Daily News (In Short)-17-July-2015

#* PM Narendra Modi says only few politicians stay alive even after their deaths

Jammu: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived in Jammu, Friday, on a day-long visit, attended centenary celebrations of late Congress leader and former Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Girdhari Lal Dogra. 
Paying homage to the father-in-law of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Modi said there are only a few politicians who stay alive even after their deaths. 

The PM had earlier inaugurated a photo exhibition on the 100th birth anniversary of late Girdhari Lal Dogra. Modi is attending the main function inside the Zorawar Singh auditorium of Jammu University around which a thick blanket of security has been thrown.

State Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is also attending the event. Meanwhile, Arun Jaitley delivered the welcome address, and called Mr Dogra a man of high integrity.

Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Congress veteran Karan Singh also addressed the function, which began by a santoor recital by Shivkumar Sharma, an internationally renowned maestro who hails from Jammu.

All eyes are on this visit as the Prime Minister is expected to announce a Rs 70,000 crore development package for Jammu and Kashmir.

The special plane carrying the prime minister landed at the technical area of Jammu airport around 11 am.

Governor NN Vohra, CM Sayeed and senior Cabinet ministers received Modi at the airport.

Security has been beefed up in and around the state's winter capital, against the backdrop of several infiltration attempts from across the border. Major traffic restrictions have also been imposed across Jammu city.

All roads leading to the Jammu University, where the main function is taking place, have been sealed right from Thursday.

An official said traffic diversions have been put in place on almost all the main roads in Jammu city and those linking other districts of the Jammu region with the winter capital. These restrictions would be lifted after the Prime Minister leaves for New Delhi in the afternoon.

The function venue has been taken over by the Special Protection Group looking after the security of the Prime Minister. The SPG has carried out sensitisation of General Zorawar Singh auditorium where the PM is scheduled to address a gathering.

The venue has been sealed and the entire University has been turned into a fortress.

No vehicle is being allowed inside the Jammu University campus and everybody entering the campus is being properly frisked.

An intelligence official said: "In order to prevent any infiltration from across the international border and the LoC special attention is being given to areas where the border fencing has been damaged by flash floods recently."

A police officer said that to deal with any contingency multiple quick reaction teams (QRTs) have been deployed all along the route of the Prime Minister's visit.

The Pakistani side has been continuously resorting to ceasefire violations as the Army foiled an infiltration attempt in Poonch while another bid was foiled by the BSF in RS Pura sector.

