1400 HRS

8th February, 2013

THE HEADLINE:

• Supreme Court to examine alleged non-implementation of its guidelines on strikes and dharnas by political parties and others.

• Election Commission replaces Meghalaya Police Chief following a complaint from the State Chief Electoral Officer.

• India is developing a long-range nuclear-capable Agni-VI ballistic missile, capable of carrying multiple warheads, says DRDO Chief.

• In Bangladesh, a launch capsizes with more than fifty passengers in Munshiganj district; Over 25 feared drowned.

• Sensex flat in afternoon trade; Rupee down 29 paise to 53.51 per dollar.

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The Supreme Court today decided to examine alleged non-implementation and non-compliance of its guidelines on the issue of strikes and dharnas by political parties and others. The strikes and dharnas, in many cases, resulted in destruction of public and private property. A Bench comprising Justices P Sathasivam and J S Khehar issued notices to the Centre and all State Governments and sought their responses on the allegation that the apex court guidelines issued in this regard in 2007 and 2009, have not been implemented. 

The Bench granted them eight weeks time to respond. It also directed them to file status reports explaining the steps taken to implement the Court's guidelines and to prevent destruction of public and private property during the bandhs. The Court passed the direction on a PIL filed by an advocate who gave instances of such bandhs by political parties in Kerala.

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The Election Commission of India has removed the Meghalaya Police Chief, Kulbir Krishan, following a complaint from the state Chief Electoral Officer. The State goes to polls on the 23rd of this month. Mr. Krishan has been replaced by Mr. Prem Singh, a 1977 batch IPS officer of Assam-Meghalaya cadre. The Commission decided to change Meghalaya Director General of Police at a meeting chaired by Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath and attended by Election Commissioners H S Brahma and Nasim Zaidi. Mr. Krishan has now been appointed as Director General of Prisons, with additional charge of civil defence and home-guards.

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Government today said that to achieve the desired growth rate of 4 per cent in agriculture, there is a need to pay attention to all vital links in the value chain including seed. Addressing the Indian Seed Congress in New Delhi today, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said, seed is the critical initial input for agriculture. He asserted that the public and private sectors have to partner the process of change equally by bringing in better products and supplement transfer efforts of government. On New Seed Bill, Mr. Pawar expressed hope that the Bill will come up for discussion in the upcoming Budget session. 

He said, the Bill will resolve a lot of issued faced by the industry. The Agriculture Minister said that country's foodgrain production is estimated to have crossed 250 million tonnes in 2012-13 crop year despite drought in some districts of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and parts of Karnataka. 260 million tonne foodgrains were produced last year. He said, this year's production is sufficient to meet the domestic demand. He added that the country needs to reduce import dependence on pulses and edible oil.

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Bhutan Prime Minister Jigme Y Thinley, who is on a three-day visit to India, met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in New Delhi today. Various bilateral and regional issues were discussed during the meeting. Earlier today, Thinley called on President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan and also met Finance Minister P Chidambaram. Mr Thinley met Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai on his arrival in New Delhi yesterday. The visiting dignitary is accompanied by Minister in-charge of Foreign Affairs Lynopo Khandu Wangchuk, Foreign Secretary Yeshey Dorji and other government officials of Bhutan.

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Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is on a two-day personal visit to India during which he will offer prayers at Bodh Gaya and Tirupathi but will not engage with Indian leaders. Sri Lanka's High Commissioner in India, Prasad Kariyawasam said, despite the private nature of the visit, the Indian authorities have extended full security cooperation for the Sri Lankan President's visit. Some groups in Chennai have been opposing the Rajapaksa visit and had urged the Indian government to cancel it.

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In Tripura, the election Process is gearing up in the state with 5 more days to go for the polls. The campaigning will end on the 12th as the state goes to poll on the 14th of this month.

" Election process is gearing up in the state with five more days to go for the poll. The campaigning is at its peak with parties taking all possible means of communication to go to the maximum voters before the Election Day. CEO Tripura , Asutosh Jindal informed that any polling staff, be it polling officials or Security forces, will be paid a one time grant for any mishaps on duty during the polling process in Tripura. Jindal said in case of normal death the victim family would get Rupees 5 Lakh and in case of death in extremist related incident the victim family would get Rupees 10 Lakh. The scheme will cover nearly 50000 thousand employees on polling duty in Tripura. SUDIPTA KAR, AIR NEWS, AGARTALA."

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Door-to-door campaigning for votes is going on in full swing in Nagaland besides public meetings and rallies by political parties to woo voters across the state for February 23rd assembly elections. Congress President Sonia Gandhi has already kicked off election campaign formally with two rallies, one in Dimapur and one in Mokokchung yesterday. 

The ruling NPF also attacked the Congress and claimed that star campaigners of Congress would not have any impact on the result of the assembly election. Other political parties, like, BJP, NCP JD (U), UNDP also began poll campaign in some pockets of the state, from where candidates of these parties filed nomination. Meanwhile, the election commission has found all 232 nominations,valid. The last date for withdrawal of nomination is , Saturday.

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For news updates, follow us on Twitter @ airnewsalerts. You can also visit our facebook page All India Radio News for more news and events.

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India today said, it is developing a long-range nuclear-capable Agni-VI ballistic missile that will carry multiple warheads allowing one weapon system to take out several targets at a time. DRDO Chief V K Saraswat said in Bangalore that Agni-V is major strategic defence weapon and Agni-VI would be a force multiplier.

