General Studies, Current Affairs & GK-  November 2009

• State trying to convince people the waste is not toxic
  
• The factory was closed in 1984 after the world's biggest industrial disaster killed thousands and injured many more. The official figure for the total number of dead and injured due to the leak of toxic gases from the pesticides plant stands at 574,367.
  
• December 2-3 to mark the 25th year of the tragedy.
  
• The DRDO [Defence Research and Development Organisation] and the NEERI [National Environmental Engineering Research Institute] have declared that the waste is not dangerous to mammals or harmful for the people who visit the place.
  

• Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been chosen for the prestigious Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development this year.
  
• Ms. Hasina was chosen for her "outstanding contribution to the promotion of democracy and pluralism, her determined drive to alleviate poverty and secure social and economic justice for her people through inclusive and sustainable development, and her consistent commitment to peace.
  

• The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a Rs.7,277-crore Drought Mitigation Special Package for the integrated development of the drought-hit Bundelkhand region in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh from 2009 to 2010.
  
• The package covers seven districts of Uttar Pradesh (Banda, Chitrakoot, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalipur and Mahoba) and six districts of Madhya Pradesh (Chhatarpur, Damoh, Datia, Panna, Sagar and Tikamgarh).
  
• Under the package, the main strategy will be optimisation of water resources through rainwater harvesting and proper utilisation of the river systems. Intensive and diversified agriculture will be promoted for gain in productivity of crops, besides higher sown area in the kharif season. Animal husbandry and dairy activities will be expanded as an ancillary activity to enhance farmers' income.
  
• The plans proposed under the package are estimated to cost Rs.7,266 crore over three years. Part of the cost will be met by way of converging resources from the ongoing Central government programmes and schemes.
  

• Honeybee Silk Corporation, a Coimbatore-based sericulture company, will soon launch contract farming for mulberry cultivation and cocoon rearing, bringing into its fold 800 farmers in the State to produce about 900 tonnes of cocoon annually.
  

• A month before the heads of state meeting in Copenhagen on climate change, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday that India was willing to be isolated but would not accept legally binding emission cuts. In the same breath, he said domestically India would have to be relentless and ruthless in moving on a low-carbon trajectory to minimise the effects of climate change on the country.
  
• He made this assertion while releasing the 'State of World Population 2009' report of the United Nations Population Fund.
  
• Questioning the move to brand population as the culprit for greenhouse gas emissions, a linkage reiterated in the report, Mr. Ramesh said evidence was to the contrary.
  
• Flagging China as a case in point, he said that despite a negative population growth rate between 1985 and 2005, emissions went up by 43 per cent. "It's not so much a population issue but one of lifestyle and consumption patterns."
  

• Egypt is going all out to promote renewable energy and is striving to attract Indian investment.
  
• Egyptian Minister for Electricity and Energy Hassan Younes, who visited a couple of wind energy facilities in and around Chennai on Wednesday, told that his government was providing a host of concessions to private investors: land would be given free and there would be government guarantee for energy purchase.
  
• "At present, customs [duty] is 2 per cent. We are considering making it zero per cent for renewable energy equipment."
  

• The Cabinet on gave its approval for the re-inclusion of cotton seed as an essential commodity for six months under the Essential Commodities Act (ECA) 1955, by amending the Schedule to the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, or till the Seed Bill was passed by the Parliament, whichever move comes earlier.
  
• With this, the Government would be empowered to regulate the production, quality, distribution, etc., of cotton seed and to curb the sale and spread of spurious cotton seed.
  
• Quality, production and distribution would be subject to regulation under the Seed Control Order, 1983, thereby ensuring the quality of seed, particularly private hybrids of cotton/Bt.cotton seeds, and increasing productivity and production.
  
• Cotton seed was deleted from the list of essential commodities when the ECA was amended in 2007.
  

• Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the Centre should constitute an identification commission for proper survey of BPL families in the State.
  
• Speaking at the Bihar Poverty Alleviation Summit organized by the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Kumar said that while official figures suggested that 41 per cent of Bihar's population lived below poverty line, the actual number of BPL families was around 60 per cent.
  
• Mr. Kumar stated that there was discrepancy between the Central survey, which pegged the number of BPL families in the State at 65 lakhs and the State survey, which said that the number was more than 1 crore.
  
• Special package, vs special category recognition -Dr. Ahluwalia said that this would be considered only after a mid-term appraisal of the State's performance, adding that this decision was "not in the hands of the Planning Commission, and that only the National Development Council had the authority to grant such a status."
  

• The Panchayati Raj Institutions that have attained full sanitation are awarded the prestigious Nirmal Gram Puraskar every year.
  
• President Pratibha Patil gave away the Nirmal Gram Puraskar 2009 to districts and Block Panchayats from Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal for achieving total sanitation in their respective areas at a function in New Delhi.
  

• A day after asking the United States to use its influence on India for the resumption of the stalled composite dialogue process, Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said not holding talks could only benefit "common enemies."
  
• Dialogue was the only way forward and, he said, the international community also wanted India and Pakistan to resume talks.
  
• The whole world has acknowledged Pakistan's strategic location and its vital role as front line ally in fight against terrorism. The international community also believes that non-resumption of dialogue will only benefit terrorists who are our common enemy.
  

• The three pots from Harappa with volumetric inscriptions on them. Calculations indicate that the Indus volumetric system is based on multiples of 9.24 litres.
  
