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After cracking down on drug trafficking being conducted through the darknet recently, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is set to freeze about 500 bitcoins in the accounts of traffickers, the first ever seizure of the virtual, unregulated currency in a criminal probe in the country.
The central agency, the nodal department to combat drug trafficking and liaise with multiple narcotics control and enforcement agencies, has interdicted and begun investigation against three syndicates in the country till now, and in one case detected in western India, it is moving to seize bitcoins.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that allows consumers to make electronic transactions by skipping the legal banking channels.
You cannot point to a physical object, or even a digital file, and say “this is a bitcoin”. Instead, there are only records of transactions between different addresses, with balances that increase and decrease. Every transaction that ever took place is stored in a vast public ledger called the block chain.
The movie “Manjunath” revolves around the life and work of Mr. Shanmugam, a 27-year-old marketing manager of Indian Oil, South Asia’s largest fuel retailer who worked in Lakhimpur Kheri, a small town 82 miles north of UP’s capital city Lucknow where he took on a local gas pump owner for selling adulterated gasoline. Mr. Shanmugam refused to accept bribes instead threatening to expose the gangs that run the gasoline business. He was shot dead in a busy market on Nov. 19, 2005 by the gas pump owner accompanied by a band of men. The killers were sentenced to life in prison.
Satyendra Dubey - lived up to his name's meaning (lord of truth)
Satyendra Dubey was an Indian Engineering Service (IES) officer who had to pay with his life for exposing the corruption involved in the Golden Quadrilateral highway construction project. He discovered blatant inconsistencies in the building of the Aurangabad-Barachatti section of National Highway 2 (part of the Golden Quadrilateral project) while he was the Project Director at Koderma, Jharkhand. He wrote a letter to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was the Prime Minsiter then, revealing the rampant corruption prevailing in the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). Despite requests to keep his identity a secret, his letter was forwarded to other the transport ministry. This was followed by several threats to him. He was then transferred to Gaya, Bihar where he was found murdered by the side of a road under mysterious circumstances on 27 November, 2013.
The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was introduced in Lok Sabha on August 9, 2016 by the Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Mr. Nitin Gadkari. The Bill seeks to amend the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The Act provides for standards for motor vehicles, grant of driving licenses, and penalties for violation of these provisions
Article on "Turning India's power surplus into a boon"
Ecuador, which has invested in hydropower in the last few years, has also become power surplus. Ecuador is overcoming this situation by embarking on a programme of replacing gas stoves with electric stoves for cooking in households, thus bringing down the consumption of natural gas, which it imports. We can learn from this and encourage the use of electricity for cooking during the surplus season—for this, a special tariff may be offered, which could be lower than the comparative LPG price. This is an easy solution, as apart from the electric stove in the household, no other infrastructure will be required to implement it. Electricity could also replace imported kerosene. This will also have an impact on our overall LPG and kerosene imports, free LPG for consumption in rural areas and help faster implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana.
And like Ecuador, increasing export of power will be another way to overcome the temporary excess in our grid. Last year, when Colombia faced a power shortage because of lower generation by its hydropower plants (due to El Niño), Ecuador sold power to it. We have already made good progress in this area. In 2013, we started exporting 500 MW of power to Bangladesh, which has been augmented further by commencing export of another 100 MW from Palatana, Tripura, this year. Power exports to Nepal are set to increase following the completion of the construction of the Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar transmission line, once the transmission infrastructure on the Nepalese side is strengthened. Nepal may need more power, in the short run, which could be supplied by India. In the long run, Nepal will become a supplier of hydro-based power to India. In the case of Sri Lanka, an undersea cable will allow us to export power to them. We have made a good beginning by commencing export of 3 MW to the border towns of Myanmar, which could be scaled up by constructing a better transmission infrastructure. A pan-Asia-Pacific grid in the long run will help balance the surplus and shortages in the region.
Article on UN's 3rd Habitat conference (Habitat-III) AND "NEW URBAN AGENDA"
The UN’s Habitat conferences are held in a bi-decennial cycle, with previous editions being held in Vancouver (1976) and Istanbul (1996). While the document was adopted by representatives of national governments, its preparation lasted two years and involved discussions with various stakeholders, including local governments, civil society groups and urban scholars and practitioners.
