Ø The new Union Home Secretary, L.C. Goyal, took charge following the unceremonious late night exit of his
predecessor Anil Goswami.
Ø A special CBI court granted bail to Gujarat cadre IPS officers D.G.
Vanzara and P.P. Pandey in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case. Mr. Vanzara,
who is an accused in other encounter cases, retired from service as Deputy
Inspector-General of Police, in June 2014, while he was still lodged at the
Sabarmati jail. Mr. Pandey is under suspension as Additional Director-General
of Police since August 2013.
Ø In a historic judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that the election of a
returned candidate will be held as null and void if he fails to disclose
complete and full details of his criminal antecedents at the time of his
nomination. A Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C. Pant observed that
the misconduct of a single candidate affects the entire process of his election
because the non-disclosure amounted to the violation of the voter's right to take
an informed choice and created an impediment in the free exercise of electoral
right. With this verdict, the apex court has stepped up its clarion call
against criminalisation in politics. It clearly sends the message that mere
disqualification of the errant candidate is not enough, but the ripples of his
conduct should be felt by nullifying the election itself.
Ø France’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Laurent Fabius, on Thursday accepted that the elements of the recent Indo-U.S.
agreement on nuclear liability could apply to other nations. In response to
questions on the India-U.S. understanding last month on how to resolve the liability
issue, he said it was for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to decide when he visits
France in spring (between March and June) later this year. At a press
conference with Union Minister of State for Environment Prakash Javadekar, Mr.
Fabius said he discussed nuclear issues among many other aspects in his meeting
with Mr. Modi. On Wednesday, French embassy sources said France was keen on the
details of the civil nuclear cooperation between India and the U.S. India
and France already have a civil nuclear cooperation under which the French
company Areva is to set up six nuclear reactors in Jaitapur. In a joint
statement last February after the visit of President François Hollande to
India, there was a reference to the ongoing collaborative projects on the
peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and India and France agreed to further
strengthen bilateral civil nuclear scientific cooperation. A Memorandum
of Understanding was signed in February 2009 between Nuclear Power Corporation
of India Limited and AREVA for setting up 6x1650 MWe EPR (EPR is a third
generation pressurised water reactor (PWR) units at Jaitapur. The statement
said the status in regard to the first two EPR units was reviewed and NPCIL and
AREVA were engaged actively in techno-commercial discussions. Mr. Hollande and
the then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had hoped for an expeditious
conclusion of the negotiations.
 |
| Maithripal Sirisena |
Ø The Ministry of External Affairs announced
that Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena will pay a four-day state visit
to India starting February 15. Skill development and green cities will
be the focus of discussions during the visit of President Tony Tan Keng Yam to
India from February 8 to 11. The visit is part of the 50th anniversary
commemoration celebrations started in August last year. Singapore is setting up
a skill development institute in Delhi and India has requested a similar
institute in the North East. Eleven Indian nurses have been evacuated to
safety from the conflict zone in Kirkuk in Iraq to Erbil.
Ø Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. has signed a Rs. 1,090-crore contract for
supplying 14 Dornier-228 aircraft to the Indian Air Force. Last year, a
Dornier aircraft was supplied to LRDE (Electronics and Radar Development
Establishment), the Bangalore-based defence laboratory, for testing its new
radars on flight.
Ø United Nations Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has said the 8 per
cent GDP growth in India from 2004 to 2011 led to a sharp decline in poverty
from 41.6 per cent to 32.7 per cent and achieved the first Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) set for 2015 of reducing poverty by half. In a
report — India and the MDGs — UN ESCAP said other MDGs achieved include gender
parity in primary school enrolment, maternal mortality reduction by
three-fourths and control of spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
India also achieved MDGs related to increased forest cover, halved the
proportion of population without access to drinking water. The MDGs that
India has missed are universal primary school enrolment and completion and
universal youth literacy by 2015, empowering women through wage employment and
political participation, reducing child and infant mortality and improving
access to adequate sanitation to open defecation, the report says.
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