Daily News (In Short)-23-June-2015

#* New Kailash route boosts people-to-people ties

Under grey skies and a light drizzle, 43 Indians bound for the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage, crossed the India-China border at Nathu La, pioneering a pilgrim route, and adding another dimension to the Sino-Indian people-to-people contacts.“It is a great historic day when both people are expressing their utmost confidence in each other thanks to [China’s] President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” said Rajya Sabha member Tarun Vijay, in a conversation with The Hindu . Mr. Vijay is leading the pilgrims, who had queued up on the Indian side of the dizzying 4545-metre pass, before crossing over to the Chinese side. A traditional welcome awaited the travellers as they cleared immigration at the pass. All the pilgrims were honoured at the pass with Kha Da, a traditional Tibetan white scarf, before they headed for the green buses which would take them for the pilgrimage. The entire distance of 1,500 km would be covered over three days. A three-member team from the Indian embassy in Beijing is accompanying the pilgrims, along with other support and medical staff.

#* Everyone calm down: Indian cricket is not in crisis but Dhoni's captaincy needs a debate

Everybody needs to calm the **** down. Indian cricket is not in crisis.
The loss to Bangladesh hurts. Of course, it does. But if you seriously thought this day would never come, you don’t understand sport.India were minnows once too. Former India captain Nari Contractor told me India were christened the “Dull Dogs of Cricket” after losing 5-0 away to England in 1959. A dozen years later, India beat England 1-0 in a three Test series in England. The wheel is supposed to turn.Bangladesh is a side on the up and are playing with greater ferocity and self belief than ever before. They were on a high after sweeping Pakistan 3-0. They were playing at home. They outplayed and outthought India in every department. We should be giving them more credit.Yes, India should not have not lost so tamely but we should have a little sympathy for the India players too. This is the same team that made the semi-finals of the 2015 World Cup just three months ago. The same team that won seven games in a row before losing to eventual champions Australia. They haven’t become a bad team in 90 days.

#* 'If you try to exploit people, we can gouge out your eyes': Mamata's nephew Abhishek threatens

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek has warned that anybody harbouring “evil intentions” towards West Bengal will have their eyes gouged out and their hands chopped off. Abhishek, who was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time last year, made the remarks while addressing a meeting of Trinamool Congress workers and leaders at Basirhat in North 24 Paragana district on Monday.“TMC MPs (have) showed we won’t spare anyone who tries to exploit the people of West Bengal. Until Mamata Banerjee is here, if anyone looks at West Bengal with evil intentions...we can gouge out their eyes and throw them on the streets. If hands are raised against us, we can chop off the hands as well,” Abhishek said.“But we have to remember that the common man has the last word. If you have the power, come to the elections and try us out," he added.
Several top leaders of the part were present at the gathering. The 27-year-old Abhishek is chief of the party's youth wing.

#* RAWattacksAfghanParliament: Why Pakistani Twitterati blamed India for Taliban attack

How brazen can brazen be? Consider the voices emanating from Pakistan over Monday’s terror attack on the Afghan parliament and this question will ring out loudly.Many Pakistanis seriously believe that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) choreographed the terror attack on Afghan parliament. #RAWattacksAfghanParliament has been the top trending subject on Pakistan Twitter since news of attack on Afghan parliament broke out.An Afghan security personnel runs at the site of an attack in front of Parliament building in Kabul . AFPAn Afghan security personnel runs at the site of an attack in front of Parliament building in Kabul . AFP The top trending subject highlights Indian defence minister Manohar Parikkar’s reported remark that "You have to neutralise terrorist through terrorist only". It also quotes him as saying that the Modi government is different from the previous one because it has given the Indian Army a free hand to tackle terrorists through intelligence.
An objective and dispassionate account of the attack can be read in the London Telegraph here Needless to say, such campaigns on social media are an integral feature of the psyops of Pakistani intelligence and security establishments. Consider some of the tweets soaked in malicious Pakistani propaganda.

#* A clear winner: Tax benefits for e-payments will go a long way in curbing illegal cash

The government has put out draft proposals on Monday to encourage electronic transactions in the country.This, going by the draft, will be done through incentivising both the consumer, who makes the payments and merchant, who accept it, by tax benefits if a certain portion of their total transactions do not involve exchange of cash.According to the draft paper, merchants will get tax benefits if they accept at least, say, 50 percent value of the transactions is through electronic means. Alternatively, 1-2 percent reduction in value added tax could be considered on all electronic transactions by the merchants, the paper says.
AFPAFPConsumers will get income tax rebates if they pay a certain proportion of their bill electronically. The draft paper also recommends re-examining the authentication requirements for different classes of transactions based on the risk profile and safety requirements.Besides, even utility service providers can consider offering discounts to the customer for small ticket payments made electronically, the paper proposes. This is already done by some companies such as BSNL, which offers 1 percent discount on e-payments. Again, this can encourage large number of consumers to begin transacting using plastic money.