The “New Urban Agenda”, rather ambitiously, calls for an “urban paradigm shift” to readdress the way we “plan, finance, develop, govern, and manage cities and human settlements.” It commits to a “vision of cities for all” where “all inhabitants” are able to “inhabit and produce just, safe, healthy, accessible, affordable, resilient, and sustainable cities and human settlements.” One of the sticking points in the negotiations leading up to Habitat III was regarding the inclusion of the provision on “Right to the City”, a term used to describe the collective right of “all inhabitants”, irrespective of their legal status, over the city’s resources and spaces. While there is still a reference to this phrase, it has been considerably diluted as a compromise between its supporters—Latin American countries—and its more powerful opponents: the US, European Union, Russia and India.
Maintenance of Parents is included in section 125 of Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 and also the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956.
The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and senior Citizen Act, 2007, also known as "Senior Citizens Act" explicitly states that it should be the duty of the children to maintain their parents. The Act applies to all communities. The implementation of the Act, however, remains patchy.
The elderly in India face a range of challenges that include failing health, economic insecurity, isolation, lowered self-esteem, abuse, idleness and neglect. These specific set of problems require specialized response. There is a lack of infrastructure to provide the specialized attention to the growing numbers of elderly.
Training the elderly, providing quality health care and modifying the work environment helps in increasing the productivity term of the seniors.
An experiment by leading German carmaker, BMW at its plant in Dingolfing, as described in a 2010 Harvard Business Review article, threw up some interesting results.
The company modified one of its production lines and staffed it by workers who were near or beyond retirement age. 70 small-mostly ergonomic-changes, such as adding barbershop chairs so workers can perform tasks sitting down and orthopedic shoes for comfort, were made to the "pensioner's assembly lines" as it was called.
The total investment in modifications was a paltry US $ 50,000. The changes led to an enhancement of productivity by 7%. The line thereafter has performed at par with other lines with younger workers9.
History is full of examples, where the elderly have contributed fruitfully well into their twilight years. As the American poet Longfellow wrote- "Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles Wrote his grand OEdipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than fourscore years, And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten, Had but begun his "Characters of Men." Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales, At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales; Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past."
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seizedfreezed by NCB.News:
After cracking down on drug trafficking being conducted through the darknet recently, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is set to freeze about 500 bitcoins in the accounts of traffickers, the first ever seizure of the virtual, unregulated currency in a criminal probe in the country.
The central agency, the nodal department to combat drug trafficking and liaise with multiple narcotics control and enforcement agencies, has interdicted and begun investigation against three syndicates in the country till now, and in one case detected in western India, it is moving to seize bitcoins.
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/YCMXQ9uhncmny315W7z72H/In-a-1st-Narcotics-Control-Bureau-to-seize-500-Bitcoins-use.html
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that allows consumers to make electronic transactions by skipping the legal banking channels.
You cannot point to a physical object, or even a digital file, and say “this is a bitcoin”. Instead, there are only records of transactions between different addresses, with balances that increase and decrease. Every transaction that ever took place is stored in a vast public ledger called the block chain.
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/05/09/manjunath-died-for-the-wrong-reasons/
The movie “Manjunath” revolves around the life and work of Mr. Shanmugam, a 27-year-old marketing manager of Indian Oil, South Asia’s largest fuel retailer who worked in Lakhimpur Kheri, a small town 82 miles north of UP’s capital city Lucknow where he took on a local gas pump owner for selling adulterated gasoline. Mr. Shanmugam refused to accept bribes instead threatening to expose the gangs that run the gasoline business. He was shot dead in a busy market on Nov. 19, 2005 by the gas pump owner accompanied by a band of men. The killers were sentenced to life in prison.
Satyendra Dubey - lived up to his name's meaning (lord of truth)
Satyendra Dubey was an Indian Engineering Service (IES) officer who had to pay with his life for exposing the corruption involved in the Golden Quadrilateral highway construction project. He discovered blatant inconsistencies in the building of the Aurangabad-Barachatti section of National Highway 2 (part of the Golden Quadrilateral project) while he was the Project Director at Koderma, Jharkhand. He wrote a letter to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was the Prime Minsiter then, revealing the rampant corruption prevailing in the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). Despite requests to keep his identity a secret, his letter was forwarded to other the transport ministry. This was followed by several threats to him. He was then transferred to Gaya, Bihar where he was found murdered by the side of a road under mysterious circumstances on 27 November, 2013.
https://www.scoopwhoop.com/inothernews/whistleblower-satyendra-dubey-murder/#.k0jmvvr52
The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was introduced in Lok Sabha on August 9, 2016 by the Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Mr. Nitin Gadkari. The Bill seeks to amend the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The Act provides for standards for motor vehicles, grant of driving licenses, and penalties for violation of these provisions
Ecuador, which has invested in hydropower in the last few years, has also become power surplus. Ecuador is overcoming this situation by embarking on a programme of replacing gas stoves with electric stoves for cooking in households, thus bringing down the consumption of natural gas, which it imports. We can learn from this and encourage the use of electricity for cooking during the surplus season—for this, a special tariff may be offered, which could be lower than the comparative LPG price. This is an easy solution, as apart from the electric stove in the household, no other infrastructure will be required to implement it. Electricity could also replace imported kerosene. This will also have an impact on our overall LPG and kerosene imports, free LPG for consumption in rural areas and help faster implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana.
