Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Thursday inaugurated the 21st edition of Karnataka State’s flagship Information Technology and Biotechnology event, ‘Bengaluru Tech Summit’.

Addressing the press persons after inaugurating the three-day event Kumaraswamy said that this tech summit is a unique platform provided by the Karnataka government for deliberating on innovation and its impact on the industry.

When it comes to Foreign Direct Investment and employability Karnataka stands first. The IT, BT and related sectors in Bengaluru alone have provided employment to over 3 million,  he informed.

PTI

 The Modi government’s refusal to have talks with Pakistan betrays its “contradictory and self-defeating stand” vis-a-vis Islamabad and is dictated “by its communal agenda within the country”, the CPI-M has said.

“What is required is resumption of the comprehensive dialogue while maintaining a firm stance on tackling terrorism,” said an editorial in the CPI-M journal “People’s Democracy”.

“With its blinkered approach to relations with Pakistan which are dictated by its communal agenda within the country, the Modi government is constricting its scope for strategic autonomy,” the Communist Party of India-Marxist said.

“Whether it is Afghanistan or South Asia regional cooperation, India cannot play a positive role given its confrontationist stance towards Pakistan.

“Such a position does not only affect our external policy but also will have harmful repercussions internally – the worsening situation in Kashmir and the revival of extremism in Punjab are the two obvious pointers,” the editorial said.

The CPI-M hailed the decision to open a corridor from India to the Gurudwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur in Pakistan as “one of the rare instances when the governments of India and Pakistan have agreed to cooperate after a long period of stalemate and tensions”.

The corridor links the Dera Baba Nanak Gurudwara in Gurdaspur district in Indian Punjab to the Darbar Sahib Gurudwara where Guru Nanak Dev spent the last 18 years of his life.

“The joint effort in preparing the Kartarpur corridor has once again underlined the necessity for improving relations and cooperation between the two countries. It also highlighted the importance of developing people to people relations as a vital component of restoring normalcy and good neighbourly relations,” the editorial said.

But on the very day the corridor was being formally launched, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced India’s rejection of Pakistan’s invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the SAARC summit in Islamabad saying talks cannot be held along with terrorist actions.

“This falling back on a hardline stance underscores the contradictory and self-defeating stand of the Modi government in its relations with Pakistan,” it said.

It said that the “surgical strikes” of September 2016 only led to more firings and shelling across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, where rising militancy has been met with “brutal State repression”.

The CPI-M said that there was no consistency in India’s approach to Pakistan.

IANS

 The Congress on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of resorting to “malicious and fraudulent jugglery” of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures to hide the “enormous body blow” caused by them to India’s economy.

“Failed ‘Modinomics’ plus a ‘pakoda economic vision’ has sunk India’s economy in complete turmoil. A despotic Prime Minister and ‘pseudo economist’ Finance Minister have repeatedly caused economic mayhem by the ill-conceived decisions of demonetisation, a flawed GST coupled with tax terrorism,” Congress Spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said.

“Faced with utter and complete rejection of the ‘voodoo economics’ of Modi and Jaitley duo, they are resorting to malicious and fraudulent jugglery of GDP figures to hide the enormous body blow caused by them to India’s economy,” he said.

His remarks came after the government on Wednesday released the much awaited back-series estimates for India’s GDP which showed a lower rate of growth during the UPA years between 2005-06 and 2011-12 than what was estimated using the earlier methodology.

Surjewala alleged that the entire GDP back series data released by the Centre reflects the desperate attempt of a “defeatist Modi government” to undermine India’s growth story over last 15 years.

“Congress party had repeatedly pointed out that, when the base year was changed, the government should follow the healthy international practice and revise the numbers for the previous years. We had demanded that the back series data of GVA and GDP should be calculated and released so that meaningful comparisons can be made.

“The back series data as released by National Statistical Commission (NSC) in August 2018 is available in public domain. The numbers prove the dictum that truth cannot be suppressed,” Surjewala said.

The Congress Spokesperson said that UPA 1 and UPA 2 delivered the highest decadal growth (8.13 per cent at factor cost) since Independence.

It is also a matter of record that during this period 140 million people were lifted out of poverty, he said, adding the three best years were 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08.

“Arvind Subramanian called them the “boom years”. That golden run would have continued but for the international financial crisis that hit the world in September 2008.”

He said when the UPA demitted office, economic growth had recovered to 6.39 per cent (at market prices) in 2013-14. “Besides, the fiscal deficit had been reduced to 4.48 per cent and the current account deficit had been contained at 1.7per cent.”