• A reconstruction of broken bangles from the Moneer area of Mohenjo-Daro. The number of reconstructed bangles (17) matches the number from the sealing text on the pot that had the broken bangles inside.
  
• According to Bryan Wells, who has been researching the Indus script for more than 20 years. his Ph.D. from Harvard University for his thesis on "The Epigraphic Approaches to Indus Writing." It is to be published as a book in 2010.
  
• Dr. Wells agreed with another Indus scholar Steve Bonta's (Pennsylvania State University) theory that the "fish" sign in the script stood for weights.
  
• Indus fish signs-According to Dr. Bonta, the fish sign occurred frequently with numbers in the script and in clusters too. He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the weight systems of Dilmun (Bahrain) as "minus." The system of weights from Dilmun was exactly the same as that of the Indus system. Dr. Bonta, who speaks Tamil, realised that "min" in Tamil meant fish. "So our theory is that the term "minus" is derived from the Indus and that the fish are weights,"
  

• Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan has said exploration of Mars will take a tangible shape by 2030.
  
• He called the "next logical frontier in space" after Chandrayaan-II, which will be put in place by 2013 with robots and rovers to study the surface of the moon.
  

• Concerned over the intense lobbying for the post of Chief Information Officer (CIC), Right to Information (RTI) activists have sought the intervention of the Prime Minister in making the appointment process a transparent exercise that is also inclusive and participatory.
  
• The least that the Government ought to do, according to the letter, is fulfil its obligations under Section 4 of the RTI Act, which requires every public authority to make public the reasons for all its administrative and quasi-judicial decisions.
  
• Stating that the RTI is being slowly killed, the letter draws data from a recent survey conducted by the National RTI Awards Secretariat, which revealed that only 27 per cent of those who approached Information Commissions across the country were able to get the information they sought.
  

• Activists led by Aruna Roy submit letter containing their misgivings
  
• "RTI constrained by inadequate implementation, lack of trained staff, poor management" The Department of Personnel and Training (Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pensions) has admitted that the government is considering amendments to the Right to Information Act, 2005.
  

• First Indian labourers arrived in the British colony on November 16, 1860
  
• Organisations in both countries planning commemorative celebrations next year
  
• When a group of Indian labourers disembarked from 'S.S. Truro,' a paddle steamer from Madras (now Chennai), in the British colony of Natal in South Africa on November 16, 1860, it never thought it would become part of history.
  
• 'S.S. Belvedere' was the second ship to bring Indian workers, this time from Calcutta (Kolkata).
  
• The British were forced to import workers from India as locals refused to work on fields. Recruiting Indian workers was not difficult; they needed no passport as they hailed from British India.
  
• The indentured Indians arrived in Natal in 384 vessels — 262 from Madras and 122 from Calcutta. The last one, 'Umlazi 43,' arrived on July 21, 1911.
  
• In the early 1870s, the first 'passenger' Indians — who were not 'indentured' and were free to engage in business — came to Natal on their own to make money.
  
• When Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Natal in 1893, the Indian immigrants were divided into three groups — 'indentured' immigrants who were on contract; 'free' Indians who had completed indentureship and decided stay back in Natal instead of returning to India; and 'passenger' Indians.
  
• It has almost been a century and a half since the first Indian immigrant workers arrived at Durban. The Government of India, the High Commission of India in South Africa and various organisations in both countries are planning celebrations next year to mark the 150th year of arrival of Indians. The High Commission of India, through the Consulate-General of India in Durban, has established the '1860 Legacy Foundation' to represent different community associations in tandem with this celebration. The South African government will also be involved at the national, provincial and local levels in the funding and coordination of the event.
  
• The eighth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD), which provides an opportunity for overseas Indians to meet and exchange their views on matters of common interest, will be held in Chennai in January 2010. A special session on the 150th anniversary of Indians in South Africa will be part of the PBD.
  
• A mini-PBD to coincide with the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) Conference in Durban was also planned, along with an India-centric trade fair there and a visit of South African senior citizens to India, Mr. Shringla said.
  

• The Centre has decided to invite qualifying bids for three Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) by early 2010.
  
• The three UMPPs in Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Chhattisgarh
  
• Managing director of Power Finance Corporation (PFC)- Satnam Singh.
  
• The PFC is the nodal agency for the UMPP project, each having a generation capacity of 4,000 MW that entails an investment of around Rs.16,000 crore.
  

• Even as New Delhi has accelerated its covert engagement with the Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led All Parties Hurriyat Conference, major political parties in Jammu and Kashmir have intensified efforts to give legitimacy to their own, competing visions of the State's future.
  
• Leaders of the National Conference have made the recommendations of a State Autonomy Commission Report, which was endorsed by the Assembly in 1998, the centrepiece of their political position.
  
• The controversial report calls for the revocation of all Central legislation made applicable to the State since 1953. Among other things, the implementation of the SAC recommendations would mean Jammu and Kashmir residents would no longer enjoy the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution, the right of appeal to the Supreme Court, and the protections of the Election Commission of India and the Comptroller and Auditor-General.
  
• Chief Minister Omar Abdullah also demanded that the government push the retired Supreme Court judge Saghir Ahmad — who heads a working group set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make recommendations on the State's constitutional future — to finish his work.
  
• The Prime Minister had set up five working groups during a March 2006 all-party Round-Table Conference on Jammu and Kashmir called in Srinagar. Four of those groups submitted their reports in April 2007, when the RTC was last convened. Justice Ahmad's group, though, has not even met after a two-day session held in New Delhi on September 2 and 3, 2007