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/gMHzq8PehmA7Hwh6wsgsaN/Turning-Indias-power-surplus-into-a-boon.html
And like Ecuador, increasing export of power will be another way to overcome the temporary excess in our grid. Last year, when Colombia faced a power shortage because of lower generation by its hydropower plants (due to El Niño), Ecuador sold power to it. We have already made good progress in this area. In 2013, we started exporting 500 MW of power to Bangladesh, which has been augmented further by commencing export of another 100 MW from Palatana, Tripura, this year. Power exports to Nepal are set to increase following the completion of the construction of the Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar transmission line, once the transmission infrastructure on the Nepalese side is strengthened. Nepal may need more power, in the short run, which could be supplied by India. In the long run, Nepal will become a supplier of hydro-based power to India. In the case of Sri Lanka, an undersea cable will allow us to export power to them. We have made a good beginning by commencing export of 3 MW to the border towns of Myanmar, which could be scaled up by constructing a better transmission infrastructure. A pan-Asia-Pacific grid in the long run will help balance the surplus and shortages in the region.
The UN’s Habitat conferences are held in a bi-decennial cycle, with previous editions being held in Vancouver (1976) and Istanbul (1996). While the document was adopted by representatives of national governments, its preparation lasted two years and involved discussions with various stakeholders, including local governments, civil society groups and urban scholars and practitioners.
The “New Urban Agenda”, rather ambitiously, calls for an “urban paradigm shift” to readdress the way we “plan, finance, develop, govern, and manage cities and human settlements.” It commits to a “vision of cities for all” where “all inhabitants” are able to “inhabit and produce just, safe, healthy, accessible, affordable, resilient, and sustainable cities and human settlements.” One of the sticking points in the negotiations leading up to Habitat III was regarding the inclusion of the provision on “Right to the City”, a term used to describe the collective right of “all inhabitants”, irrespective of their legal status, over the city’s resources and spaces. While there is still a reference to this phrase, it has been considerably diluted as a compromise between its supporters—Latin American countries—and its more powerful opponents: the US, European Union, Russia and India.
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/6HlHi5nTPDPyIF0lxZNSoK/The-relevance-of-the-New-Urban-Agenda.html
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/fNh8si5aKqkg9RYj199RcP/Supreme-Court-and-gender-justice.html
ITBP has a total of 1,661 women personnel in its various ranks and branches of work with the maximum number of 1,033 being in the constabulary ranks
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/C6Y7DcOukXgbgr7TKaX1DK/ITBP-deploy-women-personnel-at-China-border-for-first-time.html
Maintenance of Parents is included in section 125 of Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 and also the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956.
The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and senior Citizen Act, 2007, also known as "Senior Citizens Act" explicitly states that it should be the duty of the children to maintain their parents. The Act applies to all communities. The implementation of the Act, however, remains patchy.
The elderly in India face a range of challenges that include failing health, economic insecurity, isolation, lowered self-esteem, abuse, idleness and neglect. These specific set of problems require specialized response. There is a lack of infrastructure to provide the specialized attention to the growing numbers of elderly.
http://vicepresidentofindia.nic.in/speechesinterviews/address-shri-m-hamid-ansari-honourable-vice-president-india-help-age-event-new
Training the elderly, providing quality health care and modifying the work environment helps in increasing the productivity term of the seniors.
An experiment by leading German carmaker, BMW at its plant in Dingolfing, as described in a 2010 Harvard Business Review article, threw up some interesting results.
The company modified one of its production lines and staffed it by workers who were near or beyond retirement age. 70 small-mostly ergonomic-changes, such as adding barbershop chairs so workers can perform tasks sitting down and orthopedic shoes for comfort, were made to the "pensioner's assembly lines" as it was called.
The total investment in modifications was a paltry US $ 50,000. The changes led to an enhancement of productivity by 7%. The line thereafter has performed at par with other lines with younger workers9.
History is full of examples, where the elderly have contributed fruitfully well into their twilight years. As the American poet Longfellow wrote- "Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles Wrote his grand OEdipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than fourscore years, And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten, Had but begun his "Characters of Men." Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales, At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales; Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past."