Surjewala accused that the revised ‘new series’ computed on Wednesday by the Ministry of Statistics and Niti Aayog has completely undermined the National Statistical Commission, the autonomous body for deciding data transparently and in accordance with global standards of calculating GDP as per market price linked methodology.

“Today, Modi government deceived the country by surreptitiously changing the methodology in order to manipulate GDP data. This is called ‘excel sheet management’ for example deciding the result first and filling the marks later. The new methodology is GVA based, which does not take into account tax, subsidies and consequently is extremely flawed to sub serve the myopic interests of the ruling government,” he said.

IANS

The ruling AIADMK government came under opposition flak on Wednesday over the manner in which it closed down the Sterlite Copper smelter plant in Tuticorin as a three-member committee appointed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) said the closure is unjustified.

In a tweet, DMK President M.K. Stalin said it is a shame for the Tamil Nadu government that the Tarun Aggarwal committee has recommended reopening of the Sterlite Copper smelter plant with certain conditions.

“Knowing that such a thing would happen, I had insisted that the decision to close down the plant should be taken in the cabinet meeting,” Stalin said.

He said the AIADMK government should at least fight the case legally in a proper manner.

PMK founder S. Ramadoss said the committee’s decision was an expected one.

Ramadoss said the smelter plant reopening on New Year 2019 is a certainty and the rulers have cheated the people.

The Tamil Nadu State Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) R. Mutharasan said the state government should shed its supportive stand to the copper smelter plant and take action for permanent closure of the plant.

The NGT had appointed a committee headed by former Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court Tarun Aggarwal to probe the closure of the copper smelter plant.

Tamil Nadu had ordered the closure of the Tuticorin plant, around 650 km from Chennai, following protests and the death of 13 persons in police firing on May 22.

The locals alleged the plant caused pollution and affected their health.

In October, the Tamil Nadu government rejected a Central government-sponsored report on the groundwater contamination in Tuticorin, saying it “prejudices” the state government cases in various courts against the Sterlite copper smelter plant of Vedanta Ltd.

The study said Sterlite Copper can’t be said to be the only cause of pollution.

Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan, in a letter to the Central government in October, had said the groundwater report appears to support Sterlite and “is absolutely vague and without any support of empirical data”.

“It does not appear to be made on any scientific basis and it is not known how the two scientists who have submitted the report have made such a vague and an unsubstantiated statement in the report,” Vaidyanathan said.

 India on Thursday put into orbit its own Hyper Spectral Imaging Satellite (HysIS) — an earth observation satellite — and 30 other foreign satellites in text-book style.
In the process, India has crossed the milestone of lifting and putting into orbit over 250 foreign satellites. India has till date has put into orbit 269 foreign satellites.

The notable aspect of the rocket mission is the placing of the satellites in two different orbits — one at a higher altitude and the others in a lower altitude.

After the successful launch, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K. Sivan said: “Once again Indian space scientists showed their excellence. The PSLV injected the HysIS first and later the 30 foreign customers satellites.

“The HysIS is a state-of-the-art satellite. The heart of the satellite, the optical imaging chip was designed and fabricated by ISRO.

Sivan also said that the next launch will be of communication satellite GSAT-11 from French Guiana on December 5 which will followed by GSAT-7A by the Indian rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) from here.

At 9.58 a.m., the four staged/engine PSLV-CA rocket, standing 44.4 metres tall and weighing about 230 tonnes, blasted off from the first launch pad.

With the fierce orange flame at its tail, the rocket slowly gained speed and went up enthralling the people at the rocket port while the rocket’s engine noise like a rolling thunder adding to the thrill.

More thrilling aspect came in when rocket’s fourth stage/engine was cut/switched off in just over 16 minutes after the lift off.

A minute later, the Indian satellite HysIS with a mission life of five years was placed in 636 km polar sun synchronous orbit.

Following that the rocket was brought to a lower altitude of 503 km.

Post HysIS ejection, the rocket’s fourth stage was restarted at 59.65 minutes after the lift off.

The primary goal of HysIS is to study the earth’s surface in visible, near infrared and shortwave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It will also be used for strategic purposes.

The co-passengers of HysIS include one micro and 29 nano satellites from eight different countries.

Later, the rocket was switched off and on twice before the final foreign passenger was put into orbit about 112.79 minutes after the rocket’s lift off.

All the foreign satellites were placed in a 504 km orbit.

While 23 satellites are from the US, the rest are from Australia, Canada, Columbia, Finland, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Spain.