#* Pak provocations are proof that Modi-Doval dual strategy is working

India-Pakistan ties are back to normal - that is, the usual state of semi-peace and semi-war. That this is being interpreted in political and media circles as a defeat for Narendra Modi's recalibration of Pakistan policy to resume talks shows how little people understand strategy.
The correct Indian strategy against Pakistan will always have to be multi-faceted - realistic dialogue, backed by tough action and aggressive retaliation on the ground, when required. Both peace talk and war-like actions are critical to strategy. We do not seem to understand that war and peace go together, not separately. The readiness to wage peace, when the time is opportune, and the readiness to wage war, when required, is what makes for successful strategy. One without the other will lead to failure.
Indian policymakers, unfortunately, have never understood the importance of the iron fist in a velvet glove. We have let strategy be decided by public emotion or political peace fantasies, leading to regular failure. This is why we have lurched from extraordinary optimism when peace talks appear to be heading somewhere (Shimla, Lahore, and last May), and undiluted anger when Pakistani perfidy becomes visible (this usually follows the first).
To those who think that India's strategy should only focus on Pakistan's perfidy and nothing else, the simple point is this: this response, too, is driven by anger. It is not effective. Those who say we should not engage Pakistan at all, should ask themselves this: if this policy is right for Pakistan, why don't they apply this logic to China, India's bigger enemy and more potent threat to our long-term territorial and strategic interests? But all analysts steadfastly, without any fear of contradiction, maintain that we should both engage China and be prepared to defend our borders with it.
The logic of engagement and tough ground postures on the border with Pakistan is stronger for another reason: we cannot have a Pakistan strategy that is separate from our China strategy. What we are up against is a Sino-Pak joint strategic gameplan where Pakistan will take on India from the west while China will start pressuring us from the east (Myanmar, Arunachal).
PM Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. FirstpostPM Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Firstpost
There is huge strategic convergence between Pakistan's and China's postures towards India right now because both are "greedy" powers that want the territorial status quo with India altered without any concessions on their part. Pakistan wants to keep PoK and wrest a bit of Muslim Kashmir, and China wants to keep China-occupied Kashmir and grab a piece of Arunachal, especially Tawang. These are problems left behind by our mistakes in 1948, and China's in 1962. In 1948, we failed to keep the war going in Kashmir long enough to recapture PoK (we possibly needed another month or two to finish the job), and China made the mistake of retreating from large parts of our north-east due to the onset of winter and its own doubts about its ability to hold on. It now wants to make up for that lapse, now that it has the military and economic capacity to do so. Tawang is key to final Chinese control of Tibet.
This convergence of Sino-Pak territorial interests makes it vital for us to work both prongs of dialogue and defence capability simultaneously. We need to carry this strategy forward till we are in a position to deter both our enemies with the development of economic and military strength.
The Chinese are trying to do exactly that with Pakistan. They are planning to build a $40 billion economic corridor to ensure that Pakistan is strengthened economically and strategically to counter India - and to slow down our economic and military renewal process. This is an economic-cum-military race we cannot afford to lose.
So, the Modi government is right to work on both axes - dialogue and determined military responses to cross-border provocations. That Pakistan is busy testing our determination so soon after Ufa should come as no surprise. It was to happen and has happened.
The difference between Pakistan and India is this: Pakistani strategy is decided by the army, which uses civilian governments to send out dovish messages even while deciding the stance on the border without civilian intervention. In India, civilian government is deciding strategy (no doubt, with military inputs) both on the diplomatic front and on the border. Till recently we had a half-baked non-strategy decided by hope or anger or despair with Pakistan.
Manmohan Singh had the right idea on engaging Pakistan, but the wrong one on not ever responding to border provocations. Under Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the ground response is being made robust - and as long as talk and military action below the threshold of war continue consistently, Pakistan will get the message. The only danger is this government too will behave emotionally to Pakistani provocations by suspending talks - as we did last year. We cannot afford to again be so inconsistent. Then we are back to square one - that is, a situation of zero strategy, where our enemies have the initiative and we are only reactive.
The fact that Pakistan has felt it necessary to demolish the Ufa goodwill so quickly is proof that the dual-strategy of dialogue-plus-military response is working. We need to stay the course.

#* Sikh group asks community to be cautious after US shooting

In the wake of the gunning down of four marines at military facilities in Tennessee by a Muslim youth with "unshorn beard", a Sikh rights group has asked Sikh-American community members to exercise caution as they become vulnerable to hate crimes following such incidents. 
The caution came after a 24-year-old gunman opened fire at two US military centres in Tennessee on Thursday, killing four marines in a rampage that officials said was being probed as an act of "domestic terrorism." The shooter was identified by the FBI as Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez.

The Sikh Coalition expressed condolences for the victims and their families following the shooting at the military facilities in Chattanooga.

"We also ask the Sikh American community to exercise caution and vigilance following the attack. The shooter was identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez and maintained an unshorn beard," it said.

The group said the Sikh community and other religious minorities are vulnerable to backlash, hate crimes and discrimination following such attacks.

It urged people to notify law enforcement of any threats or violence and reach out to the Sikh Coalition for assistance.

"The Sikh Coalition is in contact with federal authorities to bring attention to our community's concerns," it said. 