#* BJP rains on its own Yoga Day: Ram Madhav assumes double-delete asana on Hamid Ansari

Even as the newspapers today are plastered with photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his yoga mat, the government's biggest PR success is in danger of being derailed.@SardesaiRajdeep tweets "So VP Ansari was not invited to Yoga Day function. Will someone apologise to him?"But love in a time of NDA, it seems, means never having to say Ansari.
The government created not one but two Guinness Book-certified world records on International Yoga Day, but journalist @ShivAroor tweeted “@RamMadhavBJP did a double delete-aasan today.”The “double-delete” in question: BJP leader Ram Madhav during International Yoga Day at Rajpath. PTIBJP leader Ram Madhav during International Yoga Day at Rajpath. PTI
BJP general secretary Ram Madhav first tweeted whether the tax-payer funded Rajya Sabha TV decided to “blackout” Yoga Day. And whether Vice President Hamid Ansari gave the jamboree a miss, even though the President showed up for it. Madhav’s second tweet read “Am informed dat d VP was unwell. I withdrew my tweet. My apologies because d institution of VP deserves respect.”Then he deleted both tweets.That sounds like a small wrinkle in a massive show of soft power which Guinness monitor Victoria Tweedy called “the best managed such event I have seen and I have seen a lot of such events, I assure you.” It would be easy to say that Narendra Modi’s critics just latched on to the #Ansari hashtag because they needed to find something to pick on.

#* Europe must leave Google alone and create its own tech giants

A sinister force, collecting data on everyone’s lives. A monopolist that crushes the competition. A greedy multi-national that shifts profits from place to place to avoid paying its taxes. It is not hard to make a populist case against Google – and many of the American tech giants. When the European Union, as is expected, starts imposing huge fines on the search engine, it is likely to be cheered by the usual anti-business crowd dominating the continent’s political culture. However, Europe’s regulators are aiming at the wrong target. Google gets some things wrong, just like every big company, and is as self-interested as anyone. But there are three reasons why the regulators in Brussels should try attacking someone else: Google promotes a lot more competition than it stifles; the company is pouring billions into innovation; and technology monopolies are about as stable as a three-year-old riding a bike. Europe would be better off building up its own tech companies rather than trying to knock down American ones.A good measure of how well you are doing as a tech corporation is how much the EU dislikes you. When Microsoft was the biggest player, the EU spent the best part of a decade trying to get it to unbundle its web browser from its operating system, and it ended up being fined €2.2bn. When Intel was the only serious player in microchips, it was investigated for market dominance and ended up paying $1.2bn in penalties. Google is the target of the latest investigation. The preliminary findings are still secret – the EU doesn’t really believe in openness – but the regulators in Brussels have already indicated they will punish the company, and at a level seen as a meaningful deterrent. Given Google’s huge size and profitability, that is likely to mean a 10-figure number, potentially with something bigger than a one at the front of it. Who knows, it might even bring in enough to bail out Greece until Christmas.

#* Rescuing Raje from the abyss: Isolated CM may have been saved not by Modi but a cautious RSS

Vasundhara Raje may have brought the BJP to power in Rajasthan but she's not exactly the favourite of the party leadership in Delhi, a factor that was largely seen as as the reason why none of the big names of the party came out in her defence when allegations linking her son to former IPL chief Lalit Modi made headlines.After she didn't turn up at an event in Anandpur where party chief Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh were present (supposedly due to back problems), the Rajasthan Chief Minister finally resurfaced at a Yoga Day event. And on Monday, she was thrown her first real life line by the party leadership in the form of Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari.Raje during a Yoga Day event. PTI imageRaje during a Yoga Day event. PTI image
"The allegations against Vasundhara Raje are baseless.... Vasundhara ji legally, logically, ethically is completely correct. There is no fault of hers anywhere," Gadkari told reporters"These accusations have no substance. Doing this kind of politics is not right," he said."The BJP, of the Centre, the state and the government is standing behind Vasundhara fully," Gadkari said.
And then she got the ultimate symbol of reassurance: her case was equated to that of Sushma Swaraj.

#* Delhi govt asks doctors to end strike, resume work

People with pacemaker should keep a safe distance from smartphones to avoid unwanted painful shocks or pauses in function, a new study has warned.“Pacemakers can mistakenly detect electromagnetic interference (EMI) from smartphones as a cardiac signal, causing them to briefly stop working,” said Dr Carsten Lennerz, first author and cardiology resident in the Clinic for Heart and Circulatory Diseases, from the German Heart Centre.“This leads to a pause in the cardiac rhythm of the pacing dependent patient and may result in syncope. For implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) the external signal mimics a life threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmia, leading the ICD to deliver a painful shock,” said Lennerz.Device manufacturers and regulatory institutions including the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommend a safety distance of 15 to 20 cm between pacemakers or ICDs and mobile phones. The advice is based on studies performed primarily in pacemakers 10 years ago.

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