News Roundup - 21 October 2014

1. Centre recommended the promulgation of an Ordinance to acquire the land of 214 coal blocks mines whose allocations were quashed by the Supreme Court last month. It also approved a plan for e-auctioning the cancelled blocks to end-user private players of coal from the power, steel and cement sectors. Government entities, including public sector units such as NTPC and State Electricity Boards, however, will not have to go through the auction route as a pool of coal mines will be reserved for allocation to them from the cancelled blocks. The proceeds from the e-auction of coal mines will go entirely to the States where they are located — mainly in Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. In the first round of e-auction to be completed within the next three to four months, only end-users would be eligible to bid for captive mines and trading in coal would be barred. The land to be acquired back from owners of mines that stand de-allocated following the Supreme Court ruling would be valued by an independent authority under the Coal Nationalisation Act.
2. Sri Lanka will hold a snap presidential election in January, nearly two years ahead of schedule, that could send the incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa into office for a record third term.
   India China agree to establish a egular meeting mechanism between the two military headquarters of neighbouring military areas and border troops, set up new meeting posts in the border areas and have hotlines between military headquarters.
3. The Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) has found large-scale illegal mining of iron and manganese ore in the forest lands of Odisha. As per the details given by the Odisha Forest Department, 286.392 lakh MT of iron ore, valued at Rs.13,898.20 crore has been excavated from the forest land without approvals under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. Out of the above, 67.74 lakh MT was illegally excavated during the years 1985-98, 54.38 lakh MT from November 17, 2002 to February 15, 2005 and 164.27 lakh MT from August 15, 2005 to August 27, 2009.
4. Laser physicists in Australia have built a tractor beam that can repel and attract objects, using a hollow laser beam that is bright around the edges and dark in its centre, the Australian National University (ANU) announced. It is the first long-distance optical tractor beam and moved particles one-fifth of a millimetre in diameter a distance of up to 20 cm, around 100 times further than previous experiments. It could be used, for example, in controlling atmospheric pollution or for the retrieval of tiny, delicate or dangerous particles for sampling. Unlike previous techniques, which used photon momentum to impart motion, the ANU tractor beam relies on the energy of the laser heating up the particles and the air around them. The ANU team demonstrated the effect on gold-coated hollow glass particles. The particles are trapped in the dark centre of the beam. Energy from the laser hits the particle and travels across its surface, where it is absorbed creating hotspots on the surface. Air particles colliding with the hotspots heat up and shoot away from the surface, which causes the particle to recoil, in the opposite direction. To manipulate the particle, the team moves the position of the hotspot by carefully controlling the polarisation of the laser beam.
5. Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s first leader from outside the political and military elite, was sworn in President.
6. Idea Cellular of the Aditya Birla group reported 68 per cent growth in consolidated net profit at Rs.755.88 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2014, as compared to Rs.447.61 crore for the same period last year.
7. Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) reported 33 per cent growth in net profit at Rs.2,184 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2014, as compared to Rs.1,640 crore in the same period last year.
8. The government allowed private defence manufacturing firms to sell equipment to state-run entities without prior approval. However, permission would be required to sell to non-government entities. The Ministry also removed the cap on the annual production capacity for defence-related equipment. However, licensed firms would be required to submit their production returns to the government every six months. Further, as a measure of ease of doing business, two extensions of two years each in the initial validity of three years of the industrial licence would be allowed up to seven years. According to a World Bank report, India has slipped three positions to 134th spot in the latest ‘ease of doing business’ list, which is topped by Singapore.
9. WHO declares Nigeria Ebola-free.
10. Centre to host a four day World Ayurveda Congress in Delhi from 6-9 November 2014. The conference would be inaugurated by PM and attended by delegates and Health Ministers from 24 countries. The Centre will support institutions to carry out research, create a database and offer treatment based on established practices in Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Siddha and Unanni systems. An All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA) is coming up at Jasola in Delhi. It will admit the first batch of post-graduate students during the academic year 2015-16. A 200-bed hospital will also become functional in about six months. The North Eastern Institute of Folk Medicine (NEIFM), a national institute established under the Department of AYUSH, at Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh will also become operational by next year. The aims and objectives of the NEIFM are to survey and create a database of folk medicine practices and therapies prevalent in the region.

Credits : The Hindu, Google.