These satellites have been commercially contracted for launch through Antrix Corporation Limited, the commercial arm of ISRO.

ISRO had earlier carried out a satellite mission spread over two hours in January.

IANS

A forum of researchers, architects, urban planners and lawyers on Tuesday emphasised on the importance of bringing necessary changes in India’s legislative framework to aid sustainable urbanisation and develop smart cities in the country.

The legal experts, gathered at a conference here on sustainable urban development, organised by the Heidelberg University of Germany, and Observer Research Foundation, Delhi, said changes in the law are “absolutely necessary” to make the Union government’s Smart Cities Mission effective and successful.

“The Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) Act in the country has many loopholes in questions of accountability factors which need to be fixed. The act lacks democratic character of our Constitution. Also, it lacks the mechanism for grievance redress system,” Uday Shankar of IIT-Kharagpur said during his adress on the first day of the two-day conference.

The professor, who did a comparative study of the Special Purpose Vehicle Act and the Jharkhand’s Municipal City Act of 2011, felt the municipal act should be better framed to deal with issues of urbanisation than the SPV Act of Smart Cities Mission.

Lawyers Subhadip Biswas and Ranajit Roy said there is a need for a new set of laws to take care of the post-construction period. They said laws should be framed in accordance with Article 13 of the Indian Constitution.

“Respective laws concerning issues regarding smart cities needed to be amended in accordance with the Article 13 to make implementation of smart city policies in accordance with the Smart Cities Mission,” the lawyers said.

The two day conference was co-organised by IIT Kharagpur, Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), Delhi, University of Calcutta and IGCC with support from Friedrich Naumann Stiftung.

Talking about the issues of mobility in smart cities, ORF Kolkata Director Ashok Dhar said the government should stop thinking about holistic mobility development and focus on local-level comprehensive mobility planning.

He also said lack of clarity among the policy-makers and the ministers would affect investment in the country, especially in the automobile and petroleum sectors and felt “excessive dependence on Electric Vehicles will only replace our dependence from oil to lithium, which also needs to be imported and whose prices are escalating rapidly.”

IANS

 Barely 72 hours after the Centre announced a pre-election bonanza of distributing a staggering 55,649 new petrol pumps in the country, the apex body of their dealers plan to challenge the move in court, a top office-bearer said here on Wednesday.

The All India Petrol Dealers Association (AIPDA) President Ajay Bansal said that the government’s latest move (of November 25) appeared contrary to its own policy and the dealers would question its legal validity.

“On one hand, the Centre has announced the closure of petrol pumps in India replacing them with alternative fuels by 2025. But, now they are publishing advertisements for allotting the second string of new petrol pumps. So what exactly is this policy?” Bansal said.

Presently, India has 56,000 retail petrol bunks of the three government oil marketing companies — Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), and Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), besides another 6,000 outlets owned by private companies.

From these fuel stations, the average monthly sales for the three Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) are between 120-130 lilolitre with an average increase in demand on petrol-diesel of around four per cent per annum.

 The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex advanced close to 300 points during the afternoon trade session on Wednesday, extending its third straight session of gains led by strong gains in the IT stocks.

In addition, the markets also took cues from an appreciating rupee and retreating foreign fund inflow as India’s macro-economic conditions improved largely owing to declining crude oil prices.

However, the Brent Crude prices logged a slight increase which comes ahead of the OPEC meeting next week. The benchmark crude price traded at $61 a barrel.

The local currency strengthened to Rs 70.66 against a US dollar from its previous close of 70.76.

IT stocks led the gains on Sensex as it rose over 3 per cent, followed by Teck (technology, entertainment and media).

In contrast, healthcare, oil and gas stocks witnessed selling pressure.

At 12.53 p.m., the Sensex traded 290.40 points higher at 35,803.54 from its previous close of 35,513.14. The benchmark index touched a high of 35,822.16 and a low of 35,605.34 while the NSE’s Nifty50 traded 66.30 points higher at 10,751.90.

On Tuesday, provisional data with the exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors bought stocks worth Rs 811.52 crore.

IANS

Bureaucrat Ranbir Singh has been appointed as the new Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi, officials said Tuesday.

Singh, a 1991-batch IAS officer, succeeds Vijay Kumar Dev.

“Ranbir Singh, who earlier also served as the commissioner of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, has been appointed the new CEO for Delhi,” a senior official of the Delhi CEO office said.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had last Thursday issued the order appointing the 1987-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territory) cadre.

Dev will succeed Anshu Prakash following his transfer to the department of telecommunications in the central government.

PTI