05 November 2014
National:
Japanese honour for Manmohan
Japan will bestow its
highest imperial honour on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Tokyo in recognition
of his efforts at bettering ties between the two nations. The Grand Cordon of
the Order of the Paulownia Flowers will be conferred on Dr. Singh. Dr. Singh
had been selected in particular for his work as Prime Minister in building the
India-Japan strategic and global partnership signed in 2009, which became the
“mainstay of bilateral ties.”
Cabinet clears dissolution of Delhi Assembly
Ending eight months of
political uncertainty, the Union Cabinet has recommended dissolution of the
Delhi Assembly, paving the way for fresh elections in the capital. Delhi has
been under President’s rule since February 2014. The Cabinet meeting, chaired
by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave its nod to Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung’s
recommendation to dissolve the 70-member House. In his report to President Pranab
Mukherjee, the L-G is reported to have mentioned that all three major parties —
the BJP, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party — had expressed their inability
to form the government because of lack of numbers.
Harappan drawings found near Hampi
Pictographs of the Sindu
(Harappan) culture have been discovered on rocks at the world famous Hampi. As
many as 20 drawings were found on a boulder on top of a hill near Talwarghatta,
adjacent to river Tungabhadra. Experts in Gondi script, including Dr. Moti
Ravan Kangale and Sri Prakash Salame of Nagpur, have identified them as Sindu
(Harappan) culture-based script in Gondi dialect. Dr. Kangale identified as
many as five of the 20 pictographs of Gondi dialect – aalin (man), sary
(road/way), nel (paddy), sukkum (star/dot), nooru (headman). His observations
strengthen the belief that Gond culture has been transmitted to the Tungabhadra
basin.
International:
Nikki Haley wins second term as South Carolina
governor
Scoring the first win
for Indian-Americans in the US midterm elections, South Carolina's Republican governor
Nikki Haley handily beat Democratic state Senator Vincent Sheheen to win a
second term. Born Nimrata 'Nikki' Randhawa, the 42-year-old daughter of Sikh
immigrants from India became the first minority and first female governor of
the state four years ago. Haley was declared the winner based on projections
from exit poll data that suggests the Republican will win by a wider margin
than 2010, when just 4.5 percentage points separated her from Sheheen.
Fabiola Gianotti to be Cern's first woman director
general
For the first time ever,
a woman will lead the world's leading laboratory for particle physics Cern —
the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Cern council selected Italian
physicist Dr Fabiola Gianotti as its next director-general and the first woman
in its history to head the organization that sent ripples across the world by
discovering the "God particle". The appointment will be formalized at
the December session of the Council. Dr Gianotti will take over her new role
from January 1, 2016 and run for a period of five years. Dr Gianotti was the
leader of the ATLAS experiment from March 2009 to February 2013, covering the
period in which the LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS announced the long-awaited discovery
of the Higgs Boson, recognised by the award of the Nobel Prize to Francois
Englert and Peter
Higgs in 2013.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Scientists find mechanism for spontaneous HIV cure
As many as 1,482 French
scientists has unveiled the genetic mechanism by which they believe two men were
spontaneously cured of HIV, and said the discovery may offer a new strategy in
the fight against AIDS. In both asymptomatic men, the AIDS-causing virus was
inactivated due to an altered HIV gene coding integrated into human cells, they
wrote in the journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection. This, in turn, was
likely due to stimulation of an enzyme that may in future be targeted for drug
treatment to induce the same response. This finding represents an avenue for a
cure," study co-author Didier Raoult of the French Institute of Health and
Medical Research (Inserm) told. Neither of the men, one diagnosed HIV positive
30 years ago and the other in 2011, have ever been ill, and the AIDS-causing
virus cannot be detected with routine tests of their blood. In both, the virus
was unable to replicate due to DNA coding changes that the researchers proposed
were the result of a spontaneous evolution between humans and
the virus that is called
"endogenisation".
Business & Economy:
NCAER pegs down growth forecast to 5%
In its mid-year review
of the economy, the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) lowered
its 2014-15 growth forecast for India to 5 per cent. In July, the think tank
had forecast 5.7 per cent growth. The lower projection is despite the 5.7 per
cent growth in the first quarter after two successive years of sub-5 per cent
growth. The NCAER’s projection is in line with the RBI’s forecast.
Sports:
Manavaditya Rathore shoots gold at Asian
Championships
Manavaditya Rathore, son
of Olympic silver medallist Rajyavardhan Rathore, has clinched the gold medal in
junior men’s trap at the 4th Asian Shotgun Championships. Rathore shot 114 out
of 125 to win the junior trap event in a shoot-off. Other members of the junior
trap squad Sharan Susheel and Kismat Chopra shot 113 and 105 respectively.
