary’s choice was ‘overshare’, which means “to be unacceptably forthcoming with information about one’s personal life”; and the Global Language Monitor named ‘heart emoji’, the ideograph for love, as its word of 2014. The OxfordDictionaries.com definition for vape was added in August 2014: the verb means “to inhale and exhale the vapour produced by an electronic cigarette or similar device”; both the device and the action can be referred to as a vape. The associated noun — vaping — is also listed. Vape was chosen over words like ‘bae’ (endearment for one’s romantic partner), ‘budtender’ (person whose job is to serve customers in a cannabis dispensary or shop) and ‘indyref’ (abbreviation of ‘independence referendum’, in reference to the referendum on Scottish independence). Merriam-Webster Inc. compiled its list by analysing the most searched words in its online dictionary and focussed on words that showed an increase in searches this year compared to last year.

Ø  The Union Home Ministry issued a notification announcing reconstitution of the National Disaster Management Authority. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is also NDMA chairman, has nominated Health Safety and Environment Group, BARC, Director, D.N. Sharma; Programme Adviser to UNDP (New York) Kamal Kishore; and Lieutenant-General (retired) N.C. Marwah, as its members. Mr. Sharma presently heads a unit consisting health physics, radiation safety systems, radiological physics and advisory, industrial hygiene and safety and environmental monitoring and assessment divisions. Mr. Kishore is an adviser with the Disaster Reduction and Recovery Team of the UNDP, whereas Lt. Gen. Marwah was Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee.

Ø  The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, approved infusion of Rs.60 crore in Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI) Ltd. to make it a government company by way of acquisition of preference shares from existing shareholder(s). A contribution of Rs.60 crore to the capital of the company would raise the shareholding of the Centre to 51 per cent.