Refusing to divulge the range of the new under- development missile, he said, the force multiplier capability of the missile would be because of its Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle, MIRV capability. The Agni-V ballistic missile, which was test-fired in April last year, has a range of up to 5,500 kilometers and it is believed that the Agni-VI would have a range longer than its predecessor. 

He further said that work is on in the hardware realisation phase. DRDO officials said once the Agni-VI is developed, it would propel India into the elite club of nations with such a capability including the US and Russia. The DRDO is also working towards developing a cruise missile defence programme which would enable the armed forces to defend against low-flying cruise missiles and enemy aircraft.

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Weaponised Advanced Light Helicopter ‘Rudra’ was handed over to the Army at Aero India show in Bangalore today. Rudra’ got the Initial Operational Clearance from the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification on third of this month. The indigenously developed combat helicopter has warheads of multiple varieties. The anti-tank guided missile Helina will become part of its inventory in the coming days. The avionics assists the pilot in missile, radar and laser tracking, thus enhancing his situational awareness considerably.

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In Bangladesh, a launch has capsized in the Meghna River near Gozaria upzila of Munshiganj district, today morning. Deputy Commissioner of Munshiganj Mohammad Saiful Hasan Badal told All India Radio Correspondent in Dhaka that the accident occurred around 8 am in the morning when the Chandpur-bound launch from Narayanganj, sank after collision with a sand laden cargo bulkhead vessel. Mr. Badal added that according to local police officials, more than fifty passengers were travelling in the launch at the time of the accident, out of which around twenty five passengers managed to reach the shores safely. 

He added that Rescue vessel MV Rustam has reached the accident site to aid in the rescue operations and there have been no reports of any casualties so far. However according to some reports, around 100 passengers were reportedly travelling on the launch when it capsized and the fate of the missing persons will be clear only after the launch is salvaged.

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The north-east US coast is braced for a big snow-storm that has already caused hundreds of flight cancellations. The storm is set to cause power cuts and transport chaos as it arrives from the Great Lakes and brings blizzards to parts of New England today. It is expected to peak tomorrow morning, east of Cape Cod. Schools have already been closed in Boston, where sustained strong winds are set to cause heavy snowfall. The National Weather Service said, the combination of two weather systems from the polar and subtropical jet streams will produce a potential historic storm. Airlines have already cancelled hundreds of flights across the region.

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In Rajasthan, about six lakh people of Bharatpur and 292 villages in the district, will get clean and safe drinking water. Our Correspondent reports that Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot today inaugurated the ambitious Chambal-Dholpur-Bharatpur drinking water project at Bharatpur.

"A water treatment plant of 112 million liter per day capacity and many pump houses are constructed under the project. The state Government has spent 548 Crore 69 lakh Rupees on this ambitious project. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said that the project will end the problem of hard water from Bharatpur. Today, the Chief Minister also laid the foundation stone of a drinking water project for providing drinking water to Deeg, Kumher, Nagar, Kaman and Pahadi Tehsils of Bharatpur district. It will cost 311 Crore 49 lakh Rupees and provide drinking water to 755 villages of this area. ANURAG VAJPEYI, AIR NEWS, JAIPUR."

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Information and Broadcasting Ministry will hold the first ever live Twitter conference to reach out to the youth and make the public aware of the policies of the government. The topic for the conference to be held between 4 and 4.30pm is Community Radio: Road travelled and way forward. The live conference will give people a vital opportunity to interact with senior Ministry officials directly. Twitter users can directly tweet their questions to the I&B Ministry on its twitter handle @MIB India or by using the hash ComRadio.

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As cellphone operators continued disconnecting inactive SIM cards, India's total telecom subscriber base declined by 25.97 million to 895.51 million in December. In November, the country had 921.47 million telecom subscribers. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Trai said that total wireless subscriber base decreased from 890.60 million in November 2012 to 864.72 million at the end of December 2012. Trai said, this decline is majorly due to large scale disconnections of inactive SIMs by some of the service providers. With this, the overall teledensity in India decreased to 73.34 per cent at the end of December, 2012 from 75.55 per cent in the previous month.

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The approach radar at Indira Gandhi International, IGI Airport’s Air Traffic Control today failed, affecting several flights. Passengers also got stranded inside aircraft . A Delhi airport spokesperson said that the radar failed at about 12.35 this afternoon. Since there is no stand-by equipment available, the entire radar system goes in to the stand-by mode and has to be rebooted.

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IN BUSINESS NEWS;

Surrendering all its initial gains, the Sensex at the Bombay Stock Exchange stood 3 points in negative territory, at 19,577, in volatile afternoon trade, a short while ago. Earlier in the morning, however, the Sensex had opened with a gain of 52 points, or 0.3 per cent, at 19,632, on fresh buying by funds and retail investors. The Sensex had lost 425 points in the past six trading sessions.

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The rupee continued to slide against US dollar this morning, down 29 paise at 53.51 on persistent demand for the American currency from banks and exporters as it gained in the overseas forex markets as well. It dropped further to a low of 53.58, before quoting at 53.51 per dollar at 1040 hrs. The rupee moved in the 53.42 and 53.58 per dollar range during the morning deals.