Newspaper Must Read Articles of The Day – 02 August 2015

Centre to counter terror dogmas: The government will rope in “moderate Muslims” and “learned people” from the Muslim community and give them a presence in cyberspace, to give counsel to vulnerable Muslim youth. This is aimed as a counter-radicalisation to the jihadist Islamist State doctrines, which have managed to wean away even educated Muslims worldwide. And, the govt is stepping up cyberspace patrolling, where most IS members get radicalised.

A peek into Arab medicine: All of the medical works of Abu Bakr Al Razi, a tenth century Arabic scholar on medicine, will soon be translated into English and converted to e-books in Hyderabad. These works run into 24 volumes and are named Kutabu’l Hawi Fi’t-Tibb. (Pretty important from the Art and Culture angle).

Rocket court back in focus: A courtyard identified as Tipu Sultan’s rocket launching pad in the Srirangapatna Fort looks set to be the new focus of conservation efforts of the Archaeology Department. (Again, important from Art and Culture angle. Just write this down as a point somewhere).

Diplomacy after Dinanagar: We must be canny enough while engaging with Pakistan, and not become isolated protesting again and again about the terrorism it sponsors, because the big powers all need Pakistan in dealing with Afghanistan and are not really going to condone Pakistan on the world stage.

Differences over offset clause delay Rafale deal: The offset clause applies for deals estimated at over Rs. 300 crore, and companies have to invest 30 per cent of the value of the contract back in India. But for the MMRCA deal, the government had fixed it at 50 per cent. France has not taken kindly to this, and insists that the offset clause would raise the cost and delay deliveries.

New Taliban leader calls for unity in public message: The new Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, has appealed for unity in the insurgency in his first public message. He has sworn to continue to fight for rule under ‘Sharia’ and to follow the vision of his predecessor Mullah Omar. He also cautioned against the killing of civilians. (Mansour’s selection could be a promising development for peace talks, because he is not a hardcore jihadist, and can possibly persuade other factions of the Taliban to support him).

Myanmar declares national emergency: Deadly monsoon rains have displaced tens of thousands of people, flooded swathes of rice paddy and prompted fears of dams collapsing in Myanmar. The President has declared a National Emergency.

India aiming to be among top 30 in ‘ease of doing biz’: The Minister of State for Finance has said that the government is taking various initiatives, including e-biz portals, Goods and Services Tax, mobile platforms for setting up businesses etc, and is working with states to improve the ease of doing business. (India was ranked at the 142nd position among 189 nations in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report of 2015).

FICCI moots measures to boost textile sector: FICCI has asked for an increase in allocation of funds to the textile industry under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS), and to again make interest subvention available to exporters. It has also asked that the new National Textiles Policy be announced as soon as possible.

Opinion divided on interest rate cut: The RBI is scheduled to come out with its third bi-monthly monetary policy review in a few days, and it looks like there will be a cut in rates because both investments and inflation have drastically reduced, and need to be sent up again. Plus, the impending hike in US rates could lead to even further investments flowing out of India to over there.

Lenders yet to find comfort in special debt revamp scheme: The RBI had recently circulated a Strategic Debt Restructuring Scheme in light of the huge Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) that banks have on their payroll. It had wanted to change the general principle of loan recast to such that shareholders bear the first loss rather than the debt holders in case of NPAs.

Comments