#* Net first, neutrality later: The real lesson from the DoT report

The battle, and that’s really what it was, between the pure net-neutrality camp and the telcos has been a bitter one involving a combination of moral principles – having either ‘walled gardens’ or ‘gatekeepers’ will destroy the internet, a creature of freedom – and practices followed in various countries like the US. But, as the DoT committee report on net neutrality says – in line with FE’s stance since the battle broke out – ‘the puritan view of Net Neutrality has practical limitations and it does not work in the real world’. India’s internet connectivity, unlike in countries like the US, is based almost entirely on what private mobile phone players have built, so if they are to be hit, so will the provision of telecom services to 40% of Indians who do not have even voice services and 88% who do not have data services. As the panel puts it, ‘the over-reliance on mobile as the media for internet connectivity has public policy implications in so far as the approach towards Net Neutrality and investment in infrastructure is concerned in comparison to other countries’.
Which is why the report is far from perfect, and it gets its arguments – both for and against net neutrality – mixed up.  If Airtel Zero-type products have to be judged – as being compatible with the principles of net neutrality – on a case by case basis, why isn’t the same privilege accorded to Internet.org which has been outlawed outright? And if paid prioritization is a strict no-no, why are ‘managed services’ which are highly prioritized okay? Because, as the panel points out, managed services are the lifeline of businesses and services like the IT industry – it’s curious that Nasscom should have supported pure net neutrality since its lifeline violates every principle of net neutrality. It is the same lack of uniform approach that informs other parts of the report. So, the report cites the investment made by the telcos – Rs 7.5 lakh crore so far, and another Rs 5 lakh crore over the next 5-6 years – to justify why pure net neutrality has to be eschewed. A pricing arbitrage of 12.5 times is cited in the case voice calls migrate to, say a WhatsApp voice – this goes up to 16 times in case SMS gets replaced by WhatsApp. This is a powerful argument for licensing WhatsApp/Viber type of VOIP services for local and national long distance calls, but why is the same logic not extended to WhatsApp messenger services or to international calls? Because, in the case of the latter two, the user base is already very high – in other words, there are customer benefits to be had and, in any case, the train has already left the station.
While that does make the report look odd – a final decision on it will have to wait till Trai submits its recommendations – the fact is that India both needs to benefit from the advantages the App economy is providing while, at the same time, ensuring the internet  gets built out; essentially, it is about balancing various interest groups. The unalloyed net-neutrality approach, it has to be acknowledged, would really have benefitted just a tiny fraction of Indians who have both broadband access as well as smart-phones. The DoT report would have been very different had, as in the US, the country’s broadband infrastructure been primarily a land-line one – spectrum shortage is a very important technical reason for why pure net-neutrality is a mirage – and if it had already been built out, and paid for by the government. Till those criterion are met, it is foolish to blindly ape US principles on net neutrality which, it must be kept in mind, are both evolving and are under legal challenge.

#* End of a $12 bn dream? After a decade of delays, Posco suspends Odisha project

South Korean steelmaker Posco has suspended the $12-billion project it had agreed to set up in Odisha a decade ago. There are also indications that the company may altogether scrap the project, following the delays in getting ore mining lease and land acquisition.
a new law that makes it costlier to source iron ore for the plant, a company spokesman said.
The 2005 project to set up a steel plant was billed as India's biggest foreign direct investment at that time but it has encountered a series of delays. The company waited about a decade to acquire land for the proposed 12-million-tonnes-a-year steel plant, owing to opposition from local tribal groups. The new mining bill that rendered sourcing of iron ore costlier for the project seems to the immediate reason for the suspension.
ReutersReuters
As per the mining law enacted in March, the company will now also have to buy a mining licence in an auction. Initially, the Odisha government had promised to help the company secure the licence for free.
The new law could raise costs for the company at a time when a global steel glut is depressing prices. "We will have to see how our costs will be, whether it will be viable," Posco's India spokesman, I G Lee, was quoted as saying in a Reuters report. "We will take a final call only after the auction details are out."
Asked whether the company could skip the auction and withdraw from the Odisha project, Lee said: "Yes."
However, a PTI report said Posco has put the project on hold in Odisha due to delays in various regulatory approvals.
“We are tentatively suspending the Odisha (India) project due to lack of any progress,” Posco Chairman and CEO Kwon Oh Joon was quoted as saying in the report.
“Business conditions at home and abroad have changed due to drop in global steel demand, growing deficit of subsidiaries, which have led us to come to a conclusion that we must step up our reform efforts,” he said at an investor event in Seoul on Thursday.
According to a Bloomberg report the company chief also said until "Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “offers better deals, we won’t resume and for now we will head to the west and do more downstream work,” he said, referring to a plant the company operates in the state of Maharashtra".
In the PTI report, an unnamed company company spokesperson, however, has denied that it was pulling out of the Odisha project.
“That is not the fact. Due to no progress in the project area, much of office space was lying vacant in Odisha. It was decided to renovate the office space to a smaller area,” the spokesperson has been quoted as saying.
Through the past two years, Posco and ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, have scrapped a number of other projects in India, citing difficulties in acquiring land and mines. Another withdrawal by Posco could dent Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' manufacturing push.
Odisha mines minister Prafulla Kumar Mallik, meanwhile, told Reuters that his government remained keen to help Posco but had not heard from the company. "We had requested the central government for a concession for Posco but the Centre wanted to go for an auction," he said. "Now, it is for Posco to decide if they want to participate in the auction."
Narendra Singh Tomar, Union steel and mines minister, has repeatedly ruled out making an exception for Posco.
Since the mining law was announced in March, Posco has cut a number of jobs in Odisha, given up real estate and not rebuilt temporary site offices that were burned down by people protesting against land acquisition by the company.
"We downsized in April because there was no work," Lee said.
Instead, the company is importing steel from South Korea for its expanding network of processing centres in India. It would raise its processing capacity by about a fifth to 680,000 tonnes through a new plant in Gujarat next year, Lee said.

#* 1 dead, 4 missing in cloudburst near Sonamarg in J-K

A teenage girl died and four others went missing on Thursday after a cloudbusrt struck near Sonamarg, placed en route to the Amarnath shrine, in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Army subsequently stepped in to help the state government cope up with nature's fury.
The cloudburst hit Kellan village near Gagangir, 76km from Srinagar at 6:30pm, after which the Srinagar-Leh highway was closed.

A police official identified the deceased as a girl named Iqra Nazir.

Two more residents of Kellan village were missing and two labourers from Gangangir could not be traced as the army mounted a relief operation to clear the national highway.

Four Spanish and two civil engineers were rescused by the army from the area immediately after the natural calamity.

Gagangir is the place before Sonamarg from where the prestigious Z-Morh tunnel across Zozila Pass is proposed to be constructed for an all-weather road between Srinagar and Kargil.

Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has pressed its men and machines in operation along with army engineers and Rashtriya Rifles jawans who had been posted for guarding the smooth conduct of Amarnath pilgrimage.

The army opened its transit camp at Sonamarg for civilians who had been evacauated from these areas besides operating 11 mobile teams to provide food and medical supply to the needy.

There were landslides in Sonamarg area and the army accommodated the civilians in transit camps.

On the Baltal-Amarnath yatra route, a bridge caved in at Sheshnag but there was no report of any casualty.

A bus with no one on board was also washed away in the rains.

#* Fearing political consequences, Cabinet puts caste data on hold

Keeping in view its political consequence, the finds of the caste census conducted by the central government between 2011 and 2014 will remain under wraps. As the demand for its release gets shriller ahead of the Bihar assembly elections, Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday constituted an expert group to be headed by NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya to further study and analyse the census. The cabinet also empowered the Social Justice and Tribal Welfare Ministries to service it and nominate other members of the group.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had questioned the Centre in a NITI Aayog meeting for releasing only partial data relating to the economic status of the rural India and not the caste data crucial in the matter of the future reservation to the OBCs (other backward classes). Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad organised a march in Patna early this week to protest at the government not releasing the caste data. Congress also demanded release of full data, as current reservation policy was still based on 1931 caste census.

An official spokesman, however, said no use releasing the raw data as it has thrown up as many as 46 lakh castes and sub-castes, with all sorts of synonyms, surnames, gotras and clan names. While constituting the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) to collect data on castes on May 19, 2011, then Cabinet had also decided to set up the group to analyse the data once available, he said.
Though the caste census was carried out by the Registrar General of India who conducts the population census every 10th year, the spokesman claimed the SECC was conducted by the respective State/UT Governments. The field survey on economic data has since been completed and the socio economic data relating to rural areas was released early this month by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). He described the work on urban data as "under progress."

The caste data would have revealed actual number of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) put at 54% of India's population, based on the 1931Census figures used by the Mandal Commission, resulting in granting of 27% reservation to them. However, a careful analysis of the released data suggests the OBC population making upto 66.48% out of the total 17.92 crore rural households. The SECC survey has put the overall population of Scheduled Castes at 18.46% and Scheduled Tribes 10.97%. The rest are clubbed under the head "other households" numbering 12.27 crore which works out to 68.52%. It puts 2.04% of these in the category of "no caste & tribe households. If deducted from the "other households," it gives a percentage of 66.48%. Overall the SC/ST households have been put at 21.53% of the rural population.

In 2010 when the UPA government decided to conduct the caste survey, it was fiercely opposed by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). But those in favour of such a census say it was necessary to find actual figures of castes as far as caste-based reservations are in vogue in the country. The 1931 census, used by the Mandal Commission, Upper Castes comprise 15% of total population. But had 66% representation in politics, 87% in services, 94% in trade and 92% of them as land owners. The rest 85% of population had just 13% share in services, 6% in trade and 8% were land owners.

#* SCIENTISTS FOUND FIRST SOLAR SYSTEM THAT MAY MIRROR OUR OWN

With help from European Southern Observatory’s 3.6 m Telescope in Chile, a team of astronomers identified what may look like our solar system’s dopplegänger. Unlike other solar systems spotted so far, this one has a planet that looks like, feels like, and moves just like our Jupiter.

According to astronomers, the newly found solar system dubbed HIP 11915 has a Sun-like at the center and several planets that orbit it. Additionally, the said Jupiter-like planet has a Jupiter-like volume, and moves in a Jupiter-like manner around its host star. The host star, the team said, has the approximate age of our star and has a very similar composition.

Currently, researchers hope that HIP 11915 may also have Earth-like habitable planets nearby its Sun-like star that may stand as potential candidates for hosting life. Until now, most past studies analyzed solar systems that were very different from our own in that their inner regions were populated by large, massive planets. Our solar system has tiny planets closer to the Sun, and more massive planets like gas giants farther out.

Researchers explained that larger planets that were close to their host stars were more visible to our instruments than smaller low-mass planets. Huge planets that are far from their stars are also hard to detect. That’s why many recently found exoplanets are giant planets that orbit closely their host stars.

Scientists explained that finding a solar system with a Jupiter-like planet in it orbiting is host star at the same distance Jupiter orbits our Sun is a major milestone in astronomy. Jupiter’s gravitational pull made possible the current configuration of our planetary system which is so favorable to hosting life.

Jorge Melendez, lead-author of the study and professor at the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, dubbed the newly found planetary system “Solar System 2.0.” He also said that his team was currently looking for an “Earth 2.0” within the system.

“We are thrilled to be part of this cutting-edge research, made possible by the observational facilities provided by ESO,”

Prof. Melendez added.

Megan Bedell, a researcher from the University of Chicago who was also involved in the discovery, deemed the discovery an “exciting sign” that there may be more planetary systems that mirror our won out there just waiting to be discovered. She also said that the finding was possible with help from HARPS, a state-of-the-art exoplanet-hunting instrument attached to the ESO’s 